Two top 10 teams square off, and one team does something it hasn't done in a quarter century. Yep, that's a big deal. Heck, UW-River Falls hadn't beaten UW-Whitewater that handily since the 1980s. We have talked about Kaleb Blaha fairly often on this podcast in the last few years, and that's because he's darn good, and was a big-game player on Saturday.

More postgame interviews from UWRF's win vs. UWW (YouTube)

Three of the 27 automatic bids to the playoffs have already been handed out, and we give our assessment of how Wartburg, Concordia Wisconsin and Hanover will likely fare, what type of seeding they might end up with, and the like. Plus there are several head-to-head games for conference automatic bids this weekend, and we'll talk through those as well.

Of course, you'll never guess whether home teams or road teams won the big games in the WIAC. OK, maybe you'll guess. 

Plus, one time drove perfectly all day in Division III, and another drove perfectly long, more than 12 minutes?! Patrick and Greg hand out game balls. We take four mailbag questions, and make good use of Logan Hansen's D-III NPI Simulator in the process.

Logan Hansen talks about which teams still have a chance of getting an at-large bid and at least one of them may surprise you! We go around each region for even more stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

We have just three weeks left in the regular season, with Selection Sunday and the bracket announcement coming on Nov. 16. With the NCAA Division III football national committee no longer responsible for selecting teams to play in the playoffs, what does the committee chair do?

It's a little more than just handing the trophy off to the team that wins the Stagg Bowl, like John Snell is doing in this photo, but sure, it's a little less than it used to be. Instead, the role is different, and includes more about bracketing, more about game management, more about how to enhance the entire playoff experience than the general fan ever probably knew.

John Snell, the associate athletic directory at Baldwin Wallace University and the chair of the Division III football committee, sits down with us to answer our questions. Some of these questions are:

Will there be more replay review in this year's playoffs?
How high in the NPI does a team have to be to avoid playing in the first round? (Just being in the top 24 doesn't guarantee it.)
Will the committee shuffle the seeds to make sure that Mount Union and North Central are on opposite sides of the bracket?
Are we getting the right teams in the field under the NPI system?
Since Baldwin Wallace might make the playoffs, does the chair have to recuse himself from conference calls?
Why are we still bothering with regional rankings?
Is the committee doing any mock bracketing to prepare for Selection Sunday?

All of these are asked! Many of them are answered, plus you get the reaction from Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas. Find out more by listening to the podcast.

We also take your mailbag questions -- yes, including the one involving alien space laser beams from Mars -- and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

CNU mileage calculator video: https://youtu.be/Dgku_HEq0DU

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.

Montie Quinn should have been a household name to you already. He was a D3football.com All-America running back last season, rushing for 1,600 yards. He'd had two 200-yard rushing games already this season, he's now over 5,000 rushing yards for his career ... if you only found out about him on Saturday, or Sunday, that's a bummer. When he exploded for 522 yards in a win vs. Nichols on Saturday, you should have said, yeah, actually, I can see that happening.

Quinn had an amazing Saturday, and probably spent a good amount of Sunday doing interviews. You can find his story in The Athletic, and on area TV stations, with more to come. And he chatted with us as well, just like he did this past summer. Quinn is our Fast Five guest -- sorry, our Fast 522, plus he gets a game ball, of course, and much more.

Podcast 381: Montie Quinn joined us in June to talk about his goals for 2025, his preparation and more

If not for that, we'd be talking even more about the incredible game that took place between John Carroll and DePauw on Saturday, one that ended in a fashion that people will talk about for years, with the sunlight all but gone and with a touchdown catch with 14.4 seconds left. We talk about the learnings for the Blue Streaks and the Tigers and yes, DePauw still has plenty of weapons.

UW-Platteville and UW-La Crosse had to dig into their two-deeps to find starting running backs this week, and Platteville came out on top. Hear from freshman running back Blake Bangston, who ran for 105 yards and a touchdown, as well as sophomore quarterback Nate Uselding and coach Ryan Munz about the win.

Also, we'll share the story of the person who thought he held the Division III single-game rushing record some years ago, only to have it taken away.

Plus, Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, so get your Roman Funk on, 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.

These are the things that make up Division III football this time of year. W's and L's as in wins and losses, X's and O's as in how plays and schemes are drawn up on paper, and 0's and 1's as in the data that is used to determine who will make the playoffs and how they'll be seeded, in the NCAA Power Index.

We got the first look at the NCAA's version of the data in the NPI this week, and no surprise to anyone here that the data fully passed inspection and is exactly the same as what we've seen on D3datacast -- that's the link on our home page menu, for your reference.

Of course, there were some great games to run down this week, such as how the folks at Johns Hopkins put together a third- and fourth-quarter rally to get past Carnegie Mellon. We talk about how the game turned, what can be learned, how the teams can grow from here. Hardin-Simmons/Mary Hardin-Baylor and Berry-Trinity (Texas) were big games that ended up not being close. What's up with UMHB? And we also chat with Tony Kunczewski, the head coach at Berry, about his team's big day and their win in our Fast 5 segment.

And yes, there were upsets in the WIAC. Or were there? What really constitutes an upset in WIAC games these days? Co-hosts Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas talk it through. 

Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, 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.

Ah yes, we not only go from the land of serious tailgating to also serious tailgating. From 20,000 fans to 6,500 fans in a rivalry game. These are two great tastes that tasted great together on Saturday, part of a smorgasbord of great Division III football, with so many games that we actually didn't even talk about Muhlenberg-Ursinus in this podcast. (But we will probably talk about Muhlenberg at some point.) 

Here's who you will be seeing -- or hearing about. We run down the UW-La Crosse win at UW-Whitewater and talk with La Crosse coach Matt Janus, we talk about Oshkosh-River Falls, we talk about North Central-Wheaton and hear from North Central coach Brad Spencer, and we talk about Bethel-St. John's and Royals coach Mike McElroy joins us on Fast Five.

It's like this week was a Christmas present wrapped up in an October day that sure felt like it was Aug. 22. Phew. Hot! But so was the action on the field in Week 5, and Patrick and Greg hand out game balls, 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.

Plus, we take the mailbag question that really ties it all together and has a nice finish.

You've gotten the stop, pounced on a fumble, you're celebrating a key win to open up your conference slate. Only then do the officials huddle up, and without the benefit of replay, overturn the call originally made on the field and give the team which by all rights lost the game another chance.

You'd be forgiven, perhaps, if it took you more than the customary 24 hours to get that emotion out of your system, to turn the page.

If you were Hope, which had defeat snatched from the jaws of victory on Saturday afternoon, in a turn of events so unexpected that it has garnered 211,000 views as of this writing on our X account, you could be excused. But the Flying Dutchmen will show up for the 6:30 team meeting with head coach Peter Stuursma today and be asked to turn the page.

No, the MIAA can't overturn the result -- they tried to with a basketball game back in 2001. Will the conference issue a statement about the officiating at the end of the game? They should. The answer to our question to the conference office came while we were recording, and you'll hear our reaction as the response came in, live.

Coach Stuursma joins us to talk about the play and the aftermath on this edition of the podcast in Fast Five.

Not the only big game, don't get us wrong. Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas dive into the Christopher Newport-Susquehanna game, the interesting ways in which quarterback Josh Ehrlich and running back Rahshan La Mons were used, and the body language of the two teams down the stretch. And it seemed super likely that the Washington & Jefferson Presidents weren't going to start the season 0-3, and we look deeply at their game with Grove City from Saturday night.

Plus, we'll take four your mailbag questions about the Top 25. Why do teams on bye move? What do voters do with Alma and Hope?

Patrick and Greg Thomas hand out game balls, Logan Hansen talks about which conferences have a better than 70% chance of getting an at-large team into 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.

For some teams, a 3-0 start is precisely in the plan. For others, 3-0 is perhaps a pipe dream, or a first-time occurrence. 

In this week's edition of the podcast, we talk about a few of each as we wrap up Week 3 of the Division III football season.

Johns Hopkins was given just about a 50% chance of starting the season 3-0, with some top-flight competition on the docket. But they got the job done, and we learned a little bit about the Blue Jays in the process. We'll tell you what we've seen and coach Dan Wodicka will do the same.

UW-Whitewater vaulted itself into the same top echelon as the rest of the WIAC contenders with a big win down at Mary Hardin-Baylor. What did we see that bodes well for the Warhawks and what does this do to the Cru's playoff chances? We'll discuss.

Plus, a number of teams are surprising at 3-0. How about Calvin? The Knights are in just their second season of varsity football and got to 3-0 in dramatic fashion on the road, against a team from a tough conference. How about Hampden-Sydney? The Tigers moved to 3-0 and did it in dominant fashion, and on the ground. And Lewis & Clark, you know, the school that hired away Linfield offensive coordinator Brett Elliott, the Gagliardi Trophy-winning quarterback, and made him head coach? The Pioneers got the job done with defense on Saturday, and Greg Thomas talks with Elliott in our Fast Five. 

Plus, we'll dive in and take four of your mailbag questions, about the SAA, how many teams we think are in the top tier of Division III, whether D-III's wins against D-II schools and an FCS program mean that Division III is getting better, and what's up with Coast Guard.

Patrick and Greg Thomas hand out game balls, Logan Hansen talks about which teams have a better than 50% chance of making the playoffs as an at-large team if needed, we go around each region for the happy and sad stories and much more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

It's sad to think that we are already phasing out of Great Non-Conference Game Season, but at least it is leaving us with some quality memories. Yes, Mary Hardin-Baylor and UW-Whitewater still get to grace us with their presence, and so do Springfield and UW-Platteville, and Johns Hopkins and Susquehanna, but ... well, OK, we'll hold on for one more week.

Meanwhile, the rest of the ranked teams got on the field this week in Week 2, as did the NESCAC, and Case Western Reserve managed to get through and finish a game. We'll talk quite a bit about the new quarterback situation at North Central, and how the answer was not really what people thought it would be, or thought they had discovered. We'll do the same with the quarterback situation at St. John's, and we dive into UW-La Crosse's first game as well as the opener for Bethel.

Plus, with a number of non-conference games over and done, we'll take a suggestion from the mailbag and look at which conferences have surprised and which have disappointed so far through two weeks. The answers ... well, they might surprise you a little, some of them.

We talk with Mount Union quarterback Mikey Maloney -- Patrick Coleman went out to Grove City to see that game with Mount Union in person, and has a glowing report and an interesting Fast Five subject. Plus, Grove City coach Andrew DiDonato reflects on what his team went through in the 49-14 loss and what he sees his team needs to do to take that next step up the Division III ladder. 

Patrick and Greg Thomas hand out game balls, Logan Hansen talks about which games in Week 3 have the most leverage, plus we take mailbag questions about the season's first PAC showdown and whether it's necessary to Fear the Moose, as well as whether Great Lakes states Indiana and Michigan can join Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin as producers of Division III championship teams. 

All that and more in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Finally, games! A huge week of Division III football, with a couple of thrilling upsets, and more than 200 Division III teams taking the field, means there's a lot to talk about.

So, we in the media were admonished not to overreact, huh? All we have to do is look at our social media feeds if we want to see overreactions run wild, but we'll play Michael Wilbon's game. We decided to take four big storylines from this week's games and decide what the appropriate level of reaction is, and what might constitute an overreaction. So, we take on:

The starting debut of Mount Union quarterback Mikey Maloney
The plight of the freshman starting quarterback in general
The as-of-right-now still unresolved end of the Case-Rowan game
The WIAC getting off to a 7-0 start

Plus, we talk with Belhaven quarterback Brock Morris, who lost his dad over the offseason. His dad was also a college quarterback and ... well, we'll let Brock tell the rest in our Fast Five segment, a five-minute interview in our regular season podcasts because it's hard to carve out more time than that. I mean, have you seen how long this episode is?

Patrick and Greg had content on-site from Belhaven-Millsaps, Catholic-McDaniel, Susquehanna-Union and Lake Forest-Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. They also hand out game balls, highlight the interesting stats from Week 1, and go around each region to spotlight even more games from Week 1 and start to look ahead to Week 2.

There's this and more in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mailbag topics include: Should North Central be on upset watch next week vs. UW-Oshkosh? Are we already regretting some of our answers to the 20 Questions that we posed just a week and a half ago? And what's the best stadium food we've experienced?

And there was so much bonus content this week. Links below:

Extended interviews from Susquehanna
Extended interview from Catholic
Extended interviews from Belhaven
Stat of the Week highlight from Berry

Games kick off two days from now, so there's no time like the present for a Week 1 preview! Patrick and Greg take you through Division III football's opening week, going region by region with a region Game of the Week and more games to watch in each region, Region 1 through Region 6.

Plus, we bring back J.P. Williams, the NCAA's liaison for the Division III football championship, aka the person at the NCAA who runs point on the football season, playoffs, and the committee. This part of the conversation is about some more hot-button issues around the Division III football playoffs, such as, seriously, artificial noisemakers. That's an issue being discussed. So is trying to stagger the start times of the quarterfinals so that they overlap a little less. Great, now how about the first three rounds? Anyone? And are wearables or radios in helmets coming to the Division III playoffs this season?

And listen, you might not be happy with the possibilities for the Stagg Bowl, the Division III football championship game. It's hardly set in stone yet, but consider this your first warning that it might be ... interesting. Listen for more.

Plus, the season is here, and if you've listened to our podcast over the past several years, you might remember that big occasions sometimes call for big productions. There is one of those in this podcast, as We've Got Our Eyes on 2025.

Patrick and Greg have this and more in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

Mailbag topics include: Which games in Week 1 could most upset the apple cart and change expectations for the Division III football season? And, what three games this week need to have a rivalry trophy and a title? And check the bottom of the podcast page for the names of teams mentioned in the episode -- it's a big number!

Teams are in camp, some of them with new head coaches, and few head coaches are in a more interesting situation than Cortland coach Tom Blumenauer. He is in his first training camp as the Red Dragons' head coach, and he's working with a team that won a national title just 20 months ago, but lost a well-loved and highly successful head coach in the offeseason. Plus, he's an Ithaca graduate. We talk to him about what he's seen in camp so far, what he's hoping to instill from a culture perspective, and what it's like returning to the Empire 8, where he played as a player.

Few teams -- no team, in fact, according to our preseason All-America team -- should be happier to have a returning quarterback than the folks at UW-River Falls. Kaleb Blaha was hurt in the first game of the season last year for the Falcons and never returned to form, taking the "med red" of a medical hardship season or a medical redshirt. We talk with Kaleb, plus head coach Matt Walker, plus offensive coordinator Joe Matheson, about the expectations at River Falls this season, how fast and how hard they like to push their offense, and more.

We also hear from a Division III football head coach on the topics of whether student-athletes come into camp in better shape than they used to, and we talk to a coach whose program is using technology to try to keep student-athletes from getting hurt in camp.

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

Plus, if you're new to Division III football, we'll start off this podcast with a little primer about how things work and what to expect come playoff time. And we also talk about how crazy it was to try to select a preseason All-America team this year with all the turnover from having two senior classes and a lot of upward movement through the transfer portal.

Mailbag topics include: Can Johns Hopkins finish 3-0 in their crazy opening stretch of the season? And if you had to name a rock song to define the 2025 Division III football season, what would it be? Hint: One of the answers is related to what the thumbnail image for this episode looks like! Plus, you'll need to stay to the bitter end to find out what someone thinks the next hot tailgate item will be for this fall. You won't want to miss it.

How about that as the handy guide for topics for discussion in the latest edition of our podcast, namely, ATN Podcast 382?

We talk about the preseason Top 25, and the wide range in voting for lots of teams, not just for North Central. Seriously, UW-La Crosse has a far wider range of spots from our 25 pollsters, and so do a number of other schools. Plus, we bring in Kean coach Dan Garrett, who can tell you what might be on a coach's mind when they're filing a preseason ballot in our poll.

Patrick and Greg talk about who are the biggest outliers on their own Top 25 ballots as well -- you'll never guess who Patrick has at No. 24 on his ballot, for example.

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

J.P. Williams, the NCAA's liaison for the Division III football championship, aka the person at the NCAA who runs point on the football season, playoffs, and the committee, joins us to talk first off about officiating, since he is a Division I football official himself. Want to get involved? Williams tells his story. Plus, how do we get replay review at more Division III playoff games? And what did the committee learn from last year's expanded playoffs? Williams talks through those things.

Joe Onderko, the commissioner of the Presidents' Athletic Conference, joins us to talk about the new look of the conference, why the conference's big rivalries tend to draw so well, how the schools get along with each other when they're so close together, and where the PAC stands on putting conference athletic events behind a pay wall, as a number of conferences have this offseason.

Plus ... Mailbag topics include: What do we think when we see teams so wide apart in various voters ballots, and what's our take on the Empire 8's attempts to bring redshirting back to Division III. And you'll also learn where Patrick and Greg will be traveling the first two weeks of the season.

Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

It's been a spicy past month or so and when you're coming up on a food-related holiday like the 4th of July, we're keeping the fire hot and the burgers, dogs, bratwurst, corn on the cob and more so that you can grill us with your questions. That's right -- we've got some great mailbag questions and we tackle as many of them as possible on this edition of the podcast.

Plus ...

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

Plus, we have three great guests to chat with in this edition of the podcast as well, which we snuck just in under the wire for June of 2025. We start with Curry running back Montie Quinn, a second team D3football.com All-America pick who had a fantastic finish to the season. We hear from him about his pursuit of the school's rushing record, who helped him get it, and why it was important that he just keep running. Plus, how did Quinn get from South Carolina to the Boston suburbs? And how is he preparing for the 2026 season and trying to improve on his record-setting performance?

Blaise Faggiano, the head coach of Utica, joins the podcast this time around and since he was on the national committee at the time the whole changeover to NPI took place, and the "dials" were set in such a way to almost entirely discount strength of schedule, well, we grill him on that as well. But we also talk about how his team has benefited from taking a foreign tour trip, and what the great local specialties are in central New York, and his hopes for his team for 2025.

And we visit once again with Carnegie Mellon coach Ryan Larsen -- we chatted with him briefly in Podcast 380 about his team's trip to Spain, but this conversation is about the CMU schedule for 2025, why he made it so challenging and how he thinks it will help his team improve, even if the NPI might not credit the Tartans the way we would hope. It's a great argument for still scheduling strong even if the committee doesn't want to reward that.

Mailbag topics include: Is the ASC done with offers to SCAC teams, who else is looking for bowl game alliances, what's on your Fourth of July menu, what do we make of the North Central quarterback situation, why does D-III spring ball look different than the other divisions, how much will our preseason Top 12 differ from the way last season ended, and what our thoughts are on Geneva and Westminster (Pa.) not facing each other this season.

Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

For the first time, we whipped out our passport to go abroad to cover a Division III football story. Twenty-six years into running the website and in the 19th year of the podcast and yes, there can still be new things. A number of Division III schools left the country to give their student-athletes an educational experience and to also play a spring football game, and we followed along with one of those teams and you can follow along with three of them in this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Plus ...

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

St. John's went up to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to play the Winnipeg Rifles of the Canadian Junior Football League, and the Johnnies were hoping to learn a little bit more about what they have at quarterback. Since Aaron Syverson has graduated, the Johnnies were looking at five quarterback candidates, one of whom noped out before the trip even started. So four players got snaps up north on Saturday, May 17, and two are in the mix to get the start in Week 1 against Minnesota-Morris. You'll meet them and hear what their receivers, offensive coordinator, and head coach Gary Fasching think of their performance, plus you'll hear about the most Canadian thing ever that happened before the game and meet a few SJU transfers whose names you could be hearing this fall.

Carnegie Mellon went to Spain, and we'll find out from coach Ryan Larsen what the Tartans were hoping to get out of their trip, since they lost so many starters and key contributors from a team which had Mount Union on the ropes in the fourth quarter of last year's playoff game. And Hampden-Sydney took its team to Italy, where coach Vince Luvara had a quite different take on what was important for his program and his student-athletes.

Plus, you'll be hungry after you hear about the great eating both teams did in Europe! Also, Patrick and Greg will give their take on the top five quarterbacks in D-III football since 1999, and will present two teams which could contend for conference titles after not making the playoffs last year, thanks to two great questions from our mailbag segment.

Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

That dozen is not just the number of D-III players currently known to have received an invite to an NFL training camp, for sure. How big of a breakfast does it take to feed an NFL offensive lineman? What did new-old Franklin coach Mike Leonard do when he was away from coaching the Grizzlies for the past five years? And why does Illinois College coach Ray DeFrisco keep coming back, year after year?

Those are some of the key questions getting asked and answered on this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Plus ...

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

No, seriously, that's a lot of eggs. How did Middlebury offensive lineman Thomas Perry get to where he is today, a workout legend and an All-American who got invited to the Baltimore Ravens minicamp? He also talks about his experiences with Julian Young, a linebacker at Colby who will also be going to the Ravens, plus the workout that helped start him well down the road to where he is today.

At Franklin, Mike Leonard wasn't expecting to get his old office back, and that space has some new decorations that we talk about. Hear what kind of camp Leonard will be attending this offseason. And at Illinois College, the days of putting up 96 points in a game might be over, with the standout quarterback and wide receiver and the offensive coordinator all moving on, but the philosophy remains. Hear about that and the new names you'll hear this fall and more from IC coach Ray DeFrisco.

Plus we talk about the NESCAC finally getting its chance to play in the playoffs -- even if it isn't until 2026. Will that attract more talented student-athletes to NESCAC schools? That's a question in our mailbag segment, and we also talk about the likelihood of radios in football helmets at the D-III level.

Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast.

After keeping fans waiting for more than a year, the American Southwest Conference finally had something to say about its membership situation, and it did so with a bang, swiping two teams from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference to shore up its membership and bring it back to six for the fall of 2026.

Who does that affect? It affects the SCAC folks, who were on the way to getting an automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs, and we'll hear more about the reaction of the conference when we sit down with conference commissioner Dwayne Hanberry on this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

Plus ...

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

Plus, the two schools that are going back to the ASC are doing so, apparently $4 million richer apiece. But for Schreiner, this represents a big leap up in competition for a program which hasn't even played a game yet! Schreiner isn't set to play a varsity game until 2026, but the Mountaineers' timeline just got altered a bit. We talk with Schreiner's head coach -- Keith Allen, the second coach in this young program's history -- about how that changes things for him, one month into his tenure.

And more change in Division III this upcoming season includes, of course, the fact that there won't be nearly as many fifth-year players. That's the case all over now that the extra year of eligibility because of the COVID pandemic has largely worked its way through the system. At Coe, they'll feel the loss of two seniors classes at once, and coach Tyler Staker tells us how they'll adjust and what's expected of the student-athletes who need to step up in 2025.

A lot of news happened in the past month aside from the ASC/SCAC as well, and we'll talk through it all, including the upcoming NESCAC presidents' meeting, the new Cortland coach, our soon-to-become Division III schools in Azusa Pacific and St. Francis (Pa.), and which one of those said it will dominate Division III. Plus, with two brand-new football programs coming online in the Conference of New England in the fall, where would the CONE likely rank? Stat of the Week in March? Conference rankings in March? Patrick and Greg cover it all in the latest edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation podcast. 

The current football student-athletes of the NESCAC are probably too young to envision a crowd of fans in the Astrodome chanting "Let them play!" about the Bad News Bears. They are too young to remember the Astrodome. And they are nothing like the Bad News Bears, but still, the powers-that-be in the New England Small College Athletic Conference have not allowed their conference teams to participate in the Division III football playoffs.

Ever.

Because the Ivy League does it that way, right? Well, that's changing, starting this year, and a group of NESCAC student-athletes are organizing on their campuses to make sure that they don't get left behind, or pushed off another year. That's the NESCAC Football Players Association (NESCACFBPA), a group representing football student-athletes at all 10 member schools, and we talk with a number of them on this edition of the D3football.com Around the Nation Podcast.

This edition of the podcast is sponsored by GameStrat: The Most Reliable & Fastest In-Game Video Replay System on The Market. D-III football coaches should click here to learn more.

The presidents of the NESCAC need to act now, not wait and make these student-athletes wait for another year when they have waited for generation after generation already. Hear from Vaughn Seelicke of Tufts, Jack Lucido of Wesleyan, Parker Huynh-Benningfield of Bates, Aidan Moss of Middlebury and Justin Keller of Tufts about the issues, what they learned from Ivy League student organizers, and how they are working to make this happen here, in 2025.

In addition, we chat with new Lewis & Clark head coach Brett Elliott. Yes, that's the Brett Elliott who has been offensive coordinator at Linfield, who led Linfield to a national title as a quarterback and was the 2005 D3football.com Offensive Player of the Year. He'll talk about the quick and efficient interview process, how he found out who his leaders are on his new team, and what he did on his first weekend on the job.

Plus we update the Cortland coaching search, and take your questions, many of them, and more in this edition of the podcast, as we start Season No. 19.

Whether it was a Red-Letter Day or a Red Dawn or Red Cardinals Fly at Night, Stagg Bowl LI was another example of the ongoing red shift in Division III football, as North Central won its third title in its five consecutive trips to the Stagg Bowl and ensured that the Walnut and Bronze would have a red tint to it for the third year in a row. 

Luke Lehnen reached the remaining records in the book. The offensive line kept his uniform clean, in this first Stagg Bowl on grass in more than 20 years. The defense eventually solved Tyler Echeverry, or at least slowed him down, even if it couldn't stop him. And for the people who want to view Sunday's game as more fodder for a head coaching change, why would you advocate for removing a coach who has won 93.3% of his games? Division III is getting harder and harder every year, and Mount Union is still there at the end more times than not. 

Patrick and Greg and guest/former co-host Keith McMillan break down the game, the key decisions that were made on each side, the big plays and more, plus hand out game balls in this edition of the podcast. Over/under on how many game balls Keith hands out? 5.5.

Plus, we named Lehnen, Spencer and Bethel safety Matt Jung our top award getters, and you can hear how Patrick and Greg and Keith McMillan got to those decisions in this podcast. 

North Central and Mount Union are back, and we're ready to get you to kickoff of Stagg Bowl LI on Sunday night. How healthy are each of these teams? What new wrinkles might we see offensively? How many snaps will Noah Beaudrie get at quarterback for Mount Union? How many passes will Luke Lehnen end up throwing for North Central?

We give you a taste of what we hear from players from both sides of the ball, whether it's Luke and the Linemen as a boy band for 2025, or Rossy Moore on his favorite way to add productive weight during the season. Plus hear from one player who says he's too old to deal with all the bumps and bruises, plus those who know their career is ending on Sunday, no matter what.

Geoff Dartt and Brad Spencer each weigh in on key questions surrounding their team and Stagg Bowl LI, plus you'll hear way more on our pregame show for the game on Sunday night. Frank Rossi joins us and ... actually agrees with Logan Hansen on math? What? And it's Stagg Bowl time, so you know, there's a musical number involved, now that we're past the holiday season.