https://kohawkathletics.com/sports/football/schedule

Coe has released their schedule. The Kohawks play their longtime rival Cornell to start off the season in which has been an incredibly one-sided affair in the 21st century. Their second noncon game is at UW-River Falls who went 7-3 last year with lots of high-quality wins. This should be a step up in competition, even from playing UW-Eau Claire last year, in which the Kohawks barely beat them in OT. UWRF beat UWEC 71-14 last year for context.

https://athletics.central.edu/sports/football/schedule

Central has also officially posted their schedule with noncon games against Illinois Wesleyan and Randolph Macon. We have already discussed the Randolph Macon game on these boards, but it should be a fun matchup. Illinois Wesleyan is back on the Dutch's schedule this season following a Central 49-14 win in 2024. IWU hired a new coach this year following the retirement of long-time head coach Norm Eash, and the program is looking for a resurgence.

Driving on I-25 north of Denver I saw a car in front of me with a Colorado license plate, an Atlanta Braves logo sticker, a Tufts University sticker, and a Washington University sticker on the tailgate.

I was left with more questions than answers...

Luther has posted their schedule with noncon games against Millikin and Martin Luther. Millikin is a bottom tier CCIW team, they went to 0-10 last season, and Martin Luther, a UMAC team who went 6-4 last year, although against a lack luster schedule. Hopefully, Luther can start making some things happen in the nonconference season to help bring up the bottom of the conference.

Although it hasn't been posted, I'm told that Loras is continuing with their noncon series against Hope and Benedictine this year. Hope was a fantastic team last year, winning the MIAA and making it to the second round of the playoffs. Benedictine went 5-5 in the NAAC last season and has played in some incredibly competitive games with the Duhawks over the last few seasons. Last year's game against BenU was very fun to watch, and it was down to the wire. The game against Hope was not productive for either side, and I'm not sure what led to renewing the contract, if I'm being quite frank. I'm sure that Hope would like to get an easy win in the NPI era and Loras feels that it is a good test against a good team. We shall see... 

Quote from: doolittledog on March 03, 2025, 09:22:49 AMUD announces their new D Line coach.  Jon Zohlmann, a 2022 Central grad and spent the last 2 seasons as the D Line coach at Nebraska Wesleyan.  Former UD defensive line coach Rob Huberty is now the Defensive Coordinator at St. Norbert. 

https://athletics.snc.edu/news/2025/2/5/huberty-and-zweifel-join-football-staff.aspx

Coach Zweifel has also decided that he is not done coaching football as he will be joining Zohlmann at St. Norbert's.

Just picking up on this from another board but it looks like Central will be hosting Randolph-Macon next season. RMC was a national semifinalist two years ago and advanced to the second round last year. A very nontraditional matchup but should be exciting to see where one of the better teams in the conference stacks up against a good team from the east.

https://rmcathletics.com/sports/football/schedule/2025

As noted above Wartburg has released their schedule with their nonconference lineup being their yearly matchup with Monmouth and then traveling to Menomonie to play UW-Stout. The schedule sets up rather favorably for the defending champs in that they do not have to play back-to-back away games during conference play (this may be a new aspect of the conference schedule someone feel free to correct me) and not playing the other top 3 of the conference (Central/Coe/ud) in back to back weeks.

https://go-knights.net/news/2025/2/13/2025-wartburg-football-schedule-announced.aspx

A few schedules have started being released.

UD: https://udspartans.com/sports/football/schedule

NWU: https://nwusports.com/sports/football/schedule

UD stepping up to the plate with some heavy hitters out of the WIAC. NWU going the NAIA route and I don't know much about either team.

Quote from: doolittledog on January 17, 2025, 10:26:54 AMConference records past 10 years
Wartburg 63-8  6 titles
Central. 56-17 2 titles
Dubuque. 51-21 1 title
Coe..... 49-23 1 title
Loras... 30-42
Simpson. 27-45
BVU..... 17-54
NWU..... 14-51
Luther.. 13-58

Of those 8 Wartburg losses (an incredible feat over a 10 year period) how many different teams were they against?

Impartial observer here...

Any time a shoulder pad is able to be seen due to a jersey being pulled a holding call typically follows.

I also do not think it impacted the play but yeah that's normally a flag.

Wartburg pulls off the victory at home over what I thought was a much more talented UWP team. At least I thought this in the games I watched both teams play in the regular season. This, however, did not look to be the case on Saturday. Wartburg dominated the LOS on both sides of the ball and forced turnovers to help them control the game from start to finish. Clearly, I have not given the Knights the respect that they deserve...

Checking in from my tree stand.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Thankful that we have a place to talk D3 football here!

Props to Coe. Hung in there and gave Bethel much more of a game than I thought they would. Some timely turnovers helped and they were able to keep it close and not let Bethel run away with it. 22 rushing yards just isn't going to get it done in the playoffs. Bethel's front looked about as legit as any could.

I am interested in how the ARC will fair this year in the playoffs. My gut tells me not very well but I could be wrong. I have made my opinion known about Coe so far this year. Really good team. But I do not think that they are great. I think they got an unfortunate draw and pulled Bethel. A team with a great offense and a great rush defense. I think this may be the end of the line for the Kohawks in 2024. That being said if they can make this a game and get past Bethel then they will probably beat Lake Forest by 21 (thanks NPI!).

I feel that Wartburg is a great team but not like they have had in previous years. They are the same fundamentally sound, never make a mistake team they have put out there almost every other year, but they are missing the high-end talent at the positions that matter when you play against other disciplined teams. I think that had they gotten a better draw (#12 vs #13 in NPI shouldn't be a first-round "second-round" game *sigh*) they probably win a playoff game or two. But pulling the WIAC champ in round one is rough. I feel that UWP may be too much for this Knights team. UWP's starting RB may be out for the game so that could play a factor.

Would be cool to see a all ARC game with a chance to go to the quarterfinals on the line. Just don't think it is in the cards this year.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on November 13, 2024, 01:39:33 PMLuther isn't going to get you a win score of 64, most likely, however.

I understand this. But if the idea is "what is the best route to try and go 10-0 or 9-1" playing them makes the most sense no? Because we are seeing that a 9-1 team is going to get in over a 8-2 team 99% of the time.

With regards to the looming playoffs, I think it is going to be very interesting to see how ARC teams schedule teams in the nonconference moving forward. Logan Hansen has long been ringing the bell that NPI simply favors win percentage (for this season and next) over scheduling good teams. I wonder if a team like Wartburg looks at their nonconference scheduling of St. Johns as a detriment due to that loss having potentially disastrous effects on their NPI number (yes I know they have locked up the conference AQ and thus it doesn't matter but if they did not it would). But for other teams in the conference (UD playing UWP and Aurora/Loras playing Hope) what good do these games do if these teams ever dream of getting into the tournament? I know Coe plays Cornell due to the history of that game but it is actually going to be the reason they get into the playoff field this year. Had they played a stronger opponent and lost it most likely would have kept them on the outside looking in.

I would like to think that following the next season the NPI dials would be reset but there are a number of conferences that are going to benefit from the current set-up and I would imagine they would push back against this idea. In the meantime, that sound you hear is Luther's phone ringing off the hook from every team in the country looking to take a trip to play in Decorah on the blue turf...