Every season ends with new people, if not new programs, tasting the joy of winning. But this triumph felt more delicious because of all it taught and reminded us about why we play the game, and who it helps us become. Keith McMillan has more from Canton.
www.d3football.com/playoffs/202... #d3fb
You would have to go back to 1994 to find a season which none of these four teams was a semifinalist, and back to 1990 and 1991 to find back-to-back seasons with neither.
1992 was the first year Mount Union reached the semifinals, and 1993 marked the Purple Raiders first championship.
If you add in 2004, the first year another powerhouse rose alongside Mount Union, it’s 48 of 84 semifinal appearances (still 57%). That was the year Mary Hardin-Baylor won 38-35 in Alliance and announced itself as a force in #d3fb
Twice, in 2021 and 2013, they have taken up all four spots in the semifinals.
The semifinals throughout these 20 seasons have always featured at least one of the big four #d3fb powerhouses, with Mount Union appearing 17 times, UW-Whitewater 13, UHMB 9 and North Central 7.
In the 20 seasons since since the playoffs expanded to 32 teams in 2005, Mount Union, UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor and North Central have accounted for 46 of the 80 #d3fb semifinalists (57.5%) and 34 of the 38 Stagg Bowl participants, and 18 of the 19 champions.
He leads a third-year program making a push for the quarterfinals while six schools with Stagg Bowl pedigree (NCC, MtU, SJU, UW-L, Trinity, Salisbury) and five more which have been in the semis previously (Wheaton, Bethel, JCU, JHU, Susquehanna) remain.
Regardless of how the Round of 16 plays out, Eastern's Billy Crocker has to be the odds-on favorite for #d3fb Coach of the Year.
Rather than go for it on fourth and goal for a second time, Salisbury opts for a 20-yard field goal to cut Hopkins' lead to 14-10.
Sea Gulls now have a 69-yard pass that led to 7 points, and two trips inside the 3-yard line that have netted 3.
Neither team has punted. #d3fb
Johns Hopkins comes up with a fourth-down stop inside the 5 against Salisbury after a convoluted sequence where both teams are penalized. Big stop, but bigger context: Sea Gulls have 144 yards of offense as the second quarter begins, tied at 7. #d3fb
And our Quick Hits octet returns with score predictions for all eight games in this #d3fb Round of 16. Enjoy the games!
d3football.com/notables/202...
Johns Hopkins ties it at 7 with a Bay Harvey TD run to cap a methodical 11-play drive mixing run and pass. Fourth-down conversion for 19 yards to the RB out of the backfield was the key play.
Salisbury 7, JHU 7 7:49 1st. #d3fb
Eight games today in the #d3fb playoffs, Round of 16. Everything kicks at noon local time, so five are simultaneously underway, and three more start in an hour.
Salisbury scores on a 69-yard first-play *pass* to get on the board early at Johns Hopkins.
SU 7, JHU 0 14:45 1st. #d3fb
Great day for passing here in Baltimore. Weather is in the mid-40s, and although it snowed lightly in the Mid-Atlantic on Thursday and Friday, there's nothing on the ground here at Homewood Field. #d3fb
One of my #d3fb nerd pet peeves is when a home broadcast team makes a grand proclamation that someone is the best coach/player/whatever in Division III.
You’ve seen 12 of the 241 teams. You have no idea.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but nobody in Virginia or North Carolina calls it the O-D-A-C.
Oh-dack forever. #d3fb
Mount Union 2021: Needs overtime to beat Muhlenberg, 35-29.
Mount Union 2025: Up 35-0 on Muhlenberg at halftime.
In case you were unsure whether the Purple Raiders were back-back. #d3fb
This should look pretty different after the Round of 32 tomorrow and Round of 16 next Saturday.
But does that PLU land just never get conquered since they're not in the postseason?
It’s #d3fb playoff season! We’ve got the annual Around The Nation Playoff Surprises & Disappointments column:
d3football.com/columns/arou...
It’d take a Hardin-Simmons upset of a Mount Union team that might be Canton-bound, but my preseason 20 Questions semifinal picks for @d3football are all in position.
Two of the other pick combos could happen, and a fourth is prevented only by the #d3fb bracket:
www.d3football.com/notables/202...
Johns Hopkins (correctly) getting a bye while CC champ that just beat them F&M does not.
The scarce money for first-round flights went to sending Framingham State to LaGrange. Okay.
DePauw at UW-Whitewater best matchup?
Potential for Union vs. Mount Union in Round 2.
Snap reactions from the #d3fb bracket reveal:
- Springfield at Cortland a rematch of last year's mild upset. R-MC at JCU a rematch of the Yellow Jackets' playoff upset in 2018.
- SCIAC champ at NWC champ, 2 Texas teams playing their first game against each other for billionth straight year. (more)
The teams with the highest NPI that did not make the field:
Ohio Northern, 8-2 (NPI 36)
Utica, 8-2 (37)
Central, 8-2 (38)
Ithaca, 8-2 (39)
UMHB, 5-2 in D-III, 7-3 overall (40)
Wash. U., 8-2 (43)
Baldwin Wallace, 8-2 (45)
That outcome seems to be why Alma is in and ONU is out.
The MIAA has two #d3fb playoff participants in the same season for the first time in the post-1999 automatic bid era.
That 29-26 overtime-win-that-wasn't by Alma vs. Hope on Sept. 26 has wide-ranging implications: Both teams are in the field, but 8-2 Alma isn't w/out that win.
This season, the Centennial Conference will also have three in the postseason.
Last season, the PAC and SAA placed three teams each. The WIAC had two.
In Weeks 6-8 this season, six WIAC teams were ranked in the #d3fb top 25.
UW-River Falls, 9-1 (conference champ, NPI 6) and at-larges UW-Platteville, 8-2 (14), UW-Whitewater, 8-2 (18) &
UW-La Crosse, 7-2 (23) made it.
The WIAC becomes the first #d3fb conference to place four teams in the playoffs in a season. Prior to last season's expansion of the field to 40, only the Empire 8 in 2007 and the WIAC in 2016 had ever placed so many as 3 teams, at least during the automatic-bid era post-1999.
- It’s time to start seriously looking at NESCAC teams, starting w/ Wesleyan’s two-TD win vs. Middlebury. While they still won’t have noncon play or playoffs til ‘26, not starting deep into Sept. means we can begin to evaluate. NESCAC teams win titles in other sports. They can be top 25 in football.
- After the Cortland Stagg Bowl win, it was time to adjust old ways of thinking. Yes, I can vote for three Northeast-ish teams in the top 5, and put DePauw at 6.
- You think I *like* voting for Hampden-Sydney instead of Randolph-Macon? But two wins over perennial playoff-caliber programs is two wins.