When Hendrix and Centre met in 2014, it was a dry day and the passing games were in full force. It was not the same in 2015. 2014 Hendrix photo by Madison Dealing

DANVILLE, Ky. -- Teams and fans on the East Coast had to manage two days of pummeling rain -- on top of already saturated ground from a week ago in many areas. It was difficult and messy, and safety for all involved took top priority at many institutions.

Three games were postponed or canceled, there were a handful of changes to kickoff times, and others relocated to avoid damaging their grass fields.

Hampden-Sydney plays on a grass surface and moved its game from campus to a high school a little more than an hour away in Forest, Va. Ferrum has been playing on a local high school field as the college installs artificial turf, but that game, too, was moved because the high school has a grass field.

The Panthers played against Greensboro on Friday night at a high school in Roanoke, Va., and were perhaps the first team of the weekend to use the weather to their advantage -- or, more accurately, the weather worked to the Pride's disadvantage. It was a downpour the entire time the clocked ticked, and Ferrum's run-heavy offense was more adept in the conditions than was Greensboro's pass-heavy game, giving the Panthers their first win of the season.

The storms often proved to be a distraction from the games of the weekend. Coaches were altering game plans and coming up with a contingency approach in case their teams were caught in a downpour with little option but to run the ball. A big question going into Saturday was what was going to happen to pass-heavy offense and their star quarterback-receiver tandems that love picking apart their defenders.

Though Kentucky doesn’t touch the Atlantic and didn't get the kind of rain that the Carolinas and Virginia and other coastal states got, it was soggy, overcast and threatening to rain all day. (As an aside, it was strange to visit Danville, stay in Richmond, drive through Winchester and skirt Lexington and recognize that, despite the familiar names, this wasn't Virginia.)

The two teams I saw playing, Centre and Hendrix, each boast stellar offenses (Centre came in averaging 544 yards a game; Hendrix 470 yards) behind quarterbacks who are both former first-team All-SAA choices (Centre's Heath Haden in 2013; Hendrix's Seth Peters in 2014). A light drizzle came and went often in the hours leading up to the game, and it became a question of whether Haden and Peters would be able to showcase their aerial attack or whether the teams' capable running games would be featured. Centre has two rushers who hover around 100 yards a game average (Nolan Coulter and Amoh Kumengisa), and Hendrix has Dayton Winn, who carried with him a 142-yard average ahead of Saturday.

The rain held off, but that didn’t stop the ground game from leading the charge: Hendrix went all-in for the Winn during the 51-48 shootout. The junior running back had a career day, amassing 283 yards and five touchdowns.

He earned every bit of it.

Winn, who measures in at just 5-10, 155 pounds, showed amazing speed and an ability to read his blockers and find holes. But there was more to him than his quickness out of the backfield -- getting an initial hand on him was no guarantee of a tackle. He sloughed off tacklers and was adept at pushing the pile to gain a couple of extra yards on a try.

 “They just kept giving me the ball and letting me make plays” Winn said after the game. “Our line was opening things up, and our receivers were getting their blocks and sticking on guys, giving me space to do some work.”

He said that he connected with his teammates on the field and is able to recognize their body language to help him know where holes are opening up.

“I didn’t come in expecting to have an outrageous day,” he said. “We just came in here prepared to do our work and get ready to play Centre.”

Hendrix’s win is notable particularly given the team’s struggles during road games. Since restarting the program in 2013, the Warriors were 2-8 in away games going into the weekend.

To come into the home of Centre and get the win “is a big, big step in our program,” Winn said.

For both Centre and Hendrix, the offensive lines performed near perfectly, giving their quarterbacks time to throw the ball and creating space for rushers. Peters passed for 262 yards, while Haden had 131. Both quarterbacks benefitted from tall receivers -- in the range of 6-2 to 6-6 -- who took advantage of shorter secondaries.

Worth mentioning, too, was field position. A blocked punt recovered in the end zone and a fumble inside the 5 yard line gave Centre some quick scores, while the kick returners for Centre we stellar, putting the team past the 40 yard line on six occasions. Cody Estep had four returns for a total of 120 yards and had a big tackle on special teams.

While the shootout was going on, Top 25 teams were weathering losses and surviving close games. Of the ranked teams that lost to unranked teams on Saturday -- No. 11 John Carroll, No. 19 Ithaca, No. 20 Bethel and No. 23 Guilford -- it’s hard to find any that were particularly surprising.

I’ve voiced my skepticism here and in Triple Take about John Carroll’s spot in the polls and revealed last week that I had dropped the Blue Streaks off of my ballot entirely. The OAC’s top team, Mount Union, is clearly still a national power, but there is a distinct drop off after that in the conference -- bigger than any we’ve seen in the recent years.

I did think that Ithaca was shaping up to be the front-runner in the rip-roaring Empire 8, but the overtime loss to Utica (as well as Cortland State’s overtime win over Hartwick) shows just how vulnerable the teams there are and how difficult it will be for Top 25 voters to make sense of the teams and their strengths.

Bethel’s loss isn’t a surprise either (I had picked the Royals as my Top 25 upset in Friday’s Triple Take). The Royals were a team that was hovering at the bottom of my ballot more because of their potential than because of any quality wins they had logged this season. It’s likely they’ll drop off of just about everyone’s poll when it’s released later today.

As for Guilford: This result would have been a surprise if it wasn’t played in the dreary, rainy and windy Saturday that Virginia saw. The upset by Washington and Lee was a credit to the school’s potent triple-option offense, and Guilford’s pass-heavy attack was bound to struggle. The Pride’s All-Conference quarterback, Matt Pawlowski, who is Top 20 in the nation in passing, left the game in the second quarter with an injury. But the weather was stifling his abilities, and Guilford had managed just 3 points before Pawlowski was out.

Two Top 25 clashes

Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan will surely go into more detail of the UW-Whitewater/UW-Platteville game and the Thomas More/Washington and Jefferson game in the ATN Podcast on Monday morning, so I will leave you with this: I think expectations played out. The higher-ranked teams did as they were supposed to, and for me personally, there isn’t going to be a lot of moving these teams around on my ballot.

What this does have me thinking about is where the dropoff is in the Top 25 poll. The top five are traditional powers, but where’s the next shelf? After No. 10, maybe after wherever Thomas More ends up? This is something I want to revisit in this space soon.

E8 excitement

Last year for an Around the Nation column, I wrote about the parity of the Empire 8, where teams were adept at beating up on one another. In few other conferences was it so apparent that anyone could win on any given week.

It seems 2015 isn't much different.

There are a few conferences across the nation where the top-to-bottom strength is regularly on display. The tight games of Top25 teams Ithaca and Cortland State show that the E8 is one of those groups, along with the Centennial and ODAC. The MIAC deserves mention, too, as a conference that might not see its No. 7 or 8 team swooping in for an upset, but there are certainly possibilities for the top and middle of the pack to beat each other up.

A few other thoughts

I wish I knew what to make of Ohio Northern. The Polar Bears’ loss to Baldwin Wallace is such a blemish only because BW lost to Bluffton. Otherwise, ONU’s record, with wins now over Utica (who just beat Ithaca), Heidelberg and John Carroll should be inspiring a lot of love right now. ONU is likely going to end up the second-best team in the OAC, but I don’t see them making the playoffs (unless there’s a flashback to 2005 next Saturday). The Polar Bears couldn’t be any more ready for a showdown with Mount Union, and a close game could be a good indicator of where the team really stands, Baldwin Wallace game notwithstanding.

Big kudos to Finlandia. The Lions should be proud of the program’s first win, and it’s something the team can surely use to further build upon. Not to mention that these two teams play each other again this season in Week 9.

Chapman’s 2014 surge into the postseason seems decidedly in the past as the Panthers endured their third loss of the season, this time in overtime against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Chapman’s Andrew Chavez had his first solid game of the season (this year is his first time starting at quarterback since 2012), but the team is still waiting for first-team All-SCIAC rusher Jeremiah McKibbins to notch a banner 2015 game.

There are a handful of unranked undefeated teams that we should be keeping in the back of our minds as we’ll see some hefty conference clashes in the coming weeks. Chicago, Gettysburg, DePauw, Albion, Whitworth, Washington and Lee, Stevenson and Illinois Wesleyan are at the top of my list, while there are a handful of others that the jury is still out on (give it a couple of more weeks).

A touching gesture

In the wake of the deadly shootings at Umpqua Community College, fellow Oregon institution Linfield wore stickers on their helmets in a show of solidarity with UCC and as a tribute to the victims.

@catdomealumni tweeted this out on Saturday:

https://twitter.com/catdomealumni/status/650044242681704448

Weekend recap, columns, tweets and more

For the facts and figures of this weekend in football, check out D3football.com’s Top 25 recap (http://www.d3football.com/notables/2015/09/week5-top25-roundup) and the national roundup (http://www.d3football.com/notables/2015/09/week5-roundup).

There will be a handful of opportunities each week for me to showcase what’s going on nationally in Division III. On:

• Sundays, look for my reaction and recap of Saturday’s games in Snap Judgments;
• Thursdays, see my centerpiece feature story of the week;
• Fridays, read our Triple Take prediction column, where Pat, Keith and I give you some things to look out for in the following day’s games, including the top matchups and upset possibilities.

Between all that will be D3football.com’s regional columns, the ATN podcast, and the team of the week, among other things. Don’t go too far!

Follow me on Twitter at @NewsTipps, as well as D3football.com’s main account, @d3football.

(Also, if you are tweeting about Division III football, don't forget to use the #d3fb hashtag.)