First off, for a student newspaper this article is immaculate.  Kudos to their journalism department (assuming they have one)

Lest anyone be concerned about the immediate future of CC, they have over $1.2B in their endowment and trusts.  But it is shocking to see a quality school have three straight years of declining enrollment, resulting in a reset to a lower student body target despite substantially increasing their acceptance rate; you know their financial aid packages have to be generous and it is a lovely campus in an appealing part of the world.  But it's far away from most of the country, and you have to get athletes (for that part of the population) that are willing to hop on a plane basically every other week.  Not such a big deal for the D1 part of the program but if you're focused on your studies that kind of regular disruption makes studies a challenge. 

Their goals of becoming recognized as a top 25 college (#34 in the most recent US News' National Liberal Arts ranking), 90% graduation (86% now), and 20% acceptance rate will not be an easy path to travel.  They increased the latter to 26% and still failed to meet enrollment goals this year.  And you're not going to save a lot of money or make a lot of positive impressions cutting back on the occasional free snack for students.

Until you get to minimum wins (8 for women's soccer), NPI is just killed by playing crappy teams as those "bad wins" hurt you so much.  Once you get to 8 in WSOC you start dropping any win result that hurts your overall NPI.  Wins above minimum that help your NPI are retained.   And good or bad, all losses are part of your NPI.

What frustrates me about the dials are that you get no bonus for an away win.  At least it's the same on the men's side; some sports treat them radically differently, such as basketball where the men get a 20% bonus for an away non-conference win, a 10% bonus for an away conference win, while the women get no bonus of any kind for away wins.  If you want to look at all of the dials go to https://www.ncaa.org/championships/general-championship-resources/ncaa-power-index/ under "Division III Championship Resources". 

Quote from: MCScots2013 on October 09, 2026, 10:29:32 AMFrom my understanding there will be grades in a few stages in the next few years, but nothing actually announced.  I await with bated breath.  Maybe at Homecoming in a few weeks?

I'm not sure what you are referring to here, could you expand?

Hanover (4-3-4) will face #2 D1 Indiana (10-0-2) on their Senior night (tonight).  Hope they are getting some $$$ out of it as their only other meeting last year resulted in an 8-0 IU victory.

With Hurricane Isaias bearing down on the region, Centre @Millsaps and Berry @Rhodes have shifted their games to Friday (5:30, 7:00pm respectively).  Sewanee @Maryville has not yet moved from 2pm ET Saturday. 

From yesterday's D3Playbook newsletter:

Quote"There are basically two ways a college gets into trouble.

One is not having enough cushion to take continued blows: a couple of bad enrollment years or a hit to the budget, and there's not much in reserve to absorb them. The other shows up after students leave, when they're holding degrees that don't earn much and debt that takes a long time to pay down. Some schools have one of those problems and not the other.

Some, unfortunately, have both."

» Driving The News. "U.S. four-year colleges and universities face compounding pressures — demographic decline, fiscal stress, and artificial intelligence — that will reshape the sector over the next decade. This project maps where 1,557 institutions are structurally positioned across two dimensions, using public data anyone can verify."

This information has been presented in a different form here in the past, but if you'd like you can check out where your schools (or schools in your state, or a number of different options) sit at Kyle Saunders' site here.

Quote from: awadelewis on October 06, 2026, 07:34:26 PMLooks like we may get tropical weather coming in late Friday through the day on Saturday.   May see some impact on games in Jackson and Memphis.

Very true. Latest forecast projects it hitting around the MS-AL border as hurricane at 1AM Saturday and rapidly proceeding due north.  The saving grace may be that the NW quadrant of a storm is usually the one with the least amount of precipitation and both cities are located in that quadrant.  Even if so could be a good deal of wind ! 

Quote from: Kuiper on October 07, 2026, 12:19:27 AM

Quote from: Kuiper on October 06, 2026, 09:04:57 PMTrinity (TX) 0 - Southwestern 0 (33rd minute)

Pretty even game in Georgetown.  Trinity is bringing in the subs, which may help them.  I feel like their bench has been more potent offensively than their starters lately.

FINAL:  Trinity 0 - Southwestern 0

Stalemate in Georgetown. Trinity took more shots and its xG would probably be a little higher if you could calculate it in a D3 game simply because they had more corners, but they were equal in terms of shots on goal.  If the two teams can run the table in the SAA, this just defers the question until the conference tournament.

The Southwestern writeup stated Trinity is "ranked second in the national poll" (which hasn't been true for good reason since the first poll after the season got underway) and the story of their women's loss said their opponents were "#8" (that's where they are in NPI, not a ranking; USC has them #25 as of yesterday afternoon, the first time they've been ranked this season).

Just report the facts - seven straight clean sheets is darned impressive no matter the opponents and you don't need to make your opponents look better than they actually are (and yes, there is a rivalry between the two schools and it's rare that Southwestern ends up on top so even a tie is a big deal).

Case has $4.8B in assets against $1.2B in liabilities.  While that's a higher debt load than one might expect, since 2021 they are clearing over $50M a year in profit (and an astounding $239M in 2022, $116M in 2021) so you can continue to assume they are doing great financially.

Moody's Ratings has downgraded Wentworth Institute of Technology, MA's issuer and revenue bond ratings to Baa2 from Baa1. The outlook is stable. Total outstanding debt as of fiscal year end 2025 was approximately $153 million. Moody's Ratings has also revised Allegheny College's outlook to negative from stable. We have also affirmed the Ba1 issuer and revenue bond ratings. As of June 30, 2026 the college had approximately $49 million of total adjusted debt outstanding.

Baa2 represents a lower-medium grade rating, and is only two notches above junk.  That would be where Allegheny finds itself (Ba1 is the "top" junk rating but also the lowest investment grade rating, which seems contradictory).  Surprising to me that Allegheny, which has a much better asset to debt ratio and lower bond debt load than Wentworth, and has been profitable the last two years, would have such a rating. 

Schools in the NPI top 25 (reflecting results through Sunday), not in the USC top 25:

School	Record	NPI Rank
Trinity(TX)	6-0-0	8
Carleton	7-1-0	9
Vassar	5-0-3	14
Batten	8-0-2	15
Puget Sound	8-0-1	22
CNU	6-1-3	23

Quote from: WUPHF on October 05, 2026, 09:26:18 AM

Quote from: Ralph Turner on October 02, 2026, 11:05:20 PMhttps://lailluminator.com/2026/10/01/consultant-to-evaluate-ul-system-teams-leaving-division-i-to-save-money/

The future of Division III and higher education in general is wasting money on consultants.  Also, the past and present.

LOL, too true.  Trinity(TX) recently hired not one but two east coast consulting firms to help redesign the school's logo and branding.  Neither firm had done anything for colleges in the region and surprise of surprises the result was such a disaster (the logo resembled a cross between BP/La Quinta and local Frost Bank, with an unintentional nod to the Butthole Surfers, a group founded by Trinity students the year I graduated) and aroused the normally placid/apathetic alumni so much that it had to be withdrawn a day or two after the announcement.  It generated more bad PR for the school than anything in decades and someone's surely going to make a case study about how not to redo your logo based on the experience.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on September 27, 2026, 05:57:16 PMHansen Ratings:

• Berry 14.1, @Trinity 25.2 [TU 75.7% to win]
• Southwestern 30.2, @Sewanee 21.0 [SW 72.2% to win]
• Rhodes 12.8, @Millsaps 42.8 [MC 97.1% to win]
• Maryville 14.1, @Centre 23.5 [CC 72.3% to win

Hansen has Berry @Trinity as his #8 game of the week (reflecting combined strength of the two teams)

SP+:

• Berry 18.1, @Trinity 23.7
• Southwestern 26.3, @Sewanee 25.1
• Rhodes 6.1, @Millsaps 46.0
• Maryville 16.2, @Centre 26.5

Actual Week 5 results:

• @Trinity 23 Berry 6
• Southwestern 42 @Sewanee 21
• @Millsaps 54 Rhodes 10
• Maryville 27 @Centre 21 (OT)

Both forecasts missed the Maryville win; though it was in OT, each forecast Centre by over a TD so this could be a sign that the Scots are starting to figure things out.  Congrats!

Let's look at this week's games:

Hansen Ratings:

• @Millsaps 23.1, Centre 22.9 (MC 50.4% to win)
• @Southwestern 10.1, Trinity 38.8 (TU 96.5%)
• @Rhodes 1.1, Berry 41.9 (BC 99.6%)
• @Maryville 39.5, Sewanee 14.2 (MC 94.7%)

SP+:

• @Millsaps 25.1, Centre 20.3
• @Southwestern 7.0, Trinity 38.7
• @Rhodes 0.0, Berry 47.1
• @Maryville 36.4, Sewanee 15.7

Main difference here is a larger MOV for Millsaps by SP+, and I would agree (if not at least a TD). 

Looking back at last week, D3football.com Podcast 420 discusses Berry@Trinity (around 17:00) and Pat Coleman awards his weekly game ball to TJ Scannell (around 29:30); Logan Hansen discusses the teams likely to get a Top 8 playoff seed.  That all comes in the first 45 minutes though of course (as always) the entire thing is worth listening to to get a feel for what's happening across the division.

TLU LB Malik Johnson returned two interceptions for touchdowns against Lyon yesterday, one in each half - part of a four-INT day for the Bulldogs, and he personally had three.  Amazingly, that is the second time in five games he has returned two interceptions for scores. 

Before yesterday, TLU led all divisions of football in interceptions, and with four more (sixteen total on the season) they likely remain leaders in that category (h/t to their game writeup which highlighted most of these facts).

TLU and Hendrix battle in Seguin next week and likely will face off again for the SCAC championship November 14th, with a potential playoff rematch with the Trinity squad that gave them what could be their only loss of the season in the cards after that.  It's hard to see any of the other teams in the SCAC getting involved in the 1v2 championship.  As to who wins a TLU-Hendrix final, it depends on which Warrior team shows up - the one that lost to Huntingdon and fell badly behind Schreiner yesterday, or the one that beat Millsaps on the road or outscored Schreiner 42-13 in the comeback win, also on the road. 

You won.  Be happy  but I get the frustration with Flo/Centre.

TLU and PLU both won today, which is good for Trinity's NPI (as is defeating now 3-1 Berry).  McMurry was on a bye week.

Sunday edit:  According to d3datacast.com Trinity has the top NPI in the country.  Extremely unlikely to stay that way even should they win out due to weak SAA opponents, but rather start there than lower.