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| Whether Carter Sido throws for 285 yards or 119, Hampden-Sydney can beat you, as proven by the first three weeks of the season. Hampden-Sydney athletics photo |
By Greg Thomas
D3football.com
It’s been a while since Hampden-Sydney football has found itself in this position. The Tigers are 3-0 for the first time since 2011, and they’ve gotten here the hard way.
Opening at Delaware Valley and then hosting Washington & Jefferson is about as stiff a non-conference challenge as any Division III team will sign up for. Both programs are perennial contenders in their leagues, with playoff appearances and conference championships sprinkled into their recent histories. Hampden-Sydney didn’t just survive those first two weeks, they handily took care of their business. Add in last Saturday’s 42-7 rout of Shenandoah in the opening week of ODAC competition, and the Tigers have quickly gone from a preseason curiosity to one of the most intriguing early-season stories in Division III. The Tigers’ start feels like the beginning of a resurgence.
Hampden-Sydney isn’t new to national relevance. Between 2007 and 2014, the Tigers reached the NCAA playoffs six times in eight seasons, and the program’s rivalry with Randolph-Macon remains one of the great annual showdowns in Division III. But it’s been more than a decade since the Tigers have played in the postseason, and in a league dominated recently by Randolph-Macon’s three consecutive championships, Hampden-Sydney entered 2025 picked just fifth in the ODAC preseason poll.
Now, three weeks into the season, the Tigers look a lot more like contenders than placeholders.
Second-year head coach Vince Luvara has been at the center of that shift. For a young head coach in just his second season, Luvara has already made his imprint clear. This is a program that’s going to be built from the inside out.
“When we got here in December 2023 we said we were going to build the thing through the offensive line,” Luvara said. “Our offensive line is doing a great job. Coach [Max] Beal is doing an unbelievable job developing guys. If you look at the more successful programs in Division III, it’s really the offensive line that has made a difference.”
That commitment has paid early dividends. Hampden-Sydney’s offensive line has already been named to the D3football.com Team of the Week twice in the first three weeks. And while the Tigers have long been known for Marty Favret’s passing offenses, Luvara doesn’t want to limit his playbook to one signature look.
“We try to be balanced, and if someone’s going to take one thing away, I think we’re balanced enough that we can figure out how to do it the other way,” Luvara said.
The win against Shenandoah was the perfect example. Hampden-Sydney ran for 443 yards — the program’s highest single-game rushing total since 1991 — and did it with four scoring drives of at least 12 plays and 80 yards. That wasn’t a philosophical pivot as much as a coach leaning on what worked. Against different opponents, the Tigers are more than comfortable putting the ball in the air, especially with a deep receiving corps that includes 2023 All-Region performer Mason Cunningham, East Carolina transfer McCallum Wright, and reliable options Jordan Jackson and Manning Lasso. For Luvara, adaptability is the point.
Senior quarterback Carter Sido has lived through almost every version of Hampden-Sydney football over the past four years. He was set to become the starter in 2023 before a season-ending injury in Week 2 derailed those plans. After returning in 2024, he now leads the team as a captain in his final season.
“What got me through that was the guys that I came in with, the teammates that I had, and the guys I’m leading with this year staying around me,” Sido said. “Playing or not, you’re still part of a family and a brotherhood. Being able to lean on guys when you’re down or cheering for guys playing that are ahead of you is a really positive thing for the team and it’s built a great culture.”
Sido admits he sees the game differently now. “I definitely take more pride and more joy in every single practice because you just know it’s not guaranteed,” he said. “I think that’s something that’s important in our sport — to never take for granted the days that you do have.”
His career has also spanned the program’s coaching transition. Favret’s retirement after two decades brought inevitable adjustments, but Sido and his classmates have emerged as the bridge between eras.
“Change is always difficult at first. We were used to a certain way and then we got a whole new way and a whole new brand,” he said. “There were some growing pains in that first spring, but we’re at a point now where we have a great relationship with coaches and players. I feel like we all have the same understanding, and we’ve built our way up to where we are today.”
That growth isn’t limited to the locker room. Sido says he feels the campus community starting to rally around the team again.
“Every single game we know there’s gonna be thousands of people on the hill,” he said. “The love and support we get from Hampden-Sydney is so unique. I’ve played for four years, so I’ve gone to a lot of different places. I’ve never felt how it feels to play a game here anywhere else. It’s unlike any other place. It’s really a brotherhood and everyone’s bought into us and cares about our success, so it’s really cool.”
If there was any doubt about the strength of Hampden-Sydney’s 3-0 start, the opponents tell the story. Delaware Valley has been the class of the MAC for the better part of a decade, while Washington & Jefferson was a playoff team in 2024. Hampden-Sydney beat them both.
“It gives you a good barometer early in the year,” Luvara said. “We have goals to play into November and December and to do that you have to be challenged, so it’s good to be challenged early in the year. When you get put in tough situations, you can see how your team responds. I think our guys did that, especially in Week 2 (against W&J). We had a lot of adversity in the game and the guys really bounced back well. Anytime something went wrong we were able to pull ourselves through it.”
That resiliency is a hallmark of good teams, and it’s what has coaches, voters, and fans taking a second look at Hampden-Sydney. The Tigers haven’t been in the D3football.com Top 25 since 2014, but they’re knocking on the door near the top of the others receiving votes pool this week.
The ODAC hasn’t always carried national weight, but Randolph-Macon’s run to the national semifinals in 2023 showed what a dominant program from this league can do. The Yellow Jackets did it with a powerful offensive line and a relentless ground game, similar to the traits Luvara is working to establish at Hampden-Sydney.
Randolph-Macon has stumbled early this year, dropping a game earlier this season to Central, which may signal an opening in the ODAC race. Despite being picked in the bottom half of the preseason poll, Hampden-Sydney suddenly looks like a team ready to challenge the conference’s established order.
The Tigers may not be the finished product yet, but the foundation is being laid. That’s really what this start is about. Hampden-Sydney isn’t trying to erase its past or reinvent itself overnight. The Tigers are rediscovering who they are by building the kind of foundation that wins championships. Physical line play, strong leadership, and the versatility to win games in different ways.
Luvara summed it up simply: “Whenever you have strong leadership, I think it is a good thing. I tell them all the time, it’s their team. It’s not my team, it’s not the coaches’ team.”
That resonates with players like Sido, who’s seen the program’s ups and downs firsthand and now finds himself at the center of a season that already feels different.
“We all know we can do something pretty special here,” Sido said. “We’re not really worried about the outside noise, even though it is picking up and we notice it. But we know that what we have is with us.”
For the first time in a long time, Hampden-Sydney has people outside the program noticing too. And if this 3–0 start is any indication, the Tigers might just be building something that lasts.
Non-conference performers
There are a few conferences that still have a week’s worth of out-of-conference games to play, but with most conferences in the clubhouse with the pre-conference engagements, I’ve started to look at how conferences performed ahead of Around The Nation’s annual conference rankings feature.
The WIAC has been dazzling this September, posting a 21-2 record against a challenging slate of teams. UW-Eau Claire’s journey to 3-0 isn’t too surprising given its opponents, but UW-Stevens Point deserves an extra hat tip here having knocked off Albion before making the long trip out to Pacific and collecting a Week 3 win against the Boxers to conclude their perfect September. UW-Stevens Point won one non-conference game each of the past three seasons, and hasn’t won all three since 2017, when it defeated St. Norbert, Albion and Adrian before going 1-6 in WIAC play.
The MIAA continues to perform well outside of conference play, posting a .708 win percentage so far. 3-0 starts by Adrian, Calvin, and Kalamazoo have given a big boost to the MIAA.
One year ago, the USAC had been just 1-16 in out of conference play and the team that notched that lone USAC victory — Maryville — has since left for the SAA. Not only has the USAC managed to scratch more than one win this September, they’ve turned that 1-16 into a winning record, 14-11. It’s a remarkable turnaround highlighted by newcomer Southern Virginia’s first ever 3-0 start.
Non-conference records for every conference will be part of the package in Around the Nation when we update our conference rankings for 2025 in a couple of weeks.
Seven ways to Saturday
Whether you need to recap the week that was or get ready for the week to come, D3football.com is your daily source for fresh Division III football content. We’re bringing the content seven ways to Saturday.
Sunday: New Top 25 poll
Monday: Around The Nation podcast. Patrick Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.
Tuesday: Team of the Week Honors
Wednesday: Features columns
Thursday: Around the Nation Column
Friday: Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into the weekend’s games
Saturday: Game Day! The D3football.com Scoreboard has all of your links for stats and broadcasts.
I’d like to thank…
Special thanks to Hampden-Sydney’s Carter Sido and Vince Luvara for spending time with Around The Nation for this week’s column. Additional thanks to Greg Prouty, Director of Athletic Communications at Hampden-Sydney College for coordinating this week’s 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, on X @wallywabash, or on Bluesky @d3greg.bsky.social to share your stories.
