D3football Daily Dose

One of the joys of the offseason is that there’s time to surf around the Net and find stories I may have missed during the season.

OK, I lied. There’s no time because we’re working on D3hoops.com and another big project this time of year. And there’s no joy in the offseason. It’s too long! However, I really did stumble across a blog entry from a parent of a Loras player who spent 18 hours in a car one weekend to drive from Tennessee to Dubuque for the school’s Homecoming game.

That’s the round trip, though — let’s not get crazy!

I’ve often wondered how many other people are as crazy as we are — and by the ‘we’ I mean those of us at D3football.com who would hop into a car and drive hundreds of miles at the drop of a hat. People like myself, Keith McMillan, Gordon Mann, Ryan Coleman, Pat Cummings, John McGraw. When I read the following, I was hooked:

It’s an estimated 10-to-11-hour sojourn. This is true if a) you average about 60 miles per hour; b) you stop only for gas and snack while you drive; c) you don’t get lost; d) there’s no construction; and e) the traffic cooperates. Those seemed like a lot of factors to have to fall into place, and, even at that, the prospect of 10+ hours in a car, without anyone to share the driving, still seemed pretty daunting. But I’d never seen my son play a college game, and I was determined to make the trek.

It is a great description of some of the great things about Division III football, and it is definitely worth your time to read.

Excellent piece by Steve Wieberg in USA Today today. Or tomorrow. Or whatever, shoot, it’s online now.

Point being, there is indeed talk about rolling back some of the speed-up changes foisted on us by the big-money level of college football.

Voting at the recent AFCA convention overwhelmingly called for the speed-up rules to be rescinded. One quote from the story was especially telling:

“Some of them even said they played games in two hours,” says Adams, a former supervisor of officials for the Western Athletic Conference and secretary-editor of the rules committee since 1992. “One coach called me, and he was almost in tears. He said, ‘I’ve got 70 guys on my squad, and they work their fannies off all week and I can’t get them in the game.’ “

Thank you! This was a ridiculous rule change that cost student-athletes opportunities in Division III in 2006.

I had the good fortune to be sent to cover the Colts/Ravens game on Saturday, and watching this game gave me a reminder of exactly how long the distance is from Division III to the NFL.

Even the highest level of Division III is still quite distant from the top pro league on the planet. Maybe it’s hard to appreciate the size of a Ray Lewis or an Adalius Thomas on paper. Todd Heap? Yeah, he’s a heap and then some. Speed? This game is played at a frenetic pace.

Those Division III players fortunate enough to have a shot at the big time have to fight all sorts of preconceptions about D-III, that’s true. It’s somewhat unfair. But they also have to conquer their own shortcomings in many cases when it comes to competing on this level. Because it’s not just the next level — it’s two or three levels up.

Good luck to Whitworth’s Michael Allan, the first D-III player to be invited to the NFL’s scouting combine since Ryan Hoag was in 2003. Good luck to former Dubuque receiver Daunta Peterson, who recently signed with the Bills and has been allocated to NFL Europe. Represent us well.

By the way, the Ravens emptied out a luxury suite to accomodate the extra media interest in this game. They didn’t seat anyone in the stands outside (though it was a decent day) or on the roof. Someone in the organization gave up their room to accomodate the media.

If only some D-III schools would do the same.

Another week, another WIAC coaching changeover that threatens to become rancorous. Although the school’s release says that Todd Strop resigned and does not make any reference whatsoever to the recent arrest of an outgoing Stout football player on drug charges, it’s hard from the outside not to draw a direct line and suggest that he was forced to resign over the actions of a couple of people in the program.

Justified? Who knows. None of us has inside knowledge. Is it a reaction to the five games the team lost by four points or fewer? Seems unlikely — the last game was played two months ago. Why wait until now?

The year 2006 was absolutely fantastic for D3football.com. We were able to do a lot of things, such as send Keith McMillan on the Run to the Playoffs, literally around the nation. I got to see a handful of different programs and places this season thanks to my new geography. We were able to participate in the NCAA’s live videocast of the semifinals. And Kickoff 2006 followed in the successful footsteps of Kickoff 2005.

With a great 2006 behind us, here’s some hopes and wishes for 2007:

More video: We’re at the mercy of some larger organizations on this one, hoping the NCAA will add Division III to the program it put together for Division II football, streaming some 40 games on the Net through CSTV. There are also still streaming companies who are trying to get D-III conferences interested. Conferences — look at this offer and get your schools on board. It benefits the entire division.

More teams: The 2007 season welcomes Birmingham-Southern, St. Vincent and Gallaudet. Gallaudet is attempting to return to the intercollegiate fold … again … from club status. Gallaudet hasn’t won a varsity game since 1991. Birmingham-Southern is moving up to Division III from Division I, in a decision that caused a great deal of rancor on campus and from the scholarship athletes. We hope for a peaceful transition and some football success. St. Vincent is joining Division III from the NAIA and will be in the second year of provisional status next season. And St. Scholastica has announced it will add football for 2008. The more the merrier.

More participation: We hear from more and more readers every year, and we would hope 2007 continues the trend. But the trend in recent years, too, has been not just more posters and blog comments but more sites run by fans dedicated to specific teams. Wabash started team blogs this year, including football. A Gettysburg fan blogs about their team, though it’s mostly a collection of the writings of others. Of course, there are several fan sites, including ones for Mount Union, UW-Whitewater, Cortland State, Bridgewater and others. But anyone can start a blog — perhaps it might be interesting for you to start one as a fan of a team you might think is underrepresented. Citizen journalism is a big buzzword in the media these days and you fans out there can join the group. Get video of your team and put it on YouTube.

More Martel: OK, well, this isn’t very likely — I’m sitting here late night/early morning listening to D3football.com audio director emeritus Ray Martel hosting an overnight talk show shift on WFAN. He and I started doing football games together in 1994. Been a while now.

More aggressive scheduling: Mary Hardin-Baylor/UW-Whitewater and Linfield/Hardin-Simmons were great games this year. Wouldn’t it be great to see more of this? The automatic bid is coaches’ safety net. Take more chances.

More willingness to follow own rules: Yeah, it’s OK to have Millsaps and Mary Hardin-Baylor be within 500 miles by your own definition but ignore it? Uh uh. The NCAA should live by its own handbook.

What would you like to see more of in 2007? (This is not promising we’ll be able to deliver, of course.)