Joey Menke ran for more tnan 100 yards, including a 73-yard touchdown run, to help Juniata get back in the win column. Juniata athletics photo

By Greg Thomas
D3sports.com

In last week’s edition of Quick Hits, the panel was presented with an opportunity to pick a long streak of some sort to end. While Quick Hits is intended to be a primer for that weekend’s Division III action, even I have to admit that it is a rare occasion that Quick Hits appears to predict the next day’s action as well as it did when many long streaks found their end. 

The longest streak busted this weekend was busted by the Bowdoin College Polar Bears, but you didn't have to go all the way to Brunswick, Maine to see it happen. The Polar Bears opened their season with a 26-12 win at Hamilton College — Bowdoin’s first win away from their home field after 33 consecutive road losses. 

Fifth year head coach B.J. Hammer told Around the Nation that his team didn’t shy away from that streak while preparing for its season opener. “We kind of dangled as a carrot in front of them. [The players] probably know more about that stuff than I do at times. I didn't even think about it, until right before the week before the game. I think it was just a good extra motivator for our guys to kind of set the tone for the season.”

As notable as winning on the road for the first time since 2014 might be that Bowdoin has started now started consecutive seasons with a win for the first time since the 1990-1991 seasons which is an accomplishment that predates all of Bowdoin’s players and a good deal of their coaching staff. 

Bowdoin’s improvement during Hammer’s tenure is clear. The streaks that all teams want to shed are falling. Wins are starting to accumulate. The three wins from 2022 were a 10-year highwater mark for the Polar Bears. Now, in 2023, the young players Hammer relied on in his first two seasons are seasoned veterans. 

“The great thing right now is my first recruiting class are technically seniors. A lot of those guys all have the extra year because of COVID. They all came in the fall of 2020. So, we've been building this. We have a few fifth-year seniors that that were here when I first got here and they're some of our best players,” Hammer said. 

Some of those players are quarterback Andrew Boel, wide receiver Colton Fahey, tight end Brendan King, and all-conference running back Andre Eden. They lead an offense which opened up a 26-0 lead on Saturday. 

Hammer spoke of the development of this young core of players: “The biggest thing was getting our young players in the weight room and building them. And all these guys, Colton Fahey, Andre Eden, Andrew Boel, and Brendan King, these guys are all weight room guys.”

Having set the tone with an opening week win, Hammer thinks the Polar Bears are ready to continue climbing in the NESCAC standings. “I think we have, over the last couple of years, bridged the gap and have been very competitive in every game we've played. I felt like Trinity and Tufts kind of got away from us and rightly so. They were very good teams last year.”

In the NESCAC, every game is a game against a rival school in a matchup that has been played seemingly since the beginning of American football. “Every game is someone you’ve played nearly a hundred times and it's a big deal,” Hammer said.

“Then obviously we got our main rivals here with Bates and Colby. And I mean, Maine with an E at the end. That's a fun one for us. We want to win the C-B-B. Obviously first we’re focused on Williams. We want to get after and play physical football and play sound and poised.” 

Juniata

At Juniata, the program building has really just begun under first year head coach Blake Treadwell, but the early returns have been positive as the Eagles snapped a 17-game losing streak by rallying to beat Hartwick 31-21. 

At Juniata, Treadwell and his players acknowledged the streak an will use it as in important building block. “We don't try to keep any secrets here. It was behind a lot of guys' minds. We wanted to obviously break that thing. Every team wants to. And sometimes it can carry weight on a team as well, Treadwell said. “So we talked about it. I said, ‘hey guys, just trust the process. We're there. You just have to believe and instill that confidence.’”

The Eagles’ didn’t start quite as well as Bowdoin did in their streak-snapping win, falling behind Hartwick 14-3 in the first quarter. “We were rocked a little bit in that first half. In the second half, we got some turnovers and that kind of helped us get going,” Treadwell said. “But you can see during the game, especially the second half, there's a lot of excitement. We had a great atmosphere.”

As a first year coach, Treadwell’s new direction and new messaging requires a great deal of trust from his players initially, but now with the Eagles in the win column and their long streak snapped, that Treadwell can see that trust converting to belief. Wanting to break a long streak is one thing. Everyone wants to break a long losing streak, obviously. Actually doing so is the proof that the hard work is paying off. “It's kind of like chipping away at that rock,” Treadwell said. “You know, you keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. I told the guys to trust it, it will break, and it finally did.”

Treadwell told Around the Nation that he’s influenced by books written by coaching legends like Bill Walsh and Nick Saban. A consistent theme from those coaches with legendary success is that with focus on the team’s process and preparation, the positive results on game days will take care of themselves. 

“The process will get you to the outcome you want. We really talked about everyone being bought in. There's no more one foot in and one foot out, both feet are in and we're all together,” Treadwell said. 

“That's probably the biggest thing that we've been preaching hard since I took over with the coaching staff and the seniors. Obviously it's new change. They've been through a lot of changes, but it was just all of us being on the same page with our core values of communication, love, accountability.”

Thiel

In his first year at Thiel in 2022, coach Sam Bauman led his team to a victory that at the time snapped a 41-game overall losing streak. On Saturday, Bauman’s Tomcats snapped another long streak by delivering a 22-14 win over Bethany in front of their home fans. Thiel had dropped their previous 27 games at Alumni Field, a winless streak that stretches to 2016. 

In the closing moments of the win in front of their home fans, Bauman found himself trying to make sure that victory formation was the right call. “Oh, it was fun. It’s a little nerve wracking. You got the sheet out. You're trying to make sure that you don't go into victory formation too early. So I was doing the math a little bit, but that's good math. That's good stress,” Bauman said. 

“Watching the guys take that knee and realizing that we were able to get it done and win that game was pretty fun and exciting. And then the tradition here is to ring our victory bell after we get the win.” Indeed, the victory bell outside of Alumni Field was in motion following the cursory handshake line and team breakdown. Surrounded by family, friends, and classmates, Thiel’s players let Greenville, Pa., audibly know that the Tomcats were victorious at home on this Saturday. 

With the streaks long gone now, Bauman told his team that the focus can shift now to accumulating wins. Bauman appreciates the progress his team is making when the next win isn’t as momentous. “I don't have to keep every game ball after a win anymore because there are no more streaks. We're now just about playing football. And I think, as a head coach, that's something that I'm excited about,” Bauman said. “It's not anything more than going out there on Saturday, competing against ourselves and against the opponent that we play against so that we can really start to do things that I'm excited to be able to do, which is hopefully win multiple games.”

Moving on to the next game and the next win is something Bauman’s players are ready for as well. “I think last year the goal was to get one. This year I think as a team our goal is to do more. We're not satisfied just by ending a streak and getting the one win this season.”

“So we have a lot of games left, which is exciting. I think as a program, it's cool to see even the upperclassmen really switch that narrative — this was great, but we're on to the next,” Bauman continued. “We are in much better shape than we were last year when we had a bye week and we were trying to go into the next week, we were still kind of relishing that win. Our mindset has switched already, which is a really good sign as a football team.”

There is reason for optimism that additional wins could be on the way, which would be a first for Thiel in a single season since 2016. “We’ve definitely been taking steps in the right direction,” Bauman said of his team’s development: “We talked about it as a staff going into the season. We knew we were better, we just weren't sure how much better. We're still in that process of trying to figure it out. But you know, I think the groundwork is here. And the guys who were in this program before I got here really embraced what we were trying to do, the changes we were trying to make.”

“It's led to some really good success. So I'm excited to keep that rolling, continue to push these guys to be the best versions of themselves. It’s been good and I'm excited for the future for sure.”

All weighed down by lengthy streaks in recent years, Bowdoin, Juniata, and Thiel used Week 3 of the 2023 season to release the pressure that comes with losing streaks that go on long enough to become their own characteristic of a program. Through persistence, optimism about what’s possible through hard work, and the development of their student-athletes, the head coaches at these programs have been able to now untether from those lengthy streaks and set their sights on continued improvement and climbing further up their own conference standings and ultimately, they all hope, challenge for championships. 

More streaking

It was a big week in Division III for ending long streaks and it wouldn’t be proper to get through this column and not acknowledge Buffalo State ending their team’s division-long 26-game losing streak with an emphatic 41-7 win at Dean. Congratulations to the Bengals! 

With that win, the longest win drought in Division III now belongs to Albright at 20 games. There are just five double digit losing streaks in the division currently: 

According to Logan Hansen’s predictive ratings, Bethany has the best chance to snap its streak this week with a 23.5% chance to win vs. Allegheny. 

Perhaps surprising if you’re new to Division III, there aren’t a lot of long active winning streaks. While not every team will end their season with a loss, most long streaks will get broken in the postseason tournament. It’s no surprise then that the defending champion, North Central has the longest active win streak at 17 games. The NESCAC does not participate in the postseason, so a dominant stretch by a repeat conference champion can also accumulate a long streak. Indeed, Trinity (Conn.) has the only other double digit win streak at 12 games. The top five longest active win streaks are:

On tap 

While pockets of the division have another week or two of non-conference play, the chase for most of the 28 automatic bids to the playoffs will be underway this weekend. Big conference games are on tap this weekend in the MAC, MIAC, and SCIAC. From Friday night lights in Beverly, Mass., to that big Saturday night showdown in Orange, California, we’ve got Week 4 covered. 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

I’d like to thank…

Special thanks this week to Sam Bauman, BJ Hammer, and Blake Treadwell for spending time with Around The Nation this week. Additional thanks to Thiel Associate Director of Athletics and Sports Information Director Ed Topoleski, Bowdoin Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Jim Caton, and Juniata Bowdoin Assistant Athletic Director for Communications Benjamin Grant for coordinating our conversations!

Read options?

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.