ATN Podcast 397: Now you see it, now you don’t

Posted on November 24, 2025 by Pat Coleman

We thought this year we were going to get to work on staggering playoff game times, so we don’t have eight of the best games going on at the same time. We thought we were going to get to work on getting video review for officials at games before the semifinals. OK, that at least is happening in some places, but otherwise, we found out on Saturday we need to go back one year and work on 2024’s thing some more — having all of these games on ESPN+.

When you look back at this podcast years later, yes, this is the one where the first-round playoff streaming was a borderline disaster. Essentially half of our opening eight games had some streaming issue, one of them so severe that it never got on the air at all.

That’s bad. That’s a problem. The NCAA folks will talk to ESPN about it this week, but it’s also the NCAA that puts all of this work on overworked sports information professionals in a division where we already expanded the basketball season so that these folks are working winter sports and football and any other fall sport that might still be in its playoffs at the same time.

But the action on the field was really good, so we’ll spend the last 85% or so of the podcast talking about that. About the big plays that fueled Susquehanna’s win. The way the final drive of the Chapman-Whitworth game ended. How Muhlenberg came away with the win against Union. What Springfield did to keep Cortland in check. How LaGrange overcame some difficulties to advance.

It’s also the end of the season for eight more teams, and the end of careers for many. At Grove City, this was a season with challenges, and this team got through them to rally and get to the playoffs, and rally when down big in the second half. Patch Flanagan’s career at Union ends on a high note personally, even if he could not will his team into the second round. Crown grew up a lot this season and achieved things never done before in the program’s history. We talk about all that and more.

And our guest is Casey Shine, head coach of Chapman. He’ll tell us what was going through his head when his quarterback took a taunting penalty that left the door open for a Whitworth comeback.

We also hand out game balls, bring you through the stats of the week, we look at a bunch of second round games, and we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Postgame news conferences:

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Susquehanna athletics photo by Michael Lipscomb; photo by Chapman athletics

ATN Podcast 395: In the Captains’ seat

Posted on November 10, 2025 by Pat Coleman

The Captains of Christopher Newport are back in the playoffs for the second time in three years and for the 12th time in their relatively short history. And they got there by knocking the Sea Gulls of Salisbury off their perch on Saturday night, in a pretty epic battle under the lights.

In one week, Eastern went from the driver’s seat in the Middle Atlantic Conference to booking a ticket to the big dance for the first time — and this is a program that three years ago, had never even been on this metaphorical bus. We bring Eastern coach Billy Crocker for another round on the Fast Five machine, after he last joined us for Podcast 333.

And who knows what seat at the table Hudson Fulcher-Melendy will be relegated to this Thanksgiving when the family gathers for the feast. Hudson is the Amherst kicker, who was 4-for-4 on field goals in Amherst’s 14-13 win, and whose sisters Dylan and Madison played women’s volleyball and soccer, respectively, for Williams, and whose mom, Lisa Melendy, has been athletic director at Williams for the past 15 years!

More coverage and interviews from Amherst-Williams on our YouTube channel

Honestly, if someone is telling you F&M and Coe have no chance to make this field if they lose … they may be working with faulty assumptions. To do that accurately, you have to project the results of all of the remaining Week 11 games, and projecting the team with the higher NPI as the winner across a hundred games is going to get you some data that doesn’t line up. F&M and Coe absolutely have a chance, and in Analytics 301, Logan Hansen will tell you who else has a chance with two losses.

Plus we hand out game balls, bring you through the crazy stats of the week, highlight the key goings-on in Region 1 through Region 6, get you games to look forward to next week. And we take your questions in the mailbag segment. That and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Hit play, or subscribe to get this podcast on your mobile device.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Here’s how to find us on some of the major podcasting apps:

Apple Podcasts: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
iHeart Radio: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast
Spotify: D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

Theme music: Power 2 by DJmentos.
Photos by Kris DuFour, Amherst athletics; Hanover athletics; Photo for Christopher Newport athletics by Sydney Smith

ATN Podcast 392: Consistency comes through

Posted on October 27, 2025 by Pat Coleman

We’re getting ever closer to Selection Sunday, and closer to automatic bids being clinched. We’ve already discussed how few unbeaten teams there are this time of year compared to previous years, and of course, we had one more go down on Saturday when Wartburg defeated Central.

Wartburg has been really consistent at the top of the American Rivers Conference, or near the top of it. Head coach Chris Winter isn’t the only head coach who has been part of this run, but the Knights coaching staff has been really consistent over the years. We talk with Winter about how the program achieves this consistency while turning players over year after year, we hear about the key offensive guys who are healthy and the defensive starter who could be on the Owen Grover upward trajectory.

Plus, we look at the Whitewater offense, with its moments of brilliance, and try to decipher what they need. We take four mailbag questions, everything from deciphering which conferences have benefited the most from the NPI system and playoff expansion, to which play in the North Central game was most impressive, to whether there should be a cutoff for record for at-large teams, to which game — of a limited set of choices — we would choose to go see in Week 11 if we have to book travel now.

(Spoilers: The travel was already booked, and we’ll tell you where Patrick Coleman will be in Week 11.)

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, one for one of the craziest endings to a game you could describe from Saturday’s games. We talk about how long it’s been since New England College had won a game before the Pilgrims beat Maine Maritime on Saturday — it’s longer than you think! We dive into the double SCIAC double overtime games, and the controversial ending between DePauw and Denison, and whether River Falls needs Kaleb Blaha on Saturday (it wouldn’t hurt!).

We spotlight the unusual stats of the week, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have the best chance of getting a top-eight seed and protected home field in the playoffs, we go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.