2024 Schedules

[Kuiper]

There was a heat wave in the North recently, right?  So, doesn't that mean it's almost time for the fall season to start?  No?  Well, there are schedules available from that part of the country anyway so I figured I might as well start a thread.

Nebraska Wesleyan

They are hosting a mini-tournament Sept 7-8 with Colorado College and Simpson College.  Last year, Nebraska Wesleyan played in Colorado College's tournament.  Makes sense, since Nebraska Wesleyan is the closest D3 program to Colorado College (only 560 miles and about 8 hours away!) 

The following weekend, they travel to Illinois to play Dominican and Elmhurst.

Wisconsin-Whitewater

Some difficult road games in September, including at Macalester, at North Park in a mid-week game, and at Wartburg.

North Central

Starting out the season with a bang, hosting St. Olaf and Gustavus Adolphus in the first weekend and then hosting University of Chicago and Milwaukee School of Engineering about ten days later.  Those four games alone could leave them either highly-ranked or trying to dig out of a hole.  A few weeks later, they travel to Wisconsin to play Wisconsin-Platteville too.

Aurora

Another team with a rough non-conference schedule to start the season, but all of these games are at home, hosting Loras, Wash U, Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and Chicago in 4 of their first 6 games

Wartburg

A difficult non-conference schedule that includes Macalester, MSOE, North Park, Wisconsin-Whitewater, and Wisconsin-Platteville later in the season

Augsburg

Playing close to home, but lots of the teams already mentioned

Dominican

North Central away in a scrimmage, but otherwise a pretty typical schedule.

[Kuiper]

Wheaton College (Illinois) is coming to Southern California in the fall for a two game tour of the SCIAC.

They will play Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on Thursday 9/12 and Chapman on Saturday 9/14

[mngopher]

Would not be surprised at all if St. Olaf/GAC are both playing U of Chicago on opening weekend

[Kuiper]

Would not be surprised at all if St. Olaf/GAC are both playing U of Chicago on opening weekend

Good call!  Given that they are each playing at North Central opening weekend, it stands to reason that they are playing another Chicago team on the day they aren't playing North Central. With Chicago playing at St. Olaf and Gustavus Adolphus on opening weekend in 2023, it stands to reason that this will be each school's return trip in the home-and-home series.

[Kuiper]

A few more new schedules

North Park

Replaces two top Ohio schools from last year's schedule (Ohio Northern and John Carroll) with two top Wisconsin schools this year (Wisconsin Eau Claire and Wisconsin Whitewater)

UC Santa Cruz

Always interesting because they have no conference games and are 6+ hours away from the nearest D3 schools.  The positive to offset that is that they have the advantage of being on the quarter system, which means classes don't even start until 9/21.  So, they are bringing Pacific Lutheran and Pomona-Pitzer to Santa Cruz the Friday and Saturday of the first weekend of the season (which likely means Pacific Lutheran and Pomona-Pitzer are playing each other on Sunday in Santa Cruz) and then they travel to LA to play Occidental the next weekend, travel to Oregon to play weekday (W/F) games against Pacific and Willamette, and then back to LA to play weekday (W/F) games against La Verne and Redlands, all before their classes begin.  After that, they play home or nearby games against DII or NAIA opponents, except for three more weekend trips to LA to play Chapman, Cal Lutheran, and CMS.  The only SCIAC teams they don't play this year are Whittier and Cal Tech.

Baruch

First time they are playing NYU since 2021, when they lost 10-0.

Norwich

Robert Emmett certainly isn't shying away from tough games in his first season at Norwich by scheduling his very first game of the season at the school he left at Middlebury.  It's a team they've played regularly of late because of proximity, but not for the opener.

Coe College

heading up to Wisconsin-Platteville for a late September game should be a challenge

St. Mary's (Minnesota)

One of the first schools to play at Wisconsin-Stout in its opening season

Ferrum College

You don't often see schools play a team in their conference for a game designated as a non-conference game, but they did it against Bridgewater in 2022 and are doing so again home and away in 2024.  Not sure why.  it doesn't look like they are that close to each other compared to other ODAC schools.

[Kuiper]

A couple more schedules

Ripon

Another team that has University of Wisconsin-Stout on its non-conference schedule in its inaugural year

John Carroll

Last year in the OAC, but they are getting a jump start on NCAC play by playing at Oberlin and home to Kenyon on the first weekend of the season.  That isn't a surprise since they often play NCAC teams and these are just the second legs of home/away series that they started last year, but it is a chance for Kenyon to get revenge after losing 4-0 to John Carroll last year in Gambier.  They are also hosting Stockton and Trine for something called the Cleveland Classic in mid-September on a Friday/Sunday, which probably means Trine and Stockton will play each other on that Saturday.  Always nice to see those East Coast/Midwest clashes.  Another interesting addition to the schedule is they are traveling to Williamsport to play Lycoming on Sept 21 after playing Ohio Wesleyan on the 18th, and before playing Case Western on the 25th and hosting Calvin on the 28th.  That's a murderer's row of games.  In fact, in their 10 non-conference games to start the season, only Oberlin and Trine did not have winning records last year and Trine was 7-7-3 and beat Kenyon.

[SierraFD3soccer]

A few more new schedules

Ferrum College

You don't often see schools play a team in their conference for a game designated as a non-conference game, but they did it against Bridgewater in 2022 and are doing so again home and away in 2024.  Not sure why.  it doesn't look like they are that close to each other compared to other ODAC schools.

Maybe so, but I know W&L has in the past.  ODAC has so many teams (12 teams and not broken down into two or more divisions) and they are required to play so certain no. of ODAC games (used to be 8 and now 10 I believe). If I remember correctly, ODAC in 2019 did not schedule W&L to play Lynchburg as part of their ODAC schedule. Lynchburg and W&L are rivals so the coaches scheduled this game as a non-conference game that did not count for ODACs. 

Obviously, ODAC coaches know each other and there may not be other options for scheduling especially being in rural western Virginia. I am guessing that teams like Ferrum and Bridgewater who work hard but have not have amazing results may have problems scheduling non-conf games as their opponent will most likely not gain much by playing either team regionally or nationally.

[Little Giant 89]

The 2024 season for the Wabash College Little Giants includes a trip to Dayton to take on the Flyers.

https://sports.wabash.edu/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2024

[Kuiper]

Kalamazoo

Chicago, North Park, and North Central again this year, but they've added Wheaton (IL), Illinois Wesleyan, and Elmhurst, to their Illinois opponents.

[Kuiper]

Ohio Northern

Lots to talk about on this one, but I'll move some of the commentary to the NCAA rule change thread.

Notable that they are listed as playing at Colorado College and at UT Dallas on 9/13-9/14.  I'm assuming they aren't actually flying out of Colorado Springs late at night on the 13th to play at Dallas early afternoon on the 14th, so UT Dallas is probably coming up to Colorado College for a round robin.  I wonder if ONU is having work on its home field or something else is going on, because it seems a little unusual to not have a single home game between 9/11 and 10/9.  They are spending a month and 6 games on the road.  The games against Otterbein and Mount Union on 10/23 and 10/26 are at home, though, which could help decide the OAC regular season champion.  Also, interesting to see that John Carroll is scheduled for an early November game after ONU is finished with its conference schedule.  Seems like they wanted to keep the rivalry alive even after JCU switched to the NCAC and they found a way to squeeze it in before the conference tournaments.

[Kuiper]

SUNY Potsdam

They are playing in the Cardinal Classic at SUNY Plattsburgh on opening weekend against Baruch and Manhattanville.  The following weekend, they host SUNY Delhi and John Jay

SUNY Canton

Also playing John Jay and SUNY Delhi that second weekend of the season, but those two teams are traveling between Potsdam and Canton for their games each day (not sure why SUNY has campuses 20 minutes apart, but it certainly makes it convenient for scheduling)

[stlawus]

SUNY Potsdam

They are playing in the Cardinal Classic at SUNY Plattsburgh on opening weekend against Baruch and Manhattanville.  The following weekend, they host SUNY Delhi and John Jay

SUNY Canton

Also playing John Jay and SUNY Delhi that second weekend of the season, but those two teams are traveling between Potsdam and Canton for their games each day (not sure why SUNY has campuses 20 minutes apart, but it certainly makes it convenient for scheduling)

Well for most of its history Canton was a 2 year Ag/Tech school.  Only transitioned into the 4 year/division III profile within the last 15 years.  ~10 years ago SUNY made a big push to combine the schools but there was enough pushback among alumni and campus administration that it was scrapped in the end. People lost jobs/were forced into retirement over it.   Given the current landscape of higher ed this is probably going to happen down the road anyways.

[D-Three Fan]

The Ohio Northern Polar Bears open the fall season with Kenyon followed by Oberlin, Hope, Calvin, Ohio Wesleyan, Colorado College and UTD (games in Colorado), Washington (Mo.) and Greenville.

[D-Three Fan]

ONU also plays Rose-Hulman.

[Kuiper]

I have a thread on the D3Boards page about this already, but I'll continue it here for now while we wait to see if those boards can be brought back to life:

Illinois Wesleyan

For a team that won the CCIW AQ before losing to Chicago in the first round, this is a pretty underwhelming non-conference schedule, although Lake Forest did advance to the NCAA tournament (despite a losing record) by winning the MWC tourney. Some of these are return legs from home-and-away contracts, but maybe they heard about the NCAA selection criteria changes recommended for D3 and decided they got plenty of Strength of Schedule from CCIW and they would stay easier in non-conference games.

Kalamazoo

One of IWU's opponents for 2024. They host Chicago and play at North Park and North Central.

Lawrence

They didn't win a single game in 2023. Maybe that's why they added the brand new men's soccer team at University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point to their schedule twice (once in an exhibition game)

Denison

It's pretty easy to see why Coach Bianco is so interested in deferring the proposed change in NCAA tournament selection criteria a year (which apparently hurt teams with rigorous schedules because of a provision for dropping bad wins - wins against weak teams - from the SoS calculation). His non-conference schedule has Denison playing Stevens, Mount Union, Case Western Reserve, Christopher Newport, and Otterbein. Plus, Capital, Grove City, and Centre all had winning records last year and the only team they play with a losing record from last year is Transylvania, which was only 1 under 500 and Denison plays them away. Having said that, Denison is playing Stevens, Mount Union, Case, CNU, and Otterbein all at home in their gorgeous new soccer stadium.

Union

A strong schedule for them, opening away to Oneonta and home to New Paltz and then away to TCNJ and Rutgers-Newark. They also play at Williams and host Brandeis and Plattsburgh.