D3football.com » D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

The crew is all in place for the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, and Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan are joined by Frank Rossi and Greg Thomas. (Adam Turer was in a big old jet airliner.) We'll get you up to date on the latest going on with each team: Who's healthy? Who's out? What will they do to replace them? Plus, we'll tell you why neither team has been able to practice in this beautiful Woodforest Bank Stadium. And we'll chat with Mary Hardin-Baylor receiver T.J. Josey and Mount Union linebacker Danny Robinson, plus break down each side of the ball for both teams. The guys talk about it all in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Same faces in a new place, as Mount Union and Mary Hardin-Baylor will head down to Shenandoah, Texas, this week. Keith was in Alliance and Pat was in Belton to cover the semifinals and give their take on their game, plus everything surrounding the two semifinal games. Plus, we brought in a guest to help us talk more X's and O's and break down each side of the ball for Mount Union and Mary Hardin-Baylor. And Pat and Keith also take a look at the seasons Johns Hopkins and UW-Whitewater had, and see where they now fit in the national picture after semifinal defeats. Pat and Keith talk about it all in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Staggered starts! One game at noon, the other at 3:30! Replay! Video review! That's what the semifinals are all about. In both of them, we have teams which have met before. In the case of Mary Hardin-Baylor and UW-Whitewater, they've met five times, with the Warhawks winning them all, dadgummit! Keith's keys to the game, Pat's picks to click, and someone from Mount Union who wasn't prohibited from talking to us highlight Around the Nation Podcast 230. (It's a good conversation with Joe Mertens, a senior at UMU who does play-by-play on WRMU and has known these players for four years.) Pat and Keith talk about it all in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Whether pounding the rock, running a non-wildcat, throwing deep down the field or just being what we thought you were, there's a storyline for each game on Saturday. Jackson Erdmann finishes the game with a separated shoulder and Mary Hardin-Baylor finishes with a pair of interceptions and a three-point win. And, as T.J. Josey says, it's a game the Cru sorely needed. UW-Whitewater's rock-pounding and defense has looked comfortingly reminiscent of the Warhawks of old. Like 2011 old or so. Meanwhile, Mount Union put Josh Petruccelli behind center and Muhlenberg couldn't do anything about it. And Johns Hopkins looked fantastic on offense -- enough so that Keith McMillan was ready to say something about the Blue Jays' trip to Alliance. Pat and Keith talk about it all, first the high points, then all the points, in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

We've got one national semifi... no, sorry, four national quarterfinals, and we think three of them are shaping up to be pretty good, as RPI can certainly hold its own against Johns Hopkins, UW-Whitewater and Bethel should be a clash of similar teams and UMHB and St. John's will give each other what should be the best test either of them has faced this year. Of the eight head coaches on the sideline this upcoming Saturday, two of them have particularly challenging jobs ahead, preparing for those toughest tests, and since we've already talked to Pete Fredenburg this season on the podcast, we sit down with Gary Fasching, head coach of St. John's. He talks us through what a team has to do to prepare for not only a top-notch opponent, but a long trip, on Podcast 228. Pat, Keith, Adam Turer and Frank Rossi preview the four games, then Pat and Keith discuss them as well as we get you one complete hour of pregame coverage in your Game Day edition of the national quarterfinals on the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Well, how about that, with RPI getting a big upset win, and Johns Hopkins getting a large win to send Frostburg to Division II on, and St. Norbert giving a valiant effort and Mount Union looking all Machine-like? No, we know -- many of you are not happy with the unbalanced way the bracket was laid out, and some of you are talking about reseeding the bracket. There are definitely positives and negatives to this -- the NAIA does it, and college baseball does it as well, so Pat and Keith talk a little bit about what that looks like, and how it could work, if Division III were to ever give it a shot in football. In addition, Pat and Keith each give their individual take on all eight second-round games. Who did they want to see do the same, but better? Who was playing at ludicrous speed? What does Keith have to say to those who don't watch Mount Union until the semifinals? Plus, what did Tyler Messinger have to deliver about his great rushing afternoon for Johns Hopkins? The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Sixteen teams play eight games over a course of four hours on Saturday, in the second round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. And we should be in line for some great games, now that we've gotten through the first round. Exactly how good? Pat ranked all eight games from worst to best, with one particular matchup getting particularly high marks. In addition, we talked with Rod Sandberg, coach of Whitworth, whose team hasn't been to the second round in a while, about the challenges the Pirates face not only with their St. John's opponent as well as traveling halfway across the country. We also chat with Johns Hopkins coach Jim Margraff about his team's success in bouncing back from an early-season loss and heading to Frostburg State this weekend. Pat, Keith, Adam Turer and Frank Rossi preview all eight games and get you ready for our noon kickoffs in our Game Day podcast for Week 13. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Keith McMillan pleaded for a first round of the playoffs that didn't stink. And he got it, if nothing else, because his alma mater, Randolph-Macon, upset John Carroll. Now, your mileage may have varied. With a margin of victory of nearly 34 points on average, these were not great games. With a near quadruple monkey stomp and several other games that looked like the usual top seed vs. No. 8 seed contests, there weren't many worth watching for a neutral Division III fan. Unless, of course, you hooked into the Randolph-Macon win, or St. Norbert's upset of Trine, or Muhlenberg's dramatic finish at Delaware Valley. Hear highlights from Saturday, postgame commentary from teams advancing to the Round of 16, and more in the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

If the second round of the playoffs is your big turkey dinner with all the trimmings and every side you could want, then the first round is like that tray of vegetables and dip that you end up nibbling on while you wait. You can smell that turkey, the stuffings, the greens, the bread, but you have to wait. We all have to wait. And now, not only do we have to wait, but we're hungry. Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan get you all lined up for Saturday's first-round games, with the usual previews from Adam Turer and Frank Rossi. Plus, we hear one Division III quarterback remind us exactly why it's so important to be able to run the ball in the playoffs, and we'll talk with Mark Baltz, the Division III coordinator of officials. He tells us how officiating crews get selected and what type of evaluations they go through in the playoffs, not to mention how far they can travel. Plus, there's a well-known former NFL player who is now a Division III football head coach, and Andrew DiDonato, the head coach at Grove City, has some advice for Earlham and all those who are trying to pick a football program up off the mat. That and more in the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

That line up top is what the national committee chair told us when talking about new restrictions on travel for the NCAA playoffs, as the NCAA clawed back one of the first-round flights the committee had previously been given to play with. What else did Jim Catanzaro say? We asked about seeding Mount Union and John Carroll to meet up in the quarterfinals, about whether St. John's deserved a No. 1 seed, and about who were the last teams left on the board when the final at-large team was selected. You might be surprised to hear what the committee thought about Linfield's loss to an NAIA team, and what the committee chair's take was when the North Region rankings looked unlike the other three regions. Plus our intrepid podcast hosts, Pat Coleman and guest host Frank Rossi, go through what the committee got right and wrong, the best matchups, toughest roads, and still have time for game balls, hidden highlights (and lowlights) and the interesting stats from Week 11. That and more in the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Often this time of year we do a projected Division III NCAA Tournament field, but this year we're so busy making podcasts that we didn't do one. Instead, Pat and Keith are doing both at the same time: talking through the process of selecting at-large teams right on this podcast.  This is a projected playoff field if the season ended today. All six teams that we got to choose can affect their playoff resume on the field on Saturday, and for that matter, so can all of the teams with automatic bids. Even those who are already in the field could impact their seeding with a loss or by winning while others around them lose. And those are just the normal scenarios. We could see crazy scenarios, such as, say, last year when Carnegie Mellon committed a penalty and had a punt blocked to kill its potential upset of Case Western Reserve. What are the unlikely, but awesome scenarios that could occur? Greg Thomas threw a few out there and we discuss those as well.  Plus Kevin Bullis tells us how his UW-Whitewater team is looking entering Week 11, Keith asks Pat what could go wrong with this projection and Pat asks Keith to figure out what the Mayors Cup is. That and more in the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

The number of teams in the tournament now is up to 13 teams which have clinched automatic bid to the 2018 Division III playoffs. But even though some parts of the Division III playoff picture got clearer, others got cloudier -- and that's even assuming you could see the picture on Saturday. It wouldn't be a stretch to say some of us were shut out of some of the big games. We went mailbag this week and let your Twitter questions guide us through the first half of the podcast, talking about which regions seemed most likely to get at-large bids, whether Brockport would get a No. 1 seed or two teams from the West Region might get the nod. Would Baldwin Wallace get an at-large bid with a loss on Saturday? With a win? Plus game balls, the week's interesting stats and more in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

This is where we get to crunch time. We could hand out as many as 15 of the 23 remaining automatic bids to the NCAA Division III playoffs on Saturday, and so you can follow along, we go through each of the remaining conferences, rather exhaustively, to tell you who can clinch on Saturday, what they need to do, and who might be waiting until Week 11. All 122 games on Saturday will take place in an 11-hour period, meaning results are going to be coming in fast and furious. Before the games start, set aside some time to get Pat and Keith's take on what will happen in Week 10. Plus, Adam Turer joins in to talk about his story about Wabash in Thursday's ATN column and what he takes away from the experience. And our guest is Hanover coach Matt Theobald, who is hoping his team can pull off two big wins and garner itself a share of the HCAC title. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

The first set of regional rankings came out on Wednesday, and our team went through all four regions and looked to see what made sense and what was out of place. You see, the first regional rankings don't take into account results against regionally ranked opponents, because that relies on a previous regional ranking and ... there isn't a previous ranking yet, just the current one. Does that mean the next ranking will look a lot different? Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas, our chief bracketology expert, go through each region and tackle the big questions and where things might change. He's our guest host for this special edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast. In addition, the placement of Hardin-Simmons and Centre brought out a lot of questions, as did the placement of Cortland and Salisbury. We explore those and others in this podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.

Yep, three teams have clinched their automatic bids to the NCAA Division III football playoffs, with 23 more to go, plus five true at-large bids. And it's those at-large bids which will receive a ton of attention ... first off, because they're the most difficult decisions the committee will make, and secondly, because those teams are going to be candidates to get a first-round home game, and perhaps win a game or two. Who played their way into consideration? Who played their way out? Which teams are being set up for multiple home games in the tournament, should they win out? Plus, how did Pat and Keith deal with this weekend's losses on their Top 25 ballots? Who had amazing games that were just a bit under the radar? Which conference has games that just aren't competitive at all? And everyone's favorite backup quarterback wasn't a backup this week. Plus game balls, the week's interesting stats and more in the latest D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. The D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast is a regular conversation between Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan and guests covering the wide range of Division III football.