Two top ten teams stumble, while a team returns to the top ten after knocking off a scholarship FCS team? Say WHAT?
There’s only one game matching up two top-25 teams this week, but there are a lot of other important contests as well:
#3 Saint Thomas (MN) at 4-0 Augsburg
#15 Cortland State at #11 Montclair State
2-2 Washington (MO) at #12 Wabash
#14 Wittenberg at 4-1 Huntingdon
#20 Wartburg at 5-0 Dubuque
3-1 Springfield at #22 Salisbury
3-1 Heidelberg at 4-0 Muskingum
4-1 Randolph-Macon at 3-1 Catholic
4-1 Washington & Lee at 4-1 Emory & Henry
3-1 Bridgewater at 4-1 Hampden & Sydney
AMERICAN SOUTHWEST:
The big showdown between UMBH and Louisiana turned out not to be much of one after all, as UMBH had three 100-yard rushers as well as three interceptions on the day. That leaves Texas Lutheran, experiencing their best start since 1984, as the only real remaining threat to the Crusaders. Hardin-Simmons, a top-10 team at one point, is now 0-3 in conference and reeling after giving up three unanswered touchdowns in the second half and losing to ETBU for the first time ever. Jake Mullin threw for 430 yards and four TDs in McMurry’s rout of Howard Payne.
UMBH travels to Mississippi College, and they should win. They’ll steal a half-game lead over idle Texas Lutheran should they do so. Louisiana should bounce back, and Hardin-Simmons looks like a safe get to end their skid.
CENTENNIAL:
Four of the five teams at the head of the pack all won, the only exception as result of two of them playing one another. End result: Susquehanna slips out of the pack. Aden Twer hauled in two TDs and had 214 receiving yards in Gettysburg’s win over McDaniel, in which the Bullets rolled up 676 yards of offense. Dickinson fell being 21-0 before roaring back to capture the Conestoga Wagon Trophy from F&M. Johns Hopkins held Juniata to 37 yards of offense and only three first downs in a 34-0 win.
This week, the entire conference is idle.
CCIW:
You may remember that last week I suggested that Illinois Wesleyan was liable to upset Wheaton, while stopping short of calling the upset outright. Well, there you go, and now IWU is in the top 25. North Central and Millikin performed to standard, while North Park turned back into a pumpkin in startling fashion as Scottie Williams rolled for 235 rushing yards to lead Elmhurst to a blowout win.
Wheaton, Millikin, North Central, and Illinois Wesleyan should prevail this week without much trouble.
EASTERN:
Norwich remains atop the standings, while Maritime and Gallaudet began conference play with wins to pull into their wake. Pretty much all according to plan. Gallaudet trailed Anna Maria, 0-23 in the entire history of their program, 34-13 in the fourth quarter before reeling off 21 points to send the game into OT, where they finally prevailed in the third extra period. Really, a heartbreaking way to fail to finally win a game for the AmCats. New York Maritime rolled up 431 yards on the ground and shut down Castleton’s high-octane passing game to cruise to a win.
Expect wins this week from Norwich, Gallaudet, Maritime, and Mount Ida.
EMPIRE 8:
Alfred committed six turnovers and suffered a mildly surprising upset at the hands of Saint John Fisher, handing Salisbury sole possession of the lead. Utica actually hung in with Salisbury for almost 45 minutes, trailing 42-38 before Salisbury scored with 12 seconds left in the third quarter, then went off for another 21 in the final frame. Salisbury ran for 592 yards on the day, with six different players gaining 50 or more yards on the ground. Hartwick closed the score to 14-7 midway through the fourth quarter against Ithaca, but the Dan Ruffrage immediately returned the kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown to basically put the game away for the Bombers.
Frostburg and Utica both face non-conference losses this week, while the rest of the league squares off in a series of good games. Alfred should handle Hartwick, and Salisbury is a slight favorite over Springfield. Fisher at Ithaca is a toss-up.
HEARTLAND:
Franklin won the most relevant game on the slate, knocking MSJC out of the tie for the lead. Rose-Hulman upset Manchester to pull in half a game back, and Hanover moved into conference relevance with their second win.
Once again, though, Franklin will kick a rival to the curb as they travel to Rose-Hulman this week. Mount Saint Joseph will win, as will Hanover, and Manchester should get past Bluffton.
IOWA:
No real shocks here. Dubuque moves to 5-0 yet still can’t crack the top 25.
That would definitely change with a win this week, as Wartburg comes to visit. Given Dubuque’s offense and what appear to be relatively equal defenses, it’s hard to see how Wartburg can win this game, although thanks to their position in the polls it will be seen as an upset if they lose. It won’t be. Central, Cornell, and Coe should also come out on top.
LIBERTY:
Hobart seems to be the class of the league now, having shut out Saint Lawrence. Union scored another minor upset, and are alone atop the standings for the time being. Union’s Justin Gallo topped 200 receiving yards for the second week in a row, hauling in seven catches for 234 yards and three scores.
That will change Saturday, as Hobart is going to shut Union down. WPI should handle Merchant Marine, while RPI/Utica is a toss-up.
MICHIGAN:
Adrian moved to 5-0 with a definitive victory over Trine, costing the Thunder their 20-game conference winning streak (stretching back to 2007) as well as their spot in the poll. Hope won as expected, but Albion upset Kalamazoo behind 434 passing yards from Spencer Krauss.
Adrian will certainly win this week, and Trine ought to. The other two games are too iffy to predict.
MIDDLE ATLANTIC:
Down goes Albright, manhandled by Lycoming with the help of five turnovers. That leaves the race in Delaware Valley’s hands. Widener kept pace with a complete destruction of King’s, setting a school record for margin of victory.
Delaware Valley, Widener, and Lycoming are obvious winners this week. Lebanon Valley/Albright is too close to call.
MIDWEST:
Monmouth took out Saint Norbert in the week’s big game, a midfield slog which was tied 3-3 until Trey Yocum scored on a 46-yard TD run in the closing minutes. Everyone else who was expected to win did so. Luke Barthelmess threw for 443 yards and five TDs in Lawrence’s loss to Illinois College; the two teams combined for 1,062 yards of offense on the day. Carroll led Lake Forest 38-14 before LFC scored 20 points to close to within four midway through the fourth, but Carroll responded with a three-play drive to ice the contest.
Grinnell and Carroll should win easily this week, and Saint Norbert is a pretty clear favorite over Illinois College. Monmouth should get past Ripon and retain their grip on the conference lead.
MINNESOTA:
Saint Thomas steamrolled Saint John’s (the worst loss ever suffered by Johnnies’ ageless head coach John Gagliardi), and Augsburg won handily over Carleton, but Bethel got tripped up by Saint Olaf when the Oles exploded in the fourth quarter to erase a 28-10 deficit, scoring the winning TD in the final minute.
The two unbeatens face off Saturday in Minneapolis, where the Tommies should prevail in a relatively decent game. Bethel ought to hand Saint John’s; Bethel’s loss last week is a confidence-reducer, but after what happened to the Johnnies it’s hard to imagine they can rebound to beat what is still a top-ten team. Concordia can be expected to dispatch Carleton, and I’m figuring Gustavus will finally record a win this week, as Hamline is averaging only five points a game.
NEW ENGLAND:
Worcester State remained perfect, easily dealing with previously unbeaten Maine Maritime. Also remaining undefeated was Endicott, who just bulldozed Curry. Framingham kept their conference mark unsullied with an easy win over Mass Maritime, while Western New England and Mass-Dartmouth did the same in much more closely contested games.
In this week’s action in the Bogan Division, Worcester and Framingham should remain out in front of the pack. Maine Maritime should handle Westfield, while Coast Guard/Bridgewater features a team with good offense and no defense against a team with good defense and no offense. Generally, you favor the latter in this situation, so go with Bridgewater. In the Boyd, the three-way tie at the top may continue unaltered after this week, as Endicott will certainly beat winless Nichols and WNE should have no trouble with Curry. Mass-Dartmouth will have more trouble with Salve Regina, but I think they can manage the win. Plymouth State should take care of MIT in the final game.
NESCAC:
All last week taught us in the NESCAC is that NESCAC games are notoriously hard to predict until we’re a few weeks into the schedule. Amherst, who notched win #600 Saturday, appears to be the real front-runner at this point after usual suspects Williams and Wesleyan were upset. McCallum Foote threw for 291 yards and four TDs in Middlebury’s rout of Colby.
This week should see wins from Amherst, Wesleyan, and Williams; Bowdoin/Tufts is a toss-up, and unbeaten Hamilton and Trinity face off in a contest Trinity will probably win, but nothing is certain there.
NEW JERSEY:
All three ranked teams took care of business; Cortland and Montclair could barely have avoided it, while Kean won a grinding defensive battle with previously unbeaten CoNJ. Buffalo State continued to prove they can score points in a mild upset of William Paterson, while Rowan easily dealt with hopeless Western Connecticut.
The big game this week, of course, is the biggest game in all of D-III this week as Cortland pays a visit to unbeaten Montclair. If you must pick, pick Montclair, but this will be a battle. Kean should handle Buffalo, and CoNJ and Rowan are likely winners. Either Morrisville or Western Connecticut will pick up their first win this week; beither team has much offense, but Western’s defense has been about twice as bad. The problem with making a pick here, though, is that Western’s also faced far more potent offenses thus far. Toss-up.
NORTH COAST:
Wittenberg and Wabash remain unbeaten, and Denison announced their presence in the race by knocking off Wooster for the first time in 16 years. The remaining teams all lost non-conference games to UAA opponents, as was mostly expected. Allegheny’s loss was… well, derptastic. The Gators led 10-9 with a little over a minute to go, but fumbled deep in their own end of the field while trying to kill the clock, and Case Western capitalized. The Kenyon/Wabash game was officially a non-conference contest.
Allegheny should capture a win in the only conference game of the week when they visit winless Kenyon. Wabash should get past Washington, but those UAA squads are tricksy. Wittenberg visits 4-1 Huntingdon in a very, very interesting game. Wittenberg should probably remain unbeaten, but a Huntingdon win would be a very interesting resume-builder for a team without access to an automatic bid to the playoffs. Ohio Wesleyan, Oberlin, and Hiram are all looking at probable losses. Denison hosts Chicago in a game about which I’m completely uncertain.
NORTHERN:
Well, Benedictine won, and that was expected. Concordia (WI) removed themselves from the ranks of the winless and kept Rockford there, and I had no idea what was going to happen there. Wisconsin Lutheran absolutely destroying Maranatha? Lakeland getting their first win of the year? Yeah, that was… surprising.
Undaunted, however, I shall proceed to pick Benedictine, Maranatha, Wisconsin Lutheran, and Lakeland this week, and I refuse to be responsible for any monetary losses that ensue from you listening to me. Because this conference has officially gone loopy.
NORTHWEST:
Lewis & Clark and Linfield remain undefeated, and they’re joined atop the conference standings by Pac Lutheran.
Whitworth finally gets their first conference game of the year in, but I don’t expect them to get past the Lutes. Willamette should easily deal with winless Pacific, and Linfield will remain unblemished as they host winless Puget Sound. Lewis & Clark will take the week off, and thus fall a half-game off the pace.
OHIO:
Baldwin-Wallace, Heidelberg, John Carroll, and Muskingum all won as expected, though Carroll required a couple of extra frames, and Muskingum had entirely too much trouble with Wilmington; as expected, the win wasn’t enough to get them ranked. Mount Union won, which was no surprise; that Ohio Northern, whose early-season ranking has completely belied their performance thus far, should have kept the game within 8 points was startling. Regardless, ONU is pretty much out of the picture now, two full games behind the leaders, to whom they’ve both lost.
Mount Union, Baldwin-Wallace, and Carroll should all win. So should Muskingum, but they’ve actually got a live opponent on their hands this week, so they can’t afford to be listless like they were against Wilmington. Ohio Northern should get past Capital, I guess.
OLD DOMINION:
Everything went as planned, save for Emory & Henry’s upset of Randolph-Macon (which wasn’t a tremendous upset, even). The Wasps picked off four Yellow Jacket passes to help matters along. Washington & Lee’s 63 point outburst was their highest-scoring effort since a win over Richmond in 1950. That leaves the conference with no unbeaten teams after one week of conference play, as both previously-perfect squads lost their openers.
The two no-longer-perfect squads meet up in Washington Saturday, where Randolph-Macon really are the prohibitive favorites. Hampden-Sydney should outscore Bridgewater, while Emory & Henry and Washington & Lee will battle it out for the other half of next week’s share of the lead. Really, I suppose this is shakeout week, as three teams will come away still only having lost once, while three will suffer their second loss of the year. It’s a huge, huge separation week, and all three conference games are key national games for the week.
PRESIDENT’S:
With the exception of Geneva picking up their first win in an overtime upset of Saint Vincent, everything went according to expectations on Saturday. Saint Vincent had to score a touchdown as time expired just to force overtime. W&J stayed in range of the leaders with a tight win at Westminster, holding the Titans to -17 yards on the ground.
The frontrunners should all win, including unbeaten Thomas More wrecking winless Grove City. The fourth game on the slate is going to be a low-scoring tossup between Westminster and Bethany.
SOUTHERN CAC:
Both Millsaps and Rhodes scored mild upsets Saturday, but neither really has an impact on the conference rage at this stage. Birmingham-Southern slid into a tie for the league lead with an entirely unsurprising win at Austin in which Shawn Morris ran for 202 yards, and Centre remained undefeated with a win at DePauw.
Millsaps will win again, because Austin’s just terrible. Trinity should regain sole possession of the lead with a win over Sewanee, while BSU and Centre take the week off.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA:
In the big game of the week, Cal Lutheran recorded a mild upset, taking down Redlands basically by the margin of home-field advantage after trailing 24-0 at the half. In the process, CLU took over Redlands #13 spot in the poll, while Redlands only fell to #17. The remaining games went exactly as expected.
Cal Lutheran, Redlands, Chapman, and Oxy should all win this week.
UNIVERSITY:
Everyone won, save idle Washington of course. Case and Carnegie should win this week, while Chicago will need a slight upset and Washington a fairly significant one to pick up valuable victories.
UPPER MIDWEST:
No longer winless: Presentation, who won their first game ever, and Greenville. Still winless: MacMurray, Crown, and Martin Luther. The surprise, however is “no longer unbeaten: Westminster”, as they were upset by Eureka.
Eureka, Westminster, and still-unbeaten Scholastica should all win this week. The other two games involve two winless teams against two teams that were winless until beating winless teams last week, so I think you can piece together my thoughts without much effort.
USA SOUTH:
Thanks to conference play, some teams started winning games. NC Wesleyan is no longer winless after drubbing Averett, while CNU, Ferrum, and Shenandoah all reached .500 with expected victories.
This week I expect Averett and Methodist to win. There’s a reason NC Wesleyan was the preseason favorite, but Ferrum’s actually been playing decent ball, so I’m going to stick with them here. Shenandoah/CNU, I can’t call.
WISCONSIN:
Whitewater ejected Platteville from serious consideration, and La Crosse got off the winless list with an upset over Stevens Point. River Falls, however, remains empty after getting reamed at Oshkosh.
Whitewater has it easy this week, traveling to River Falls; Stevens Point is a slight favorite over Stout, while Oshkosh/Eau Claire is just too close to call. The winner will remain tied with Whitewater for the conference lead. La Crosse has a very losable non-conference game against NAIA Jamestown looming.
INDEPENDENTS:
There’s nothing more gratifying than saying a D-III team is going to beat a scholarship FCS team and being right. Wesley handled Charleston Southern with ease, and moved back into the top ten as a reward. Meanwhile, Macalester is actually playing decent football, and this is somewhat amazing.
Macalester is actually favored to win this week, and Wesley should handle Frostburg.