In 2007, the Division III football world not only grew, but grew interconnected. Around the Nation went coast-to-coast and border state-to-border state, along the way meeting fans who best knew each other through message-board monikers, and others who had taken an interest in each other’s teams or were hanging out on their own time, largely without our help.

It was a running theme all season, and a natural progression that was perhaps long overdue.

I tried starting the Year in Review during the playoffs, and I still didn’t get through everything until mid-January, perhaps also documenting the way we grew in 2007. There is a payoff for staying with us this long. The third of three installments is the most fun -- we poke fun at ourselves and others for preseason hits and misses, feature off-the-beaten path memories and insight from staff, readers and coaches, and hand out our always-popular unofficial awards. You're bound to enjoy the never-before-printed insights and humorous moments

If you missed parts 1 and 2, they’re linked below. Once you get your fill, Around the Nation goes into hibernation until Kickoff ’08 and the annual Week 1 preview.

Christmas Day 2007: Great games, plays and statistics
Jan. 9, 2008: Standout players, coaches and teams
Today: Our awards, In Retrospect (revisiting preseason predictions), The Year in Photos and Miscellaneous
Also: All-Region and All-American teams


The Glass Ceiling Awards
Might as well start things off with a cheap shot. The NCAA playoff selection committee's shuffling of the bracket was a monumental advance that made 2007 memorable, even though the East Region bracket went through Alliance, Ohio (home of Mount Union, if this is your first visit to the site). The Purple Raiders were the first East Region champion to make it to Salem since 1999, when Rowan lost to Pacific Lutheran, but the Purple Raiders' semi-surprising loss meant the last national champion to come from the East remains Ithaca in 1991. Division III football was quite a different beast then, as evidenced by the Bombers' first-round win against Glassboro State (now Rowan) that year. Mass-Lowell, which has since gone to Division II and dropped football, was in the East bracket. And Ithaca defeated Dayton, now Division I, in the Stagg Bowl, which was held in Bradenton, Fla.

The Crazy Schedule Awards
This award usually goes to a member of the ACFC, since the five-team conference leaves so many open dates to fill, and craziness ensues. Frostburg State, an ACFC member, gets it hands down this year, albeit for the first time. The Bobcats took on seven road games, including five in a row to start the season. Only six opponents were Division III members, and they scrambled late to pick up a game at I-AA Duquesne to fill a ninth date. Although their road trips took them to upstate New York and the Virginia peninsula, there were some bright moments in Frostburg's 2-7 year: The Bobcats dealt 8-2 Randolph-Macon one of its defeats, and they played the Regents Cup rivalry game with Salisbury at Navy's stadium, the first time the game was held in Annapolis.

It's only 1,095 miles from La Crosse, Wis., to Abilene, Texas. No sweat. Wait, it was September in Texas, so sweat there was.

We always salute aggressive scheduling, whether it be Hardin-Simmons hosting UW-La Crosse then going cross-country to Linfield or Montclair State filling its three pre-NJAC slots with teams that had won their divisions and at least one playoff game in 2006. (The Redhawks scheduled Wilkes, Springfield and Wesley, which turned out to be not as tough as it looked). The MAC going from 11 teams to eight opened up all kinds of power matchups in the mid-Atlantic, and the small-conference teams like Wesley and Salisbury, as well as isolated teams in the Southwest and Pacific Coast, took on all comers as they often do. The non-conference battles early on were great to see, and I love that we can have our cake (a 32-team playoff) and eat it too (with meaningful games each and every week). Division I-A supporters were tripping over themselves saluting the weekly poll shakeups, while we got that and a legitimate national champion. That's directly attributed to the coaches who passed on the free passes and took on the strongest opponents limited budgets could accommodate.

The Crazy Road Trip Award
There are those who must take odd road trips, because of conference alignment (Colorado College joining the SCAC gave the old Sul Ross State-Mississippi College game in the ASC several runs for its money), geographic isolation (Whitworth and UW-Stout) or the difficulty in scheduling opponents, period (UW-La Crosse at Azusa Pacific).

Then there are the teams who seem to just schedule each other because they like it. Kenyon and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps don't have many nearby peers when it comes to schools who recruit the same pool of student-athletes they do, and that appears to be the only rationale for having the Lords (of central Ohio) and Stags (of southern California) -- 2,300 miles apart, which would be nearly a day and a half's drive -- get together. It must've been the highlight of the season for both, as CMS never again left California, and the Lords, who hosted the game, left Ohio once, to go to Earlham, which is about four miles past the Ohio-Indiana border.

Alumni Awards
Redskins linebacker London Fletcher, a John Carroll alum, is the torchbearer when it comes to successful NFL pros from Division III. But Coe's Fred Jackson made strides this season, appearing in eight games for the Bills and finishing as their second-leading rusher. Trinity (Texas) grad Jerheme Urban couldn't stick with his home-state Cowboys, but caught on with the Cardinals and had 22 catches for 329 yards and two TDs in 10 games. 2007 UW-Whitewater grad Derek Stanley was active for the Rams' last three games. Michael Allan, a Chiefs rookie out of Whitworth, was active in Weeks 1, 16 and 17.

K.C. Keeler coached Delaware to the I-AA championship game, his second appearance with his alma mater after going to five Stagg Bowls with Rowan. Though he’s 1-6 in national championship games, his one win coming with the Blue Hens in 2003, seven title games in 15 years as a head coach is pretty darn impressive -- not to mention he should have gone to an eighth after 2001’s infamous "clock game."

In the pro coaching ranks, some guy named Bill Belichick (Wesleyan) has the Patriots in the Super Bowl again, with a couple of John Carroll grads on his staff. But he still has to answer to some other guy, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (Washington and Jefferson), every now and again.

That's just a sampling of what Division III alums are accomplishing elsewhere in the football world.

The Open Mike Awards
Even after his team got beat 28-0 in a relatively drama-free game at Wesley in Week 5, Huntingdon’s Mike Turk was kind enough to stick around and talk to D3football.com Publisher Pat Coleman and I for nearly 30 minutes while his players showered and loaded the bus that later took them to a chartered flight from Delaware back to Alabama.

Because of their take-on-all-comers schedule as an independent, seeing Huntingdon provided us an invaluable tool in gauging conference strength. Turk pulled no punches in helping us get a feel for the differences.

"The last four teams we played have combined for one loss coming into the day. Oshkosh, good God. I’ll be honest with you -- they are the most disciplined machine. It’s incredible to watch. I made this statement during that game: ‘you know what, it’s not hard to figure out why Whitewater can beat Wesley like they do every year, because they have kids that can run with Wesley’s speed, and they have big kids that can match up physically, but they are so finely tuned it’s unreal.’ "

And yet Turk had a ton of respect for Wesley. Having coached at Division I Troy before Huntingdon, Turk said players like Wesley receiver Michael Clarke, receiver Larry Beavers, defensive end Bryan Robinson and tight end Jon Lanouette would have been scholarship players had they grown up in the South.

"Troy would love to have guys like that," he said.

Turk gave us enough for an item in that week’s Around the Nation and Pat’s column for CSTV.

There were other instances of coaches being really honest with us, like when I got to put Rowan’s Jay Accorsi and Wesley’s Mike Drass on the spot about why the nearby Eastern powerhouses no longer schedule each other. The answer isn’t here, as I wasn’t asking with intent to print, but I know we ended up speculating on what a super-NJAC might look like. In theory, with Brockport State leaving the ACFC next season for the NJAC, only Wesley, Salisbury, Frostburg State and Newport News Apprentice remain. The three full-time Division III members in that group could go to the NJAC or other conferences if the ACFC were to cease to exist -- and this is me talking here now, not Drass or Accorsi, who was on site at Wesley as an NCAA playoff representative. A four-team conference’s main problem is filling seven open dates, while a super-NJAC might have to go to North and South divisions. Anyway, I don’t know of anything official happening on that front, but Around the Nation loves the ideas conversations with candid football coaches provide. Accorsi also told us on-air that Rowan had Bridgewater State as a non-conference opponent next year.

Drass has always been a welcoming figure on D3football.com’s trips to Delaware. The Wolverines’ 15th-year coach evokes the word ‘Jolly’ … he always seems to be smiling and often seems to have humorously philosophical takes in press conferences. I don’t think I’d so much as seen him frown up until the point he headed out on the field during a timeout in Wesley’s Week 1 clash with North Carolina Wesleyan. Drass launched into an expletive-laced tirade inspired by offensive linemen who apparently weren’t blocking as well as they were expected to. The dressing-down was clearly audible several rows up in the stands, despite it taking place near midfield. Drass is certainly not the first coach to let loose on a team, and he’s not the first to forget that the crowd size and architecture in Division III stadiums means there are times the entire stadium is in on whatever is said. But juxtaposed with the Drass that is all smiles after wins and composed and reasonable after losses ("you can’t turn it over that many times and win"), it became a comical moment. It reminded ATN that Drass is human. Heck, he’s a head coach in charge of defense -- the leader of the black shirts is supposed to inspire you to want to crack helmets, is he not?

Across the nation, coaches gave us unprecedented access this season, and that doesn’t include ATN being sorry to see Luther’s Paul Hefty leave coaching before we could take him up on his ‘all-access weekend’ invite. We spent time with John Gagliardi in his office, with Hardin-Simmons’ Jimmie Keeling after his team surrendered 52 and 47 points. We sat in Donny Gray’s office at McMurry for an hour on game morning and talked with Concordia (Wis.)’s Jeff Gabrielsen while his team got ready for a game at Concordia (Ill.). I caught East Texas Baptist’s Mark Sartain coming off the bus, while Trinity (Texas) coach Steve Mohr was the life of the party the night before the Stagg Bowl. To all the coaches who shared insights with us, in person or otherwise, we appreciate everything you do for us and for the athletes and institutions who depend on you.


Remember that respect is a decent consolation prize
When they were ranked No. 2 in late October, Mary Hardin-Baylor's turnover trouble cost it big in a 41-14 loss to then-No. 3 UW-Whitewater. The teams met again in the national semifinals with the rankings reversed, and although the same team won, the 16-7 game -- in the snow -- was otherwise much different.

Justin Beaver played against three Mount Union teams and two Mary Hardin-Baylor teams in his career. Photo by Ryan Coleman, D3sports.com

I thought it wise to ask Beaver after the Stagg Bowl how UMHB compared to Mount Union, and how the three Mount Union teams he faced compared to each other. His responses:

"Defensively, I thought Mary Hardin-Baylor was unbelievable. They got us ready to play. Without playing them, I don’t think we’re ready for today."

Respect. As for the best of the three Purple Raiders teams:

"It’s hard to compare the three. They’re a great team this year."

Beaver thought the what pushed his team over the top in its third try might have been the added dimension under center.

"Justin Jacobs (Whitewater’s quarterback in the first two Stagg Bowl seasons) was unbelievable. But having that run-pass threat [in Danny Jones] made all the difference."

Remember that there are many ways to be a great quarterback
Jones surely demonstrated that there's more than one way to lead a team to victory. That became most apparent to me when I filled out my All-Region ballot for the South. Since offenses vary, I tend to use completion percentage and TD-to-INT ratio as indicators of performance. The problem in the South was there were two QBs with absolutely sick numbers: Washington & Jefferson's Bobby Swallow passed for 46 TDs and just three interceptions. Guilford's Josh Vogelbach passed for 361.8 yards per game, a shade shy of national leader Jason Boltus of Hartwick (East Region, 362.4) and 35 TDs. Mississippi College's Adam Shaffer wasn't far behind Swallow and Vogelbach as far as eye-popping numbers were concerned, with 3,497 yards and a 31-13 TD-to-INT. That made Trinity's Blake Barmore look almost average, with his 3,399 and 24-to-8. But the South Region was so interesting because along with the numbers guys, it featured quarterbacks who just got the job done. N.C. Wesleyan's Cedric Townsend was no slouch as a passer, but his speed and athleticism gave opponents fits, especially on option plays. Millsaps' Juan Joseph also fit that bill, with a 31-to-6 ratio to boot. Then I saw Muhlenberg's Eric Santagato play, and although his numbers didn't wow, he completed 64% of passes with five interceptions and guided his team to 11 wins. And you could see how he controlled the pace of the game for his Mules and took care of the ball. Hardin-Simmons sophomore Justin Feaster didn't earn the job full-time until midway through the Linfield game, the Cowboys' second, and he combined the escapability with the toughness under pressure you like to see in a QB. And his final numbers were comparable despite the stunted start: 30 TDs, 9 INT, 2,946 yards. That's eight very legitimate candidates for three spots, and one could probably argue for others. Six of my eight led his team to eight wins or more, and four of them quarterbacked playoff teams. The point really isn't who voters ended up choosing for All-Region and All-American, although they too were a mix of guys with speed, grit, good arms and good feet, as well as good teams. There are many ways to effectively run an offense, and many ways for a voter (especially since I'd seen Townsend, Feaster, Santagato and Joseph play at various points) to recognize that. I know our voters at times agonize over these choices, and at other times we simply throw our hands up and go 'Who do you go with here?' It's a shame that many of the first responses when are teams are released are regarding who we didn't honor, but we are confident in keeping our teams to 11 a side plus three specialists -- you know, like a real team -- that those honors remain significant when bestowed.

Remember that there’s always next week
Mary Hardin-Baylor went to UW-Whitewater in late October and got ran over, 41-14. Then the Crusaders returned to the business of running opponents over, walloping East Texas Baptist 72-7 the following week. That's a 92-point swing for anyone scoring at home.

Remember the painful playoff score comparisons
With a first round fairly devoid of blowouts, the 'imagine if x had played y' strings didn't play out as they often do. There was one, Whitewater over Mount Union 31-21, Mount Union over St. John Fisher 52-10, Fisher over Curry 38-7 and Curry over Hartwick 42-21, that could have led us down the 'how bad was Hartwick' path. But the Hawks beat two playoff teams -- Ithaca and St. John Fisher -- just not in the playoffs. Following the trail down to Bethel's 28-0 first-round win against Concordia (Wis.) was perhaps the biggest ouch, since Mount Union beat Bethel 62-14 in the semifinals. But did we really need a score string to tell us the Purple Raiders were better than the IBFC champion?

Remember the good postseason conference showings
Curry getting the conference’s first playoff win in the automatic-qualifier era, over the champion of the East's strongest conference no less, was a big step for the NEFC. With the IBFC members going their separate ways next season, it leaves only the MIAA without a playoff win since 1999. (But it can still claim a national champion, Albion in 1994, more recently than all but four conferences). Case Western Reserve getting the four-team UAA a playoff invite and win for the second consecutive year deserves mention, as does the WIAC having two teams combine for six wins.

Remember the bad postseason conference showings
Three Empire 8 teams made the field, as did two for the Heartland. But with added recognition comes added responsibility, and neither of these conferences delivered. Ithaca and Hartwick lost in the first round, while St. John Fisher's highly anticipated rematch with Mount Union was a total dud. The HCAC sent Franklin and Mount St. Joseph, both 9-1, to the playoffs. While both were competitive, the HCAC hasn't won a playoff game since 2000. The PAC also deserves a strike for having its 10-0 conference champ become the first No. 1 seed to bite the dust in the first round in the expanded era.

Remember the uneven conference races
Mount Union didn't win the national championship, a disappointment in the Purple Raiders' book. But what a season they had up until Salem. MUC has won the past 16 OAC championships, with one conference loss since mid-1994, but at least it’s been an intriguing race some years. The Purple Raiders returned the majority of its national championship '06 team while most of the rest of the OAC was starting youthful lineups. The results were staggering. Seven of the nine teams were shut out, with Otterbein scoring two fourth-quarter TDs after MUC had put up 55, and Heidelberg kicking a field goal in the second quarter. The Purple Raiders won their conference games by an average margin of 50.7-1.8, with three of the conference's best teams staying closer than anyone else: Baldwin-Wallace (35-0), Capital (37-0) and Ohio Northern (44-0). The Purple Raiders cracked 50 on the other six opponents.

Remember the most even conference race
For once it wasn’t the Centennial. The Liberty League was still a four-way race with two weeks to play, with each of the four playing its final two games against teams in the race. After Week 10's results, each team had to win its own game, plus it had a rooting interest in the other matchup, like so:
Hobart: Needed to win at Rochester and have Union beat RPI
Rochester: Needed to beat Hobart and have RPI beat Union
RPI: Needed to beat Union and have Hobart beat Rochester
Union: Needed to beat RPI and have Rochester beat Hobart

Hobart and RPI won and made the playoffs, but each was eliminated in the first round. In the end, the balance in the league was superb, but nobody ever really took charge. Without a dominant team, it was a short stay in the postseason.

Remember the conference storylines
Here's a one-sentence memory from each conference, summing up the most important occurrence this season:
NEFC: Curry got the first AQ-era playoff win.
NESCAC: While Amherst and Williams were on ESPN, Middlebury broke the Little Three stranglehold on the title since a three-way tie in 2000.
E8: First conference to send three teams to playoffs in one season in AQ era.
LL: Four teams had shot at title in Week 11.
NJAC: Rowan fell below .500, Montclair State upset Wesley and TCNJ came out of nowhere to win it.
MAC: It was a bad year to thin to eight teams, as no MAC team was dominant and teams took their licks in non-conference games.
CC: Muhlenberg capped 10-0 year with a playoff win over a strong team (Salisbury).
PAC: Geneva and St. Vincent brought conference to nine, playoff upset brought W&J to its knees.
ACFC: Wesley-Salisbury developing into a pair of rival powers.
ODAC: R-MC vs. H-SC relevant again, while Bridgewater misses out on title for second straight year.
USAC: N.C. Wesleyan as a fourth-year wonder, with rare running of the table.
SCAC: Welcome Colorado College and Birmingham-Southern, and welcome back to the top, Trinity.
ASC: Mary Hardin-Baylor a lot; Everyone else, a little.
SCIAC: After three non-conference losses, Cal Lutheran nearly swept; Redlands still needed Occidental's 67-61 loss to Whittier to earn AQ.
NWC: No playoff team. No, really. AQ kicks in in 2008.
WIAC: UW-Whitewater's third time the charm, but UW-Eau Claire 9-3 the big surprise.
MIAC: Teams were 15-3 regular-season non-conference, and Bethel beat St. John's again.
MWC: Another year, another St. Norbert season ending in the first round of the playoffs.
MIAA: No conference makes each week more interesting; Olivet took automatic bid at 6-4.
IIAC: Central still liked to cut it close, but ran the table for second year in a row.
UAA: Case Western Reserve followed Carnegie Mellon's '06 script.
NCAC: SCAC's DePauw spoils undefeated season for Wabash in Monon Bell comeback.
HCAC: Franklin missed postseason at 9-1 last year; This year, both Franklin and MSJ get in at 9-1.
OAC: Mount Union: Nine games, seven shutouts.
IBFC: Out with a whimper; Champion lost a conference game by 30.
CCIW: IWU joins usual three-way race in Augustana's place; Wheaton collapse lets North Central back in playoffs.

Remember how we did against those guys
Division III maintained its place in the spectrum of college football this season, going 4-7 against programs from Division I-AA, 3-12 vs. Division II and 21-9 vs. the NAIA.

St. Cloud State, which finished 4-7 in Division II, beat national champion UW-Whitewater (14-1) 26-16 early in the season. Geneva made the transition from NAIA to the PAC and immediately went 8-2. That doesn't include a postseason game in which they were representing for us, the NCCAA Victory Bowl, and got drilled by Malone 45-17. Yet Division III teams are 44-17 against NAIA teams the past two seasons.

Best big-time acknowledgements
Fox Sports' weekly WIAC broadcasts reached beyond Wisconsin. Working at USA Today this fall, I was used to seeing major-college and pro sports on the flat-screen TVs that line the wall. One Tuesday the UW-Eau Claire vs. UW-Whitewater rebroadcast caught my eye instead. Nice!
CSTV did a nice bit early in the season called "Broken Coverage," where it sent two reporters to Mount Union to see what it was like covering a Division III receiver. Quarterback Greg Micheli and receiver Brandon Boehm proved to them it's pretty difficult.
SI.com's Andrew Reed visited Bridgewater's Stone Station during a year-long tour of football tailgates, mostly at the Division I level. Reed also swung back through Virginia for the Stagg Bowl. SI's Frank Deford also wrote about the return of football to Birmingham-Southern. St. Vincent's restart also attracted a lot of attention from major media.
Oprah Winfrey was reportedly very interested in 59-year-old linebacker Mike Flynt's story and might have considered traveling to Sul Ross State, but it never happened.
ESPN broadcasted College GameDay from Amherst-Williams, and host Chris Fowler was struck by the pure joy exhibited on the postgame walk to the barber shop, an Ephs tradition. On any other year, an acknowledgement like this is the division's big-time highlight. (Williams grad Pete McEntegart also blogged about the day if you missed it)
We’ve discussed the Millsaps-Trinity ending five ways to Sunday, but the fact that a Division III football highlight not only led SportsCenter, but left anchors gawking -- "We’ve been flipping over this all night in the office" -- is an enduring memory. Not to mention the play demonstrated the speed and wide-reaching effect of our blog, The Daily Dose, YouTube and other forms of "new media," as our link to the video got picked up by at least two national media outlets.

Worst big-time acknowledgements
It was a great year for Division III football gaining broad-spectrum respect, but there was still at least one writer getting it dead wrong. And although it probably does little good to repeat misinformation, ATN ought to balance the props given to others with a big 'WTF?' for Gregg Easterbrook, author of TMQ on ESPN.com. His clueless anti-Mount Union rants this year included his opinion that the Purple Raiders purposely schedule schools that can't compete with them in football (Nine of Mount Union's 10 opponents each season are its fellow OAC members, and the Purple Raiders win with players who fit the Division III profile), that having six home games is "a sure sign of a manipulated schedule" (Mount Union scheduled six away games in 2006) and the theory that since Mount Union wins a lot of games by a lot of points, they must be the epitome of poor sportsmanship (as though a team can't win by a lot and be good sports. When did we begin defining sportsmanship only by margin of victory?). ATN realizes there is no getting through to Easterbrook on these matters. It is, however, a shame that a graduate of a Division III college would continue to pelt his audience, many of whom are not exposed to Division III sports in any other way, with such blatantly off-base commentary.


Remember the preseason polls and rankings
It would be far too easy to just forget about those preseason rankings, some of which hit newsstands as early as June. We could let them slide, but as long as Around the Nation is here, we’ll be checking credentials.

The goal here is simple: ATN looks back at the first (and in several cases, only) appearance of the ranking and then compares it to how things turned out, and highlights hits and misses.

To the best of our knowledge, as many as seven entities took a crack at publishing rankings this season, ranging from a top 10 (game-program insert Touchdown Illustrated) to a top 40 (Don Hansen's Weekly Football Gazette). I couldn’t find either of their preseason polls, however -- and believe me, I looked -- so we’ll analyze these five: D3football.com's Top 25 poll, the American Football Coaches Association poll, and preseason rankings by Lindy's, Street & Smith's and USA Today Sports Weekly (whose ranking, in the interest of full disclosure, was put together by yours truly)

During the season, there are two polls, ours and the American Football Coaches Association's, and one ranking, the Football Gazette's. The AFCA does not take a preseason poll, so we use their first vote (Sept. 18) for our purposes here.

D3football.com
Best preseason ranking(s): No. 2 UW-Whitewater, No. 12 Capital, No. 18 North Central
Worst preseason ranking(s): No. 14 Linfield, No. 20 Augustana, No. 24 Bethel
Number of Top 25 teams in the 32-team field: 13
Where semifinalist Bethel began the season: No. 24
Whitewater’s progression: Began the season ranked No. 2, fell to No. 3 after St. Cloud State loss, where they remained until beating UMHB in Week 9, and Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl. They, of course, finished with all 25 first-place votes.
Overall: No other ranking gave Whitewater this much respect at the beginning or throughout the course of the season, so the D3football.com panel gets big respect there. And everybody whiffed on preseason No. 7 UW-La Crosse, No. 9 Springfield, No. 10 Rowan, No. 11 Hardin-Simmons and No. 15 Wilkes, so those mistakes are forgivable. Good insight on having playoff participants North Central, Trinity (Texas) and Wabash ranked, though none won its conference in 2006. Bethel was way too low, especially since it beat preseason No. 3 St. John’s in ’06.

AFCA
Best ranking(s): No. 2 UMHB (1 first-place vote), No. 18 Salisbury
Worst ranking(s): No. 9 UW-Whitewater, No. 16 Bridgewater (Va.)
Number of Top 25 teams in the 32-team field: 14
Where semifinalist Bethel began the season: No. 33 (also receiving 22 votes)
Whitewater’s progression: Began at No. 9 in mid-Sept., rose to No. 3 after UMHB win, but didn’t get to No. 2 until St. John’s lost in Week 11.
Overall: Pat’s A Fairly Confounding Analysis post from the Daily Dose Sept. 18 speaks for itself, but to summarize: Sixty-five teams got votes three weeks into the season, including five Pat notes as rather absurd, at least at the time. Given the AFCA’s head start (two or three games are played), there aren’t many top 25 flubs, and the ones that are there are passable given what we knew at the time, except for UW-La Crosse being ranked fourth and Whitewater ninth. Even at the most uncertain times for the Warhawks there weren’t eight Division III teams better than them, but the AFCA tends to get hung up solely on wins and losses, and UW-W was coming off a defeat against Division II St. Cloud State. Also, with a three-week lag period, the AFCA poll should have had a stronger advantage in number of playoff teams ranked. Many of the voters on the board of coaches are among ATN’s favorites, so let’s stop there.

USA Today Sports Weekly
Best ranking(s): No. 2 UMHB, No. 17 Capital, No. 25 Franklin
Worst ranking(s): No. 6 UW-La Crosse, No. 12 Baldwin-Wallace, No. 23 Carnegie Mellon
Number of Top 25 teams in the 32-team field: 12
Where semifinalist Bethel began the season: No. 13
Whitewater’s preseason ranking: No. 5
Overall: So we’re clear, I did this ranking for USA Today, in June, after consulting with a few staff members and doing preseason research. I thought the No. 5 ranking for Whitewater was appropriate given that their losses were greater than Mount Union, UMHB, Wesley and St. John Fisher’s, yet it allowed for the possibility of them proving their way to the top, which is eventually what happened. But UW-La Crosse and Baldwin-Wallace were reaches based on their performances against UW-W and Mount Union last season. Of course, that Eagles pick looked good after they gave the Warhawks all they could handle, and Millsaps at 22 was a couple miraculous comebacks away from being prescient. I had less faith in Rowan (No. 15) than anyone, but overranked Wilkes (No. 10) harder too.

Lindy's
Best rankings: No. 10 Bethel, No. 12 North Central, No. 23 Hobart
Worst rankings: No. 4 Trinity (Texas), No. 20 Cal Lutheran
Number of Top 25 teams in the 32-team field: 14
Where semifinalist Bethel began the season: No. 10
Whitewater’s preseason ranking: No. 3
Overall:It was a strangely successful poll for Lindy’s, which had 11 of its top 13 make the playoffs, but 9 misses in the next 12. It was the only poll to rank Hobart (though one spot behind Alfred), and although three Texas teams were in their top six, Trinity’s play at Millsaps and subsequent playoff loss to UMHB, which it ranked second, make Lindy’s reach on Trinity defensible. That seemed like a name-recognition ranking, and putting Cal Lutheran in the top 20 made it seem like Lindy’s didn’t know quarterback Danny Jones had transferred and the coaching staff had turned over. The Kingsmen actually made a run toward the playoffs, so the Lindy’s ranking looked good there. So did the avoidance of the NWC (No. 24 Whitworth, unranked Linfield), which missed the playoffs entirely. Lindy’s also ranked North Central ahead of Wheaton, which is how things ultimately finished. It was easy to let such a low ranking of UW-La Crosse (No. 25) pass.

Street & Smith's
Best ranking: No. 7 Wabash
Worst rankings: No. 2 St. John’s, No. 12 Occidental, No. 16 Central, No. 19 Hope, No. 24 Coast Guard, No. 25 Washington & Lee
Number of Top 25 teams in the 32-team field: 9
Where semifinalist Bethel began the season: No. 11
Whitewater’s preseason ranking: No. 4
Overall: Outside nailing seven playoff teams in its top eight (No. 6 Rowan was the one that missed), there isn’t a lot to like here. St. John’s was way overranked, and everyone else seemed to know Central was a top 10 team. W&L wasn’t a top 25 team even when it made the 32-team playoff field at 7-3 in '06, and two ranked teams from the ODAC (No. 17 Bridgewater) is a stretch. Until the MIAA makes some playoff progress, Hope has no business in the top 20. If they were going to take a chance on a NEFC team, Curry, not Coast Guard, should have been the one.

Remember the best (and worst) preseason predictions
Among the features in Kickoff ’07 was the "Predict This!" grid, where six semi-professional D3football.com observers (the title of ‘expert’ is earned, as you’ll see below) were lined up while 12 questions of varying difficulty were thrown at them like so many spirals.

Pat Coleman, Gordon Mann, John McGraw, Ryan Tipps (Around the Mid-Atlantic), Adam Samrov (Around the East) and I made up the panel. Now that everything has played out, here are our predictions again, with an "expert point" awarded for each correct answer.

Who will win the national championship?
Only Samrov was brave enough to stray from the crowd and go with UW-Whitewater instead of Mount Union. Some foreshadowing, perhaps.

Winner of each bracket?
As the bracket shuffling left no one's predictions on-point, we'll award quarter-points, with the footnote that at least myself, McGraw and Samrov went with four playoff winners -- Mount Union, UW-W, UMHB and St. John Fisher. Tipps and Mann backed St. John’s and Rowan as national semifinalists, while Coleman liked Linfield and Springfield. Mann also had Wesley over UMHB in the south, leaving him with a measly quarter-point. We all got the Mount Union gimme, five of us got UMHB, four got UW-W and no one called Bethel’s final four appearance.

Which opponent gets closest to Mount Union in the regular season?
It was more like "least far" than "closest," but McMillan, Mann, Coleman and Tipps are going to give themselves credit for Baldwin-Wallace's 35-0 loss anyway. The Purple Raiders were that good, and so what if some of us had the audacity to think the margin would be between 11 and 17. That’s a doggone point! (The others liked Ohio Northern between 7 and 10).

Which 2006 playoff team has the worst falloff, recordwise?
Pay close attention to the wording of the question, because even though Concordia (Wis.) made the field again, they were four wins shy of last year's total. Chalk up a point for Coleman, McGraw and Tipps. Mann was close on Capital, which made the field but finished three wins from last season’s 11. Millsaps (Samrov) actually won one game more than last season despite making the playoffs then and missing them in ’07. Hobart (McMillan) held steady at eight wins.

Which team will be the most surprising playoff entry?
Only Coleman nailed a team (Franklin) that actually made the field, although we should dock him half a point for taking a team that was 9-1 last year under 'surprising.' How cheap is that?

Record of the last team chosen in Pool C, and who?
Samrov is heating up. Ithaca (8-2) was probably the last team in if you follow the theory about how the committee puts one at-large team from each region on the board at any time during selection. Message-board complaints were loudest about the omission of Whitworth, perhaps in favor of UW-Eau Claire at 8-2. Tipps was close there, picking 8-2 UW-La Crosse. Half point? Naaaah. Mann picked Hobart, 8-2, and although he hit the playoff-participant Statesmen’s record on the head, they were far from the last team chosen. That was almost my pick, Millsaps at 9-1. The 8-2 Majors were (sixty)two seconds or one tackle (take your pick) from making me look smart.

Who will be the D3football.com Offensive Player of the Year?
Only Coleman took Beaver. Four others took Mount Union’s Nate Kmic, and I took his quarterback, Greg Micheli. Those were probably the among the top 3 all season. But, only Coleman scores a point.

Who will be the D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year?
Seriously, this Samrov guy predicted Mary Hardin-Baylor linebacker Jerrell Freeman, while some of us were picking Wesley’s Bryan Robinson, Wilkes linebacker Kyle Follweiler or Wheaton’s Andy Studebaker. All Freeman did was make 112 tackles for the No. 3 team in the nation, including 18.5 for losses. He added six sacks, seven pass break-ups, three forced fumbles and he blocked a punt that he also returned for a touchdown. His defense had 55 sacks and forced 54 turnovers in 14 games, not to mention it earned the ultimate respect of the national champions.

Year in Review continued