D3football.com » D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast

We welcome Jace Rindahl of UW-Whitewater, the new 36-year-old head coach who was playing linebacker for the Warhawks so recently that he was the 2008 D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. The Warhawks men's basketball team made a surprising run to the D-III Final Four. We also welcome John Carroll coach Jeff Behrman. (Mount Union's men's basketball team made it to the Final Four, but coach Geoff Dartt again declined an inter...

This upcoming 2023 football season will have just four at-large bids. It's getting harder and harder to make the NCAA Division III football playoffs as an at-large team, there's no denying it. Before it gets even worse, this is the time that Division III administrators need to recognize the issues and act on them. Is the answer to expand the playoffs beyond 32 teams, into a sixth week? Where does this week come from? Or is the answ...

And just like that, the 2022 season, arguably the greatest season in NCAA Division III football history, is in the books. But before the podcast goes into offseason mode and becomes a monthly show, we do what we always do at the end of the season -- discuss, debate if necessary, and determine the D3football.com final awards: D3football.com Offensive Player of the Year, D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year, D3football.com Coa...

The Stagg Bowl comes around holiday time and really is the most wonderful time of the year. It's the time when you can't duck questions any longer, and we talk with both head coaches and offensive and defensive players on both teams in this Stagg Bowl preview podcast.

On the air with us: Mount Union head coach Geoff Dartt, wide receiver Wayne Ruby and linebacker Mason McMillen; plus North Central coach Brad Spencer, running back Et...

It's No. 1 vs. No. 2, just as everyone expected, as North Central and Mount Union advance to play in Stagg Bowl XLIX in Annapolis. While this is a rematch of teams that played in the second round in 2019, then in the semifinals the next season (2021), this particular rematch turns the tables.

2022 Division III football playoff bracket

It's unusual not just in that it's the first one being played outside of Alliance, Ohio. It's also...

No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 12 are the four teams left in contention for a trip to Annapolis, Maryland, for Stagg Bowl XLIX. Mary Hardin-Baylor took down Bethel with a fourth-quarter surge, while Mount Union eased past Delaware Valley, North Central trounced Ithaca and Wartburg did the same to Aurora.

The key story at Wartburg? Just the mere fact that Nile McLaughlin was in the lineup at quarterback for the Knights. For Mary Hardin...

The entertainment in the 2022 Division III playoff bracket continued into the second round, and then reverberated throughout social media on Sunday afternoon and evening. That’s when the Division III football world came to realize that Delaware Valley was given the nod to host the playoff game against Mount Union, then came to us  for […]

The post ATN Podcast 322: Saturday drama on-field, Sunday drama off of it appeared first...

We asked out loud how the Division III football playoff bracket could possibly live up to the 11-week regular season.

Are you not entertained?

Sure, every first round has its share of blowouts, and this one had four shutouts. But it also had ... dare we say, the biggest first-round upset since the Division III football playoffs expanded to five rounds? 

2022 Division III football playoff bracket

Yes. We dare say that. Aurora coach ...

The 2022 Division III playoff bracket is out, and we ask our usual questions: What did the committee get right here? What did they get wrong? Who got the toughest road to the Stagg Bowl? What are the best first round games, and what are the interesting things in this bracket that people might have missed? 

But of course, we can't have any of that conversation before we talk about the drama of the closing seconds that somehow got Mo...

Sure, that might not be the sexiest title for a podcast episode, but it’s important. We got a good 45 minutes with the Division III football national committee chair, subjected him to our questions, and your questions. The ones submitted by readers are the ones in the graphic on this page, but we also asked what the point is of an alphabetical ranking, and does it seem right that 90.5% of the season passes before we get an actual r...

Another week of thrilling games leaves us able to practically smell the NCAA Division III football playoffs. But while `nearly half of the 27 automatic bids to the 32-team playoff field have already been claimed, the at-large playoff picture seems clear as mud. Aside from UW-La Crosse, which should be as much of a shoo-in as there can be for an at-large bid if they win next week, it's hard to make a definite case for any particular...

This post was re-uploaded on Nov. 3 after a site crash. It was originally posted Oct. 31.

Susquehanna stops the two-point conversion for the final time with 49 seconds remaining and the River Hawks defeat Johns Hopkins to really take control of the Centennial Conference standings for the first time. We talk about that game and coach Tom Perkovich stops by for a Fast Five minutes as we talk about that game, its importance, and its f...

Some things we can't seem to avoid talking about every week this season:

The Cortaca Jug game in Yankee Stadium
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville

This week, Platteville made headlines again, and for the second week in a row, extremely positive headlines as the Pioneers shook up the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 17-14 win against then-No. 3 UW-Whitewater. What in the name of Dan Arnold is going on with t...

We talk about all six regions, multiple times, in each D3football.com Around the Nation podcast, For example, this week, who's lookin' alive in Region 5?

Ripon is lookin' quite alive as the Redhawks remain unbeaten here in what coach Ron Ernst has announced is his final season. The team is tied for first in the Midwest Conference after knocking off Lake Forest on Saturday, and Ernst joins us for a Fast 5 minutes to talk about the t...

Spoiled. We are just spoiled this season by the great games in Division III football. There's not much more we can say. The span on Saturday afternoon in which all three games pictured here: Birmingham-Southern at Trinity (Texas), UW-Oshkosh at UW-River Falls and Wartburg at Central each came down to its finish is something that should be remembered long into the cold and chill of the offseason.

We are far from that, though, just a...

Well, folks, Keith McMillan has had enough, and after 30 or so podcasts on the sidelines, with Greg Thomas co-hosting, he’s back and ready to throw down. Ready to throw down about the Top 25 poll, that is. Keith couldn’t understand why anyone would be voting for Mount Union No. 1 considering all the high-quality […]

The post ATN Podcast 313: All about the No. 1 votes appeared first on D3football.com » D3football.com Arou...

Unexpected realizations that if Bethel had had its No. 1 quarterback healthy and won in Week 2 at UW-Platteville, perhaps we'd be in a position where someone might have given Bethel ... a No. 1 vote? Stranger things have happened. Or, well, things that are similarly strange have happened already.

We had two big games to key on from Saturday, and one was a barnburner. The other ... well, it was just a team getting lit up. But we hea...

In a week where some of us didn't really expect any upsets, instead we got a couple of big ones, where Loras got two shots at a last-second field goal to beat Central, and Case throttled Washington & Jefferson's offense. Plus, two of this week's No. 1 votes went to unlikely places. Why did Hardin-Simmons get a No. 1 vote, and why does it not really actually matter?

We talk with Albion coach Dustin Beurer after his team won han...

Most years it seems as though our first couple of weeks of the season are filled with top teams pasting teams that are clearly overmatched. And while we've still had some of that in 2022, this alternate reality/Bizarro world of D-III has been pretty fun. Both UW-Whitewater/Mary Hardin-Baylor and Trinity (Texas)/Wheaton (Ill.) lived up to their billing, and made for a great fan experience.

Now, hey, why can't people watch the archiv...