Quote from: NCC2010 on Yesterday at 12:51:04 PMCongrats to JP Sullivan on winning the Cliff Harris Award

https://northcentralcardinals.com/news/2026/1/15/football-sullivan-becomes-first-cardinal-to-win-cliff-harris-award.aspx

This award comes with winning D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. It's been a nice collaboration over the past few years!

Quote from: bonesmjb731 on Yesterday at 06:52:15 AMGallaudet makes sense in the Landmark with Catholic U. Give the Landmark 8 members. Keystone to MAC to bring conference up to 11 teams

Eleven teams is kind of the worst place to be -- one short of 12 where you can play in divisions and have an 11th-game championship game, and one more than 10, which is an even number and makes scheduling easy.

I know the number of posts here is ... well, low, but congratulations to Bryn Mawr for snapping its 257-game Centennial Conference losing streak!

https://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2026/01/recap-0114-women

The MAC already has 10 teams, though. That's not a likely spot for them to land.

The USA South has an even number of football programs. I don't think they are likely to extend their footprint another 200 miles in order to go to nine programs.

Gallaudet plus Keystone together in the MAC in football is not great for the competitiveness of the conference, but if they are able to hang in at 12 teams, they can play in divisions and only take the hit of playing one of them per year.

Here's that story:
https://www.d3football.com/notables/2026/01/gallaudet-to-try-hand-as-independent

Not sure that being independent and having a messy schedule with club teams on it is the right move. It seems rash to jump out of the ODAC after one year when there was already an established window for review at the two-year mark. Seems like Gallaudet's athletic department leadership doesn't understand how hard it is to operate as an independent in Division III. Le Fors didn't even get a chance to recruit before this season, although certainly Chuck Goldstein was on the job and doing that work.

It seems rash and premature for Gallaudet to jump out after one year. If the ODAC was too tough -- we all knew that from day one. But it's hardly a positive sign to any new conference if you jump out of your old one after just one year. Doesn't speak well for the stability of a conference-school/program relationship.

I have muted the cheerleader's dad and it makes X way more palatable.

Quote from: D3fanboy on January 08, 2026, 05:54:12 PMat least we'll have the D3sports guys "fully funding" the pregame show

Weird thing, right?

Quote from: D3fanboy on January 08, 2026, 05:00:31 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 08, 2026, 04:21:02 PM

Quote from: D3fanboy on January 08, 2026, 03:23:49 PMSalem is by far the best host and should be the permanent Stagg Bowl (imo) but I'm willing to bet that they've never hosted a January football game at Salem Stadium either.   

You'd actually lose that bet. Salem Stadium has hosted the Dream Bowl, which is an all-star game played in January. It's been held there at least twice.

I can't believe that I forgot about the...uhh...Dream Bowl. 

We also know from 2009 that Salem knows how to mobilize people to get a field in shape. Also, the big flaw in Canton is that because of the design of the stadium with a big grandstand on the south side, the sun rarely falls on the field. (Even more true on the third week of December.) That field needs to be covered if there is snow/ice coming down.

Quote from: D3fanboy on January 08, 2026, 03:23:49 PMSalem is by far the best host and should be the permanent Stagg Bowl (imo) but I'm willing to bet that they've never hosted a January football game at Salem Stadium either.   

You'd actually lose that bet. Salem Stadium has hosted the Dream Bowl, which is an all-star game played in January. It's been held there at least twice.

Quote from: GusD on January 07, 2026, 11:12:52 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 07, 2026, 02:26:39 PM

Quote from: GusD on January 06, 2026, 05:39:08 PMMight it not be worthwhile to bring in fresh blood/new opinions periodically?

Is it your assumption that we don't do this already?

I am not assuming anything. I don't know if it's done or not. But I'm interested so that's why I asked. I'm a bit surprised my simple question elicited another question rather than a simple yes or no answer. 🤗

The poll has been going since November of 1998. Of course voting positions change over. The way you asked the question, however, was absolutely from an assumption that we don't, so you might want to think about how you use words when asking in the future!

Quote from: hazzben on January 07, 2026, 03:18:57 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 07, 2026, 12:21:27 PM

Quote from: CHUBBS PETERSON on January 07, 2026, 11:43:38 AM

Quote from: faunch on January 06, 2026, 09:11:30 PMThe field conditions in the D3 game were crap and if the NCAA cared they would be embarassed...compare it to the FCS game last night...great setting and the field was in great shape.

Also posted my thoughts on this over in the CCIW thread; agree that there has to be a better way. I know it's at the Pro Football HoF, but an Ohio hockey rink in January is no time/place to decide a national champion. Doesn't take much thought to come up with several alternatives that provide better playing conditions, weather, and would be more desirable destinations from a tourism perspective.

"Congratulations on winning so many playoff games! Now bundle up and come play broomball in the rust belt!" Patronizing and insulting...

Well, hopefully those alternative places bid to host! The committee is always looking for more bids.

They do like the Hall of Fame connection in Canton. I suspect they also would have liked if perhaps Canton had tarped the field for the bad weather.

Paging Cedar Falls, put in a bid for the UNIDome. Smack in the middle of D3 footprint. Indoor venue is perfect for January. Size is right to make it feel like there's a critical mass.NCC vs UWRF would have had a great turnout in this venue.

Yes, and we've said it multiple times, so I hope the American Rivers Conference has a bid in mind! We've also heard, though, that the turf is in bad shape, so hopefully that gets sorted out someday soon.

Quote from: GusD on January 06, 2026, 05:39:08 PMMight it not be worthwhile to bring in fresh blood/new opinions periodically?

Is it your assumption that we don't do this already?

Quote from: Augie2020 on January 06, 2026, 06:39:15 PMYes you can also say Scranton beat Ursinus that beat York at York.

Yes, Scranton beat 7-5 Ursinus.

Scranton did not play York.

Quote from: SpartanHouse on January 07, 2026, 02:00:09 PM

Quote from: lmitzel on January 05, 2026, 06:22:04 PM

Quote from: CCIWFan69 on January 05, 2026, 12:09:07 PMOn to 2026.... do we have 2 non-conference games this year?  Anything scheduled yet?  Is Wheaton playing Mount Union again and is NCC playing Oshkosh again?

Yeah, the Wheaton/Mount and NCC/Oshkosh were home-and-home's that flip locale for 2026. And yes, 2026 will be the one season of back to two non-conference games with CUW coming in in 2027.

Posted on FootballScoop.com today that NCC is looking for a week 1 game.

Wonder what happened??

It's on our open dates board as well -- as I said earlier, that Oshkosh return date is in a future season, not 2026.

Quote from: CHUBBS PETERSON on January 07, 2026, 11:43:38 AM

Quote from: faunch on January 06, 2026, 09:11:30 PMThe field conditions in the D3 game were crap and if the NCAA cared they would be embarassed...compare it to the FCS game last night...great setting and the field was in great shape.

Also posted my thoughts on this over in the CCIW thread; agree that there has to be a better way. I know it's at the Pro Football HoF, but an Ohio hockey rink in January is no time/place to decide a national champion. Doesn't take much thought to come up with several alternatives that provide better playing conditions, weather, and would be more desirable destinations from a tourism perspective.

"Congratulations on winning so many playoff games! Now bundle up and come play broomball in the rust belt!" Patronizing and insulting...

Well, hopefully those alternative places bid to host! The committee is always looking for more bids.

They do like the Hall of Fame connection in Canton. I suspect they also would have liked if perhaps Canton had tarped the field for the bad weather.