Jordan Neal completed 66.4% of his passes with 24 TDs and 12 interceptions. Does his return make Hardin-Simmons a title contender? Photo by Keith Johnston for D3football.com

By Keith McMillan
D3sports.com

It hardly seems like we should be less than 48 hours away from the kickoff of another college football season. Yet, from the moment The College of New Jersey and Muhlenberg or Curry and Worcester State kick off on Friday night through the Dec. 17 Stagg Bowl in Salem, Va., we’ll be riding shotgun.

Whether you’re back for another year or joining us for the first time here at D3football.com and Around the Nation, welcome. Those who have been here before know that throughout the season, in the middle of each week, ATN will take a look at what’s happened and what’s to come from a national perspective. 

With 231 football-playing schools in Division III to watch over, ATN will analyze how conference races affect the 32-team playoff picture and the Top 25. Each week we feature five games to watch among our regular departments, and feature reader feedback.

So with those pleasantries out of the way, let’s take a closer look at what we can learn from Week 1.

I’ve already discovered that when you cover all the bases in a season-preview issue, there isn’t a whole lot left to discuss before the first whistle blows. But there are 86 games this weekend, including a pair that match ranked teams, and several more that will tell us a little bit about what we can expect this fall.

With four more playoff spots in the mix than there were last season, teams who don’t automatically qualify for the postseason by winning their conference are afforded a little more leeway. Where we once thought one loss put non-AQ teams on shaky ground and two put playoff hopes in serious jeopardy, we now believe it will be virtually impossible for a one-loss team to miss the postseason, even if it plays a weak schedule. Two losses shouldn’t crush a team’s playoff hopes, and three losses against a difficult schedule could still mean a berth.

And we know there’s wisdom in Division III’s playoff system. Twenty-one conferences of seven or more members automatically send their champion to the playoffs, in what’s referred to as Pool A. But only five of last season’s quarterfinalists qualified this way. Linfield and Washington and Jefferson won six-team conferences without automatic qualifiers, which are grouped in Pool B. Champions of these conferences aren’t guaranteed a playoff bid, but several are set aside for Pool B teams.

Runners-up in AQ conferences qualify via Pool C. The three second-chance playoff participants each won their first-round game last season, and Mary Hardin-Baylor nearly won the national championship without winning its own conference.

So if you’re new to Division III and used to following college football in which perfection is the only way, welcome to our world, where the champions are determined on the field.

Playoff talk is already relevant, and explains why we’re about to get geeked for No. 4 Hardin-Simmons at UW-Stevens Point and No. 7 Rowan at No. 16 Christopher Newport. We like to see competitive games, and hopefully the added flexibility for the playoff committee allows teams to take chances by scheduling tough opponents. Many of us remember a time, before the playoffs expanded from 16 to 28, when nearby teams from separate conferences wouldn’t dare blemish their postseason prospects by taking on a tough challenger.

Here are some of the things we’ll find out in Week 1:

1. Whether Hardin-Simmons is a national championship contender.
In the Kickoff, I wrote that there are four teams we can assume to be head and shoulders above the rest, based on how they fared last year. Late in the playoffs, most of the nation’s top teams were blown out by Linfield, Mary-Hardin Baylor or Mount Union, our final top three last year and preseason top three this season.

The Wildcats and Crusaders have the majority of their Stagg Bowl lineups returning. The Purple Raiders had built up such a dominant program during a six-titles-in-seven-years run that we still have to assume they just reload, even if they are two seasons removed from their last championship and return just 11 starters.

Hardin-Simmons, on the other hand, made an early exit from last year’s postseason at the hands of UMHB. But they throttled the national-runners up in the regular season, and the Crusaders clearly showed themselves to be championship worthy against Linfield.

But it’s tough to rely on year-old data to make so many conclusions. It’s what they’d call ‘circumstantial evidence’ on some TV court drama.

If we want hard proof, the Cowboys’ third season-opener in Wisconsin since 1999 should be Exhibit A.

UW-Stevens Point begins the season just outside the top 25, and plays five ranked teams this season. Last season, it beat UW-Whitewater, who starts this season No. 21, led No. 1 Linfield in the fourth quarter and fell a point short of No. 22 UW-Eau Claire. That experience, coupled with the return of quarterback Brett Borchart, among others, should make the Pointers a strong opponent in their first-ever matchup with Hardin-Simmons. 

But the Pointers’ offense will also start two experienced players who missed last season, and two more that played different positions.

Hardin-Simmons, meanwhile, was the nation’s second-best offense last year, at 508 yards and 48 points per game, and returns senior quarterback Jordan Neal. The Cowboys lost 31-21 at UW-Stout to start 2003, and Stout finished 6-4 with three WIAC losses that year.

Right off the bat, we’ll see where Texas and Wisconsin fit into the title picture. The oh-so-lucky Pointers follow Hardin-Simmons with a Sept. 17 trip to Linfield (incidentally, last year’s No. 1 offense, at 50 points and 510 yards per game).

2. Which Mid-Atlantic teams will lay early claims to the “contender” and “pretender” labels.

There are a handful of season openers doubling as statement games in this region.

Christopher Newport has never won a season opener, and lost last year’s to Rowan by a point after missing three PATs during the game. The Captains, who played three strong non-conference opponents last season, will gear up for No. 15 Salisbury in two weeks. A win against the Profs would be a big start for the Captains and bigger for the USAC.

No. 14 Bridgewater (Va.) hosts McDaniel, which beat the Eagles last season. The Eagles rule the ODAC and the Green Terror is expected to be a Centennial Conference factor as usual, and this season-opening test has traditionally played a role in South Region playoff seedings.

No. 15 Salisbury visits Methodist in a contest big for both. The Sea Gulls are ranked between No. 9 and No. 15 in five preseason polls, and start with a four-game stretch of Methodist, Brockport State, CNU and Montclair State. The Monarchs, coming off a seven-win season, hope to surge to the top of the USAC and could use a non-conference victory for confidence.

No. 12 Delaware Valley travels to Moravian in a battle of teams that led the 11-team MAC for much of last season but were not among the nine conference games on each other’s schedules.

3. How Wooster will get along without Tony Sutton and how Carthage will get by without Dante Washington.

It’s not fair to expect one Scot to replace Sutton’s 220 all-purpose yards per game, nor his 2,240 yards and 31 TDs rushing last season. That’s the sort of thing that falls under “everyone else picks up slack,” and there are only 11 starters back to do it. Senior running back Sean Anderson, for the record, steps in as Wooster’s starting running back.

Carthage surprised the CCIW last year by following a 3-7 season with an 11-2 2004. The Redmen will take the field without 1,990-yard rusher Dante Washington, who carried 35 times per game last season and 57 times against Wheaton. Carthage will likely lean on a defense that returns nine starters while it spreads out the offensive touches.

4. Whether Delaware Valley and St. John Fisher will need more fourth-quarter heroics this season.

Last season’s late-game magicians each start with a test.

The Aggies’ eight wins by a TD or less last season is well-documented. But one team they did not beat while going 12-1 was Moravian, which won its first seven and lost its last four in 2004. The Greyhounds have leading rusher Chris Jacoubs back, along with nine other offensive starters, while the Aggies have quarterback Adam Knoblauch among eight starters back on offense. There are few easy games in the MAC, but a win for either here might get the toughest opponent out of the way. The Greyhounds host this game, and don’t play expected contender Albright this season either.

The Cardinals won four of their first six last season by a touchdown or less; this year, four of their first five are on the road. The opener is at King’s, which lost RB Richard Jackson’s 5,365 career yards but returns nine offensive starters and eight on defense. Fisher won this game 28-21 last season, and will depend on last year’s No. 2 rusher, Mark Robinson, hoping for a reprise of his 183-yard per game average. The Cardinals have just nine starters back and have one-year wonder written all over them. 

5. Whether St. John’s more resembles its 2003 Stagg Bowl-winning squad, or 2004’s non-playoff team.
The answer probably lies somewhere in between, where 16 starters are back for a Johnnies program that was likely disappointed with its 7-3 record last season. Its Week 1 host, UW-Eau Claire, led St. John’s 30-7 in last season’s game before winning by two and also finishing 7-3 last year.

6. Whether St. Norbert can close the gap between Wisconsin’s private and public schools.
After a 41-9 loss to UW-Whitewater in last year’s opener, the Green Knights won nine straight before meeting UW-La Crosse in the playoffs. St. Norbert had appeared to prove it could play with the WIAC schools then, leading the Eagles 17-3 at the half and 23-10 with 8:50 left, but lost 37-23.

La Crosse’s rally ended the Green Knights’ season on a sour note. A home win over Whitewater, not to mention revenge for last season’s opener, would definitely be sweet.

7. Whether Concordia-Moorhead’s 2004 season was an anomaly.
The Cobbers won their opener against Division II Moorhead State 30-7 last year, but the 2005 opener can still clue us into what they’ll do for an encore to an 11-1 season. Fourteen starters are gone from that team, including five all-MIAC defenders.

8. Which teams will get a jump on the four extra playoff spots.
Wesley, DePauw, Capital, Wittenberg, Augustana and Monmouth each won at least seven games last season, and were among teams that would have received playoff consideration had there been 32 berths last year.

They all open up with stiff tests, and in some cases, each other.

Wesley travels to Greencastle, Ind. to take on DePauw, another team that won eight games last season. 

Capital and Wittenberg were each 7-3 last year, though the Crusaders smacked the Tigers 49-16. Wittenberg hopes to get revenge, and hosts this time.

Monmouth, a 9-1 runner-up in the MWC, takes on Concordia (Wis.), which was among three teams that finished 6-1 in the IBFC. The Falcons were 7-3, but lost the tiebreaker for the playoff spot to Aurora.

Augustana was the odd team out in the CCIW’s three-way tie last season, despite being 7-3. Central, 6-4 last year, hopes to re-establish its proud tradition, and that of the IIAC, in Week 1.

9. How much of Lou Wacker’s influence remains at Emory & Henry, and how much Mount Union rubs off on them.
The Wasps’ new coach is Don Montgomery, the Purple Raiders’ defensive coordinator for nearly two decades. He was often described as the ‘heart and soul,’ of the championship teams, and Emory knows its lucky to have him. Wacker was an old-school coach whose physical teams had recently gravitated toward more wide-open offenses. Montgomery has key parts of an offense that scored 31 points per game back, but must work his magic on a defense that allowed 35.

The Wasps kickoff at Marietta in a night opener. Four of the Wasps’ first five opponents had winning records last season, and the fifth, Ferrum (4-6) beat them last year.

10. Whose schedule is craziest.
We’ve already told you that UW-Stevens Point plays both Hardin-Simmons and Linfield before its WIAC slate, but Brockport State starts off another challenging slate by hosting Cortland on Saturday.

Seven Golden Eagles opponents had winning records last year, including all five of its non-conference foes (Cortland, Ithaca, St. John Fisher, Rowan and TCNJ). Each of their October opponents won eight games last season, and overall, Brockport plays six road games.

Top 25 teams we do not get a look at in Week 1
No. 1 Linfield, No. 2 Mary Hardin-Baylor, No. 8 Occidental, No. 17 Ithaca, No. 20 Wheaton

Poll positions
With the abundance of preseason rankings (only D3football.com runs a true preseason “poll”), it’s Around the Nation’s normal place to compare and contrast where teams shake out. But unlike last season, where we saw Rowan both No. 4 and unranked, there don’t seem to be too many egregious disagreements.

D3football.com was joined by Lindy’s, Street & Smith’s, Sports Illustrated, USA Today Sports Weekly and Don Hansen’s Football Gazette in taking a stab at the top teams, although we must note that SI only ranked its top 10 and Sports Weekly’s rankings were produced by two D3football.com voters, myself and Pat Coleman.

Linfield is No. 1 across the board, and Mount Union is top three in all six sets of rankings. So far, so good. St. John’s sneaked into SI and Lindy’s top threes, perhaps because of name recognition. Rowan, possibly because it was eliminated by Linfield and returns 18 starters, leapt into four top fives. The rest of the top 10s are pretty standard stuff, except for SI going out on a limb and ranking Wittenberg 10th.

The oddest rankings? 

-> Street & Smith’s placing two MIAA teams in their top 25, including Alma at No. 18 and Olivet at No. 22. Lindy’s liked Adrian (No. 22) out of that conference, while none of the other polls ranked a MIAA team.

-> Ithaca was ranked 13th by Lindy’s and D3football.com, and not mentioned by Street & Smith’s. St. Norbert is in Lindy’s top 10, unranked by D3football.com. 

-> Delaware Valley in everyone’s top 10, except for D3football.com (12th) and Sports Weekly (22nd), where Albright (18th) ranked higher.

-> Lindy’s figured Concordia-Moorhead’s run was a fluke, apparently, not mentioning the Cobbers while ranking a team in beat last season (St. John’s) second. 

-> Street & Smith’s was the only poll not to rank Christopher Newport, which fell between 15 and 22 everywhere else.

-> Lindy’s also had just one WIAC school ranked, in Stevens Point, which could boost itself with an early non-conference win. D3football.com on the other hand, ranked three -- La Crosse, Whitewater and Eau Claire.

-> Few believe in Wooster without Tony Sutton, as their only mentions are No. 25 in D3football.com and No. 23 by Don Hansen. Carthage, however, finds itself ranked in each top 25.

The boldest picks that could come true? Lindy’s ranked Hardin-Simmons (No. 4) ahead of Mary Hardin-Baylor (No. 8). Don Hansen ranked North Central 11th, while Sports Weekly had Augustana 16th. Everyone liked Ohio Northern as the second OAC team and had them no lower than 10th.

We applaud
-> The decisions to postpone the Millsaps-Huntingdon and Mississippi College-Belhaven games. We’re too far away to assess whether those games really could have been played. But we certainly don’t want to trivialize the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina by making football out to be more important than it is, and we’re glad the Division III schools closest to the affected areas don’t either.

-> Becker, who plays the first game in school history at Utica.

Streak watch
Given the playoff system we have, only one team can end the season with a win streak worth caring about, and the national champion is not guaranteed an undefeated season. But Linfield does enter on a 13-game roll. The only streak longer is that of Trinity (Conn.), which is part of a conference that does not participate in the football playoffs and is riding a 22-game win streak. With just seven starters back, however, the Bantams should find it difficult to finish the season with the streak at 30 games, still intact.

Losing streaks, however, don’t have a mechanism like the playoffs to ensure their end for all but one team each year. Framingham State (0-9), Catholic, Concordia (Ill.), Manchester, Heidelberg and Hiram (all 0-10) were the six Division III schools to finish 2004 winless.

Of those, only Framingham also went winless in 2003, taking their losing streak 23 games back to a 31-14 win at Mass. Maritime on Oct. 5, 2002. One has to go back to 2001 for their last home win, a 45-20 victory also over the Buccaneers.

Concordia (Ill.), Catholic and Manchester each won late in the 2003 season, on Nov. 8, against Eureka, Guilford and Bluffton, respectively. The Cougars have lost 10 straight, while the Cardinals and Spartans have lost 11 in a row. Hiram beat Kenyon 34-7 on Oct. 25 of 2003, and lost 13 times since. Heidelberg last won against Marietta on Oct. 4, 2003, 17 games (and 16 losses) ago.

Who are those guys?
Each week, we scan the schedule for those unfamiliar names, and let you know what affiliation a school belongs to if it’s not Division III. Since Ralph Turner and Larry LaStarza of the Laz Index compiled the list of games this year, Around the Nation will be sure to track Division III’s record against out-of-division opponents, based on the 231 schools we consider current members.

The I-AA opponents on Division III schedules this week:
Albion at Butler, Iona at Montclair State, UW-La Crosse at South Dakota State, Western Connecticut at St. Peter’s and Valaparaiso at Wisconsin Lutheran. (Of these, only South Dakota State offers scholarships)

The Division IIs:
Moorhead State at Concordia-Moorhead, Southern Arkansas at East Texas Baptist, Plymouth State at St. Anselm, Upper Iowa at UW-Stout, Randolph-Macon at Chowan, Merrimack at Mass-Dartmouth and Willamette at Western Oregon.

The NAIAs:
Anderson at Olivet Nazarene, Kentucky Wesleyan at North Park, Southwest Assemblies of God at Principia and UW-Oshkosh at William Penn

Road trip of the week
Hitting the road is such a big part of the team experience, especially the overnight trips. It’s also a necessity in many pockets of Division III, especially the South and the West. On a Division III budget, those trips can often be adventures.

Each week, Around the Nation marvels at at least one school’s schedule-making boldness. And this week, we’ll also recommend a road trip which would allow you, the fan, to take in three games in just more than 24 hours … although we bet you’d have had to start planning a little earlier than now if you were really going.

Although Hardin-Simmons at UW-Stevens Point, DePauw at Wesley and Washington U. at Mount Union all get our attention for crossing several state lines, our craziest road trip this week is probably Menlo at McMurry.

Atherton, Calif., is 1,614 miles from Abilene, Texas, according to MapQuest, and would be a 24-hour drive. We assume 600-student Menlo, which has four out-of-state road trips of at least 600 miles, plans to fly.

For three games in 24 hours, how about Muhlenberg at TCNJ (Trenton, NJ) at 7 p.m. Friday, followed by St. John Fisher at King’s (1 p.m. Saturday, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 126 miles away) and then Ursinus at Susquehanna (7 p.m. Saturday in Selinsgrove, Pa., 74 miles away)?

Around the Nation would like to hear your craziest road trip stories and recommendations throughout the season.

Feedback
Readers have always been a big part of Around the Nation, and this year we’re adding another way for you to talk back. We’ve always listened to what you had to say — good, bad or indifferent — with our our feedback form or via e-mail to keith@d3football.com. Now, we’re adding a thread on the new Post Patterns board to discuss issues raised in Around the Nation.

As always, anything you send is fair game to be shared with the rest of us. I have a few offseason e-mails I’ll share, and hopefully these demonstrate to you all what it’s like to be in the middle, clinging to an objective perspective. Each writer, quoted verbatim, refers to the significance of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s semifinal win at Mount Union last postseason:

“Keith,
I’ll preface my email by saying that I enjoy most of your writing and I think it’s tremendous what you folks at D3 Football do for small school football. However, I think you could be less open about your disdain for Mount Union football. I understand it can be anti-climactic when the same team wins every year, but you openly root, in fact beg, for other teams to knock off Mount Union. When Mount Union finally does lose a game, you continue to gash the wound open further by writing an article like the “Best and Worse of ‘04” where you constantly mention the particulars of that heart breaking defeat. I played for Mount Union in the late 1990’s and was the captain of the team in 1999 when our winning streak was broken by Rowan. It’s bad enough that I have to live with the fact that we lost in overtime, but I can’t imagine sports writer’s like yourself continuously rubbing it in my face that we blew the game. We don’t lose very many games and it cuts a little deeper than most schools when we do. This is the first time in a decade Mount Union has lost a game in back-to-back years and I think you could be a bit more subtle about your hatred for the Purple Raider Mystique.”

— Andrew A. Conroy

“Road dawgs from a school that had a total history of eight years of existence taking down the great Mount Union and giving them their first home loss in 5 years. No mention?
I’m a jounalist [sic] down here in Texas and seem to pick up a very distint [sic] northern flavor to D3.com. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems to me that a freshman quarterback winning 4 in a row against nationally ranked teams on the road and finish the run by beating the number one ranked team in the nation warrants a little press and frankly a [sic] some respect.”

— bill thomas

Housekeeping/Attention SIDs
As always, Around the Nation requests media guides and any other aids in helping us cover your school this season. For the first time, we are open to reviewing game tapes if schools are interested in sending them. For more information, contact Keith McMillan at keith@d3football.com, or snail mail to D3football.com, 406 N. Argonne Ave., Sterling, Va., 20164. 

Please do not add us to your regular release lists, but instead use our news release links to have your information posted on our front page and your team’s page. Thank you.