Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

By Greg Thomas
D3football.com

Division III, as we know, is the largest division of college football. Despite nearly double the number of teams, we here at D3football.com are committed to norms like ranking the top 25 teams and creating All-America teams that follow traditional positional lineups. Because we don’t scale our rankings or honor rolls to the size of the division, these lists are very exclusive. 

Although our preseason All-American team only lists three quarterbacks, there are many, many more across the division that are simply exceptional. 

• Feature on Wartburg's Nile McLaughlin, by Brian Lester
• Feature on Wabash's Liam Thompson, by Joe Sager
• Feature on Cortland's Zac Boyes, by Greg Thomas
• Feature on Mass-Dartmouth's Dante Aviles-Santos, by Brian Lester (November 2022)

Cortland is lucky to have one such quarterback in their junior signal caller, Zac Boyes. Boyes assumed control of the Red Dragon offense at the beginning of the 2022 season. Boyes inherited the offense of a team that went 11-1 the previous year, but removed any questions about his readiness to keep the Cortland offense rolling – Boyes set a school record with 543 yards passing in his first start. 

Cortland head coach Curt Fitzpatrick attributes Boyes’s readiness to play to his growing up around the game as the son of longtime Buffalo State coach and athletics director Jerry Boyes. 

“He's a coach's kid. I do think that adds to how effective he is. It adds to his maturity,” Fitzpatrick said of his quarterback. “He knows the kind of work it takes because he's been around it so long, he doesn't know any different.”

Boyes gives credit to his scout team experience and year of apprenticeship playing behind Brees Segala in 2021 for his ability to step in and have immediate success. 

“I came in very raw. I thought I knew everything and I didn't know anything,” Boyes said. “I think a big part of my growth was going against that defense we had in ‘21. I was a scout team quarterback. So I was going against them every week and it was not easy sledding, so I grew a lot from there.” 

That defense he played against daily in practice in 2021 ranked fifth in Division III in total defense. 

Boyes’s relationship with Segala also greatly influenced his development as a player and a leader. “He was huge. You know, he really helped me understand the importance of preparation and in the RPO and why we do things. When I came in, I hadn’t run a lot of RPO in high school. In high school, we kind of just ran empty and just threw the ball deep,” Boyes said. “So that was kind of my mind coming in here. 

“Brees was awesome. I mean, each week he would come, he'd ask me questions about what I think. And he had me involved each week on his process of thinking.”

Segala not only mentored Boyes on the finer points or the run-pass option, but had a similar influence on Boyes’s development as a leader. “Watching him play and watching him manage the offense as a leader. Everybody looks at the quarterback position and thinks about how they played well, but I think it's the leadership part that kind of gets lost and that's the most important part about playing quarterback,” Boyes said. “Brees was an unbelievable leader for our team and I learned a lot on how to lead an offense and how to make sure that our process each week is where we want it.”

Fitzpatrick noted the similarities in the leadership qualities of his last two Red Dragon starting quarterbacks. “They are great leaders and they're guys that their teammates rally around. I think that's a trait that as a quarterback you can't measure with height and weight and arm strength.” 

Fitzpatrick continued that Boyes and Segala both have the respect of their teammates. “Their teammates love them and their teammates rally around them. When they speak their teammates listen. Brees had that quality. Zac has that same ability.”

Cortland is off to a fast start in 2023, having notched lopsided wins over preseason No. 10 Delaware Valley and Lycoming. After his first offseason as an incumbent starter, Boyes tells Around the Nation that this veteran Red Dragon team started several steps ahead of where it was 12 months ago. 

Boyes said, “I think there were a lot more questions answered (this offseason). Going into my first year starting, we had a lot of question marks. We lost a lot of key pieces and we didn't know what kind of team we were. And then the way the season ended put a very sour taste in our mouth and the guys in our building right now all kind of have that sour feeling still because of the disappointment that happened at the end of the last season.”

Indeed, after a 9-0 start, Cortland ended the 2022 campaign with losses to rival Ithaca in the Cortaca Jug game and a first round defeat at Randolph-Macon in the playoffs. Boyes is determined to not repeat last year’s end of season run. 

“I was telling the guys yesterday that my biggest fear is complacency. Because that's what I felt like happened last year. And that's something that I'm really preaching to the guys that I'm not going to let happen this year as a leader and as a captain. I felt like I let the guys down a little bit and I wasn't as Hard on them or as much of a leader as I should have been because I thought that we were just gonna come out and do our thing,” Boyes recalled. 

“And that's just not how football works, man. There's a process that goes into this. There's a reason why you play the way you do on Saturdays, and it's because of your preparation,” Boyes finished. 

The first three weeks of 2023 have not given Cortland time to be complacent. After opening their season with Delaware Valley, Cortland will play their fourth ranked team in their past five games when they host Susquehanna this Saturday. 

Not surprisingly, Boyes had a quick scouting report on this weekend’s opponent. “We're going to treat each week like we're playing these top teams because we are. This Susquehanna team coming up is going to give us fits,” Boyes said. “They're very well coached. They do a lot of really good things and you know, if we start drinking our own Kool-Aid, that's when we can become complacent.”

Out of conference scheduling has been a hot topic, and Cortland is one of the teams that have noticeably raised their degree of difficulty in the non-conference portion of their season. Fitzpatrick’s experience on Regional Advisory Committees spurred him to pursue strong opponents early in the season. “It helped me realize how important strength of schedule is to not only seeding, but in preparing your team to be the best that you can be,” Fitzpatrick said. “When I first got hired here at Cortland, we wanted to play marquee games. We have aspirations of being an NCAA tournament team again, and if we're gonna be the best team we can be in November, then we need to challenge ourselves in the non-conference schedule.”

The marquee games are motivating for Boyes and his teammates as well. “You play for these big games and these big moments. I wouldn't have it any other way, man. I want to play the best teams each week.

“I wish we could play top 10 teams each week. This is why you play. This is what gets the blood flowing. And it's going to be best for our program to get these games in.”

A decade before  we here at Around The Nation were hanging on to UW-Whitewater mega-games against St. John’s and UMHB, there was Buffalo State in 2012 knocking off the top-ranked Warhawks in Whitewater- for my money, the single biggest upset in the D3football.com era. 

A very young Zac Boyes had a front row seat to that piece of history. “I honestly got some chills when you brought that up because that is my first fond memory of football when I was younger. I want to say I was about eight years old or 10 years old. Me and Ryan Bitka, our center and captain with me and one of my best friends growing up, we hopped on that bus and, and drove 10 hours down to Whitewater,” Boyes recalled. 

“It was the coolest, coolest experience of my life. Because no one had any faith besides those guys in that bus. There was never a glimmer of being scared. There was always hope, there was belief in each other. It was us against the world,” Boyes said. “And that's what made me love football because it's any given Saturday. That game was very, very, very, very special for me. And I'm trying to experience that as a player. That's why you play these big games.” 

Having seen first hand what is possible against the upper echelon of the division, Boyes is eager for Cortland to earn the opportunity his father’s team had in 2012. “That would be pretty cool if we had to go to Whitewater and play there. That would be very special for me if they had to come and play us here. Any of those teams- Mount Union, you know, we strive to be those kind of those programs that have been dominant and that's what we're trying to build here. To be a part of it is very special and we have a long way to go, but you know, that’s the dream.”

Top 25 talk

Early season poll volatility is always exciting, but some of it might need some further inquiry. You see, through two weeks we’re already starting to tangle results with common opponents and those entanglements are causing some movements that are strange without context. Let’s take a look at UW-Whitewater, St. John’s, Trinity (Texas), and John Carroll. Following their big win against St. John’s, the Warhawks jumped in the poll from No. 8 to No. 4 -- a move that comes along with one shiny first place vote. It’s hard to argue that anybody has collected a pair of wins as impressive as UW-Whitewater, so that vote is justified (although it isn’t my vote). 

St. John’s, on the other hand slid from No. 4 to No. 9 -- essentially switching places with UW-Whitewater, which is  logical. Now here’s where it gets a little weird. Trinity won impressively over UMHB,  one of the division’s most dominant teams in recent history, but fell one spot from No. 5 to No. 6. Stranger still, John Carroll didn’t play at all and their poll position vaulted from No. 21 to No. 17. What gives? 

Trinity and St. John’s are, for the better part of this season I believe, going to be loosely tethered to one another given their Week 1 overtime classic. As one moves, so will the other until such time as additional results inform voters that the Week 1 result was an outlier one way or another. That’s how I’m currently pairing the Tigers and Johnnies. Last week I ranked St. John’s No. 4 and Trinity No. 5. This week that pair is No. 7 and No. 8 on my ballot, in the same order. Indeed, Trinity’s win over UMHB put a floor on how far down I would move the pair. 

Similarly, the overall poll mirrors my treatment of idle John Carroll. I was impressed enough with John Carroll in their Week 1 loss to UW-Whitewater that I moved the Blue Streaks up from No. 19 to No. 16 following that result. UW-Whitewater’s impressive showing against St. John’s, informs me that I might have been undervaluing UW-Whitewater, and it follows that I might have undervalued that Week 1 result for John Carroll. The Blue Streaks gained three more spots on my ballot No. 13 after Week 2. 

And just to close the loop, UW-Whitewater has moved from No. 13 on my preseason ballot to No. 3 after two games. 

I do appreciate how our voters have treated the early season results. Part of what makes this poll stand up so well over time is the voter’s willingness to contextualize results. A loss doesn’t necessarily mandate a position drop of 10 spots. Previous results can and should be reevaluated when more data comes in. The voters had a lot to digest after Week 2, and I think the movements that we saw for teams that lost or were idle show a sophisticated treatment of the available data. 

On tap 

It’s already been a September to remember, but believe it or not we’ve got three more September Saturdays to go. We’re watching a pair of ranked matchups this week as well as some very meaningful games between conference rivals as more conferences kick off their races for the automatic bids. We also welcome the NESCAC to the fold this week!  As always, we’ll be here to cover it all. 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

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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.