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| Randolph-Macon went 9-1 last season, but did not win the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, generally referred to as the ODAC. And close followers of Division III football were not surprised. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com |
By Greg Thomas
D3sports.com
There are certain things that you can count on with Week 1 of the Division III football season. Maybe it’s way-too-warm tailgates. Or too many false starts by that new offensive line group. Or wonky clock graphics on web broadcasts (hang in there — we know it gets better!). All of those things, taken together, are exhilarating. It means we made it — it’s football season.
If you’re new to D3football.com, welcome! Whether you’re a fan of a local team, a parent of a student-athlete, or a student at a Division III school, you’re about to find out how special Division III athletics are. If you’ve been following our coverage of the largest division in the NCAA for many years, welcome back. You know how fun these next 15 weeks are going to be.
A cornerstone of Division III’s philosophy is to focus on regional and conference competition. Around the Nation, as it has since 2001, finds stories, players, coaches, teams, topics, and trends that transcend their regional appeal and brings them to a broader audience. Bringing national context to regional competition is important because, after all, 11 weeks of regular season, regional competition is all prelude to the national championship tournament that will culminate with Stagg Bowl XLIX in Annapolis, Maryland.
Going Around the Nation for the Around the Nation means covering a lot of ground — literally coast to coast. This weekend we will welcome Hilbert College in Hamburg, New York, as the 240th and newest member of Division III football. On most game weeks, there will be at least 110 games to keep track of. Around the Nation will do its level best to keep an eye on as much we can to find those impactful storylines and bring them to you in this space.
Small schools, big pond
Most of Division III is made up of smaller, private schools, but Division III is the largest (by far) division in the NCAA. Despite having roughly twice the number of teams and many thousands more student-athletes that our Division I FBS counterparts, we still rank just 25 teams and name All-American teams with just 11 players per side, plus specialists. That means it’s roughly twice as difficult to make the D3football.com Top 25 than it is in Division I. It means that being named an All-American is a truly elite honor. Think about it — four quarterbacks get named to our All-American teams. Four out of 240 starting quarterbacks in the division. The exclusivity of the Top 25 or All-American lists is off the charts — something to keep in mind if your favorite team is 3-0 in a couple of weeks and not receiving Top 25 votes.
Also, schools are not classified by their enrollment in college. Division III has football-playing schools as small as Finlandia (359 full-time undergraduates) and as large as Montclair State (14,533). As long as they are not giving out athletic scholarships, they can both be members of NCAA Division III.
Where is this pond?
Division III football schools are more heavily weighted toward the northern and eastern half of the U.S. Of the 240 schools, 27 are in Pennsylvania, 21 in Ohio, 19 in Massachusetts and 19 in New York. There are more Division III football schools in Massachusetts, in fact, than there are in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones combined. Here’s a map to help you visualize this, put together by poster FCGrizzliesGrad from our message board, D3boards.com. Click to enlarge/load in a new window.
Alphabet soup
240 teams means a lot of conferences. 28 in all. Each with their own acronyms. What’s a NEWMAC? What’s the difference between the MIAC and the MIAA? You probably follow me when I mention SOS, but maybe I lose you when I start rattling off things like OOWP and RRO. We’ll endeavor this season to de-acronym things and keep our conversations detailed but accessible for our old hats and newcomers alike.
By the way, the acronyms are New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference, Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Strength of Schedule, Opponent’s Opponent’s Winning Percentage, and Regionally Ranked Opponent. Keep those last couple in your back pocket until around Halloween.
Of those 28 conferences, 27 get automatic bids to the playoffs. There are just 32 teams in the playoffs, so that leaves just five at-large bids. (The conference that doesn't get an automatic bid doesn't want one — that's the New England Small College Athletic Conference, aka the NESCAC, which sees itself as a Division III version of the Ivy League.)
In a nutshell, that’s Around the Nation. For 21 seasons, this column has been about student-athletes who play for the love of the game. That’s a special thing; as much or maybe more so today than it was when Keith McMillan wrote the first Around the Nation column in 2001. 2022 is off to a fast start — thank you for coming along for the ride!
Rising/falling
Pat and I talked about some overrated and underrated teams in Monday’s Around the Nation podcast 309, but I wanted to spend some more time on how my Top 25 ballot was influenced by St. John’s 24-10 win over UW-Whitewater and Mary Hardin-Baylor’s 62-13 win over Muhlenberg.
Ahead of Saturday’s games, my ballot mirrored the D3football.com Top 25 with UW-Whitewater ranked fourth and St. John’s ranked fifth. This week I’ve placed St. John’s third and the Warhawks only slid to fifth on my ballot. Voters this week were tasked with how to weigh a quality result in hand against the potential of teams that haven’t had the same opportunity to win a game of the magnitude that St. John’s did. I did move the Johnnies ahead of Mount Union who I didn’t learn a lot about in their easy win over Defiance (other than Mount Union will still kick a field goal on first down to make sure the scoring is suppressed), but stopped short of pushing the Johnnies ahead of North Central, who was idle in Week 1. I’d like to see the Cardinals in action before I make a decision about their relationship to St. John’s.
UMHB wholly solidified its top vote on my ballot. The Crusaders held that spot primarily on the basis of a personal tiebreaker in the preseason (when in doubt, the champs get to be No. 1), but there are no tiebreakers needed now. The Crusaders looked absolutely dominant in overwhelming a very good Muhlenberg team. The Mules did slide on my ballot from 13 to 16. I didn’t ding Muhlenberg that bad — I’m really not sure there are even 15 teams that can do better than they did in Belton on Saturday.
My biggest fall this week was Baldwin Wallace. I dropped the Yellow Jackets off my ballot from No. 17 after their loss to Mount St. Joseph. My biggest riser this week was UW-River Falls, up four spots to No. 19. The Falcons can make their own statement this weekend as they go to Clemens Stadium to take on St. John’s.
On tap
As good as Week 1 was, Week 2 might well be better. Two matchups between top 10 teams, a third top 25 game. There’s the Chowder Bowl. There’s The Golden Glazer. History for Hilbert’s first ever game. This is another huge weekend in Division III football and we’ll have you covered before and after this weekend’s games. Here’s what you can watch for every week at D3football.com:
Tomorrow: 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.
Sunday: New Top 25 poll
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
Thursday: Around the Nation column
Read options?
Small college football is actually pretty massive. Division III is home to 240 teams, 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.
