The golden age of rivalry trophy heists may be behind us, but the rivalries live on, perhaps stronger than ever. DePauw athletics photo by Linda Striggo

By Greg Thomas
D3football.com

Saturday marks the conclusion of the regular season in Division III football. The conclusion of so many careers of so many of Division III”s student-athletes. It’s an annual reminder that the time any individuals have to spend with the game is finite. Whether one plays, coaches, or both in their lifetimes, players graduate and trade their uniforms for appropriately logoed hats and T-shirts and become spectators. They watch the players they mentored carry the program forward and mentor the next batch of players. The program endures, even as the cast of characters changes constantly. Nowhere does the course of a program through its history resonate more than through those annual meetings with schools nearby. Rivals. 

Indeed, careers can be defined by performances against your rivals. Rivalry contests are sprinkled throughout the season, but so many of those season — and, sometimes, career-defining games are saved for last. This week is that week and Around The Nation wants to take a moment as we reach the end of the regular season to put a spotlight on a handful of those rivalries that have been going on since seemingly time immemorial. Those rivalries that produce the moments that will forever be recalled even after season win-loss records have long faded. 

Amherst vs. Williams

There’s probably not a better place to start than with The Biggest Little Game in America. No two teams in Division III have played more than the 136 times these NESCAC rivals have squared off. As the story goes, Williams’ second president was generally dissatisfied with the location of the college so he grabbed some books from the library, a couple of faculty and started a new college in Amherst, Mass. in 1821. Some parts of that story are probably not true, but the rivalry between the schools has burned brightly for the two centuries since Zephaniah Swift Moore set out on his own. 

Despite their isolation from the rest of Division III, the Amherst-Williams rivalry burns brightly enough to have attracted ESPN’s College Gameday program in 2017. Many in Division III have tried to lure the flagship program to their campus, but so far only The Biggest Little Game in America has been ground zero for college football’s preview program. 

Williams leads the series 75-56-5 and is currently on a three game win streak. The Ephs enter the game 2-5, while the Mammoths are 3-5. The NESCAC championship won’t be on the line in the 137th meeting between these two, but that won’t much matter when the ball goes in the air tomorrow. Either team’s season will be a success with a win in this historic game. 

Cortland vs. Ithaca

Saturday marks the 64th meeting for the Cortaca Jug and while these teams have played fewer  than half as many times as their counterparts in Massachusetts, this rivalry is experiencing a spike in interest from casual Division III fans. Both teams are experiencing program peaks right now. Cortland and Ithaca have each won their conference automatic bids and will be playing in this year’s NCAA playoffs. 

While this game has always drawn large and boisterous crowds, the magnitude of the Cortaca Jug game has exploded in recent years. In 2019, the Cortaca Jug game drew 45,161 fans for a game played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. In 2022, the rivalry downsized their venue and played before 40,232 fans at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. These are, by quite a margin, the two most attended games in Division III’s recorded history. 

This year, the game returns to Ithaca’s campus and Butterfield Stadium for the first time since 2017. While the stage might be smaller, the intimacy of an on-campus venue designed to hold 5,000 fans adds an extra layer of intensity to a game didn’t need the help. In addition to the Cortaca Jug, the winner will likely play at home in Round 1, the loser likely will not. Given the proximity of these two schools — just 21 miles separates them — it isn’t too far out of the question to see a potential rematch should both teams advance a round or two. 

Randolph-Macon vs. Hampden-Sydney

A rivalry so confident that it doesn’t have a trophy or a catchy title, this one is known quite simply as The Game. The Oldest Small School Rivalry in the South, RAndolph-Macon and Hampden-Sydney will meet for the 128th time this Saturday. Hampden-Sydney leads the series 60-56-11 but the Yellow Jackets have recently become the dominant force in the ODAC, exemplified by their nine consecutive wins in the series and 11 of the last 12. 

This series has been hallmarked by long streaks. The longest winning streak is Randolph-Macon’s current nine game streak. The Yellow Jackets have also had separate win streaks of six games twice previously. Hampden-Sydney’s longest consecutive win streak in the series is eight games between 1917 and 1923, which came in the middle of a 12-year period where the Tigers were tied by their rivals a few times, but never lost. 

This year’s edition of The Game will be the end of an era as Hampden-Sydney’s Marty Favret will be retiring at the conclusion of the season. Favret is no stranger to the streaky nature of this rivalry, having won nine of his first 11 games in the series before falling in 11 of the last 12. The Tigers 6-3 record may be a bit deceiving as they have lost twice in games where they held late fourth quarter leads. Expect drama at Day Field in Ashland as Randolph-Macon attempts to secure their No. 1 regional ranking while Hampden-Sydney attempts to beat their rival for the first time in a decade and send their program’s all-time winningest coach off with one more victory. 

DePauw vs. Wabash

These Indiana rivals located just 28 miles apart have been squaring off since 1890 and Saturday will mark the 129th meeting between the teams. Introduced to the series in 1932, the iconic Monon Bell has been at the center of rivalry action on the field and off. The occasional unsanctioned “borrowing” of the Monon Bell has provided a fair share of its own highlights. Most famously in a prank forever known as Operation Frijoles, a Wabash student in the 1960s posed as an official working to create scholarship opportunities for Mexican students to matriculate to DePauw. After spending the day meeting with DePauw’s president and taking photos of the campus to take back to his non-existent clientele, the Wabash student convinced the university president to let him photograph the Monon Bell, which DePauw had kept hidden at that time due to lingering security concerns of an earlier heist. With the location of the prize known, Wabash students of course returned later, absconded with the Monon Bell and legacies were cemented. 

The most recent successful Monon Bell heist occurred on Halloween in 1998 when a group of Wabash students managed to retrieve the Monon Bell from its very high perch in the Neal Fieldhouse on the campus of DePauw University and bring it back to Crawfordsville.

Yes, I have witnesses that can verify my whereabouts on that particular evening. 

DePauw and Wabash meet this weekend with the NCAC’s automatic bid to the playoffs at on the line. The winner will advance to the tournament, the loser’s season will be over. The teams have split the last six meetings, so with the win or go home stakes for Saturday’s game, this one feels a lot like a Game 7. 

So many more

Division III has so many more games that are just as meaningful to their institutional communities as the ones highlighted above. Teams play for shoes (RPi and Union), hats (Lycoming and Susquehanna), more bells (Hanover and Franklin), and a whole lot of pride. The United States Merchant Marine Academy and the United States Coast Guard Academy play this weekend for the Secretary’s Cup in what is one of the very best scenes in Division III. Some of the rivalry games have postseason implications, but most do not, and that’s ok. These games are for the players and the seniors especially, with one more opportunity to win the biggest game of the season. These are the games that most who play will remember when the playing is done. These are the games that those who watch will remember as the years tick away. These are the games that those of us who love Division III for the love of the game love most. 

Reading the Regional Rankings

The second set of published regional rankings were released this week and did not come without some controversy. In Region 2, Muhlenberg was published as the sixth ranked team, while Union was published as the 7th ranked team. Given the primary criteria, there didn’t appear to be a solid foundation for that ordering and upon further review, those rankings were edited. Union is now ranked 6th and is the first potential at-large team available from Region 2. 

Other important Pool C spots of interest exist in Region 4, where Hope is ranked ahead of John Carroll and in Region 5 where Wheaton is ranked ahead of Coe. In both of these cases, Hope’s advantage in Region 4 appears pretty safe as the Flying Dutchmen enjoy about a 0.050 advantage in SOS, where all other primary criteria are equal between Hope and JCU. Hope’s SOS will slide a little after this week’s game with Trine, however the Blue Streaks end with 0-9 Otterbein and will not be able to close that SOS gap — in fact they’ll lose ground. 

In Region 5, Wheaton holds an SOS advantage of 0.024 points over Coe. Both teams have identical primary criteria otherwise. The Kohawks will end their season with Loras, while Wheaton finishes with North Park. Under most other circumstances historically, that would be a big advantage for Coe, however North Park has earned a five-win season and won’t do much damage to Wheaton’s SOS. Wheaton continues to look good to be the first at-large team in line from Region 5. 

One other note about a close ranking that may have significant playoff impact is in Region 3 where Trinity has been ranked one spot higher than Hardin-Simmons. This won’t inform the Pool C picture at all as both have already qualified for the tournament, but could be important to determine who might host what feels like an inevitable early round game between these two teams. 

On tap 

Week 11 is a busy one at D3football.com. We’re covering all of the big rivalry games and we’ll have eyes on all nine games featuring matchups where the winner will punch a ticket to the playoffs. D3football.com will be updated who has qualified automatically as it happens throughout the day. Here’s what you can watch for this week at D3football.com:

Friday: Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into this weekend’s games
Saturday: Game day. The D3football.com Scoreboard has all of your links for stats and broadcasts.
Saturday night: D3football.com’s projected NCAA bracket
Sunday: New Top 25 poll, NCAA Selection Show
Monday: Around the Nation podcast. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.
Tuesday/Wednesday: Team of the Week honors, features columns, playoff capsules
Thursday: Around the Nation column, surprises and disappointments

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There’s nothing small about small college football. Division III is home to 241 teams, and many thousands of student-athletes and coaches. There are so many more stories out there than I can find on my own. Please share your stories that make Division III football so special for all of us! Reach out to me at greg.thomas@d3sports.com or on Twitter @wallywabash to share your stories.