D3FB released their Pre-Season top-25 rankings. R3 has 20% representation:

https://www.d3football.com/top25/2026/preseason

The SAA had multiple honorees that made the AP All American Teams:


Caleb Bayer, Trinity, 1st Team OL
Michael Clark, Berry, 1st Team DL
Chase Lanham, Southwestern, 1st Team P
Alejandro Tavarez, Trinity, 3rd Team WR
Reed Richards, Berry, 3rd Team OL
TJ Scannell, Trinity, 3rd Team LB

*Former Tiger BJ Stewart (UMHB) earned 1st Ret/All Purpose Player

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/northcentralcardinals.com/documents/2025/12/18/2025_AP_Division_III_All-America_football__FINAL__V2_.pdf

Quote from: Ron Boerger on December 13, 2025, 09:55:28 PM

Quote from: Ralph Turner on December 13, 2025, 08:20:15 PMThe loss leaves an incredibly bad taste in the Vikings' mouths.
Woe to SAA opponents in 2026.

They lose a *lot* to graduation - a very senior-laden squad.

EDIT:  I looked at today's starting roster - 8 seniors/grad students on defense, 8 seniors/grads on offense, K is a senior.

I don't care how good you are, but 7 TOs doesn't bold well when trying to win a game, much less a quarters playoff matchup. Still interesting to see what the verdict was on the onside kick Berry couldn't review.berry should have put Hunter in at QB much earlier! Mind boggling.

Yea like Ron says, it may leave a bad taste, but majority of the guys who played for Berry this year can't do anything about it because they graduate.

SAA will be even tougher next year. They Already positioned themselves in the top 3 conferences of D3. Plus Trinity loses 2-3 starters on offense and 1-2 on defense. Backs up all got tons of reps because they didn't leave the starters well into the 4qt like some other teams
 

Happy to see Caleb Bayer, Trinity, earn 1st Team All American on the AFCA awards! Also, former Tiger BJ Stewart (UMHB) was recognized as the 1st Team AA Returner. Go Tigers!

https://www.afca.com/currys-montie-quinn-and-adrians-ethan-burrows-headline-the-2025-afca-division-iii-coaches-all-america-teams/

Not sure why HSUs back up RB is hitting the portal. Noah graduates and has the keys to be the man and leaves. Head scratcher 

They had a chance but just served up 22 point lead at half this year and the rally was bit too late, even though they almost pulled off the unthinkable. Hope Berry can rep well since ncaa put all 5 R3 teams in the same pod and 4/5 in the same sub-bracket. We had a Rematch of Berry and La Grange which came down to the wire. Then the Annual rematch of Trinity vs ASC (HSU), which came down to the wire....and then the Rematch of SAA in Round 3 which came down to the wire. Uhhh, oh and poor R-MC didn't rep well. Now it's on Georgia to hold down the fort.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on December 07, 2025, 03:59:41 PMA devastatingly ****ty weekend for Trinity athletics.  As previously noted, the women VBers lost in the Final Four, the football team lost, and today the men's soccer team suffers a tying goal with FOUR SECONDS LEFT and then, understandably crushed, lose the championship to #1 Tufts in OT.

I was sad when I checked in on the men's soccer score and saw it happen in OT. Stinks we lost but still made it to the natty, at least!

Ladies soccer dropped in OT this year in the playoffs too. Throw in the Volleyball losing in the final 4, to the national champs, and with football stubbing their toe, I'm still happy to see so many Tiger sport programs at Trinity be on the national stage and competing deep into their respective brackets.

Men's BBall is ranked and doing well too! So is cross country. Interesting to see how Trinity ranks across the board for fall sports. True "Student" athletes

Wish for football sake, that the committee wouldn't have thrown all of R3 into the same pod, with 4/5 in one sub bracket. Would've been neat to see how the region matched up against other regions.

Quote from: MCScots2013 on December 07, 2025, 11:45:12 AM

Quote from: Cowboy2 on December 06, 2025, 02:18:13 PMThis is the most annoying announcer I've listened to all year.... twice now for that matter. I need to buy him a "Hooked on Phonics" class. It's not "scrannel" and it's not "treveris"

Like sound it out man! The other guys isn't bad.

He gets so emotional anytime Berry has a play it hurts my ears because they never fixed their microphone issue.

He's insufferable. I hope he's a student and graduates soon.

Sack. 40 yard down field completion. Gash the D for a 25 yard run. 50 yard FG. John Ward "Give Him 6!" tagline. Acceptable moments to get animated. This guy yells every time a Berry player farts without ruining their white game pants.

He's not a student unless he's Van Wilder. I've heard him a few years now and think he's called all 3 of the most recent regular season games vs Trinity plus the playoffs

That's some BS... I don't understand the refs calls. He should have caught it the first time. It was ruled a catch then incomplete. Whatever.

We Started too late and gifted them a 22 pt lead. Piss pour special teams made this an uphill battle or it may not be a game if we don't fumble the ball twice on 1st down conversion plays. Defense has done well but was on the field too long

This is the most annoying announcer I've listened to all year.... twice now for that matter. I need to buy him a "Hooked on Phonics" class. It's not "scrannel" and it's not "treveris"

Like sound it out man! The other guys isn't bad.

He gets so emotional anytime Berry has a play it hurts my ears because they never fixed their microphone issue.

Quote from: MCScots2013 on November 08, 2025, 02:26:05 PMThese Berry guys are almost unbearable to listen to. You'd think everyone on the roster craps gold the way they call the game. Centre and Trinity have much better guys in the box.

They also need to invest in a new microphone. Hurt my ears listening to it. Had to mute the game eventually. You can also hear all of the coaches in the box the whole time which ruins the broadcasting.

Quote from: tigerguy on October 19, 2025, 08:35:48 AMNCAA stats website only goes back to 2012, but it appears one of those games was 2023 against Southwestern when they put up 710 yards.

I would have expected that some of the prolific Tiger passing offenses of the late 90s/early 2000s would be up there statistically with these recent Urban-led teams, but it's probably an unfair comparison since games were played differently back then.

As great as Burton and Hampton were back then, with Trinity having close to a decade of All American Caliber QBs at the helm, don't forget they also had Damond Garza and Jeremy Boyce toting the rock out of the backfield. I believe Boyce still has the single game record for 300+ yards on the ground up on the Mountain. He was an AA RB as well.

What blows my mind about this young Trinity team is that the next man up never skips a beat, whether it be a QB, RB, WR, the OL gets the job done... Would have liked to have seen a better showing vs Berry, but Berry is very seasoned this year. The future is promising with this level of output. Crazier thing is the starters are being shuffled out after halftime and the younger guys are pouring on the yardage. Their two highest output games this season they didn't start early and still put 60 points on the board thanks to all three phases exploding in the second half. 

Go Tigers!

Quote from: MCScots2013 on October 12, 2025, 04:38:46 PMI'm no Berry apologist, but they also took Carnegie Mellon to the wire in Pittsburgh without their senior multi year starting QB and that same CMU team almost upset Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Berry didn't look that great that game. Neither did CMU. CMU had a big box on defense. Berry never really made plays too, and it was a tight game. CMU blew the Hopkins game this week. What would have happened if they hung on? Where would voters put Berry?

Trinity is loaded with underclassmen all over the field in each of the three phases. I think they got rattled first half on stalled drives, and just didn't adjust against Berry... But to be dropped out of the top 25 shows some bias on voters. 240+ teams and I doubt half of them watch as many games as some of us do. Cant look at the box scores. You need to turn on the film. Why didn't Hopkins fall from #3?

I still think Trinity and UMHB would be two teams that no one would want to face in the first round of playoffs. Prime example and evidence was last years playoffs when UMHB showed anything can happen.

However, currently Trinity is still top 20 in the country on NPI, and that's all that matters. UMHB doesn't have a lot of options on dropping games to help NPI due to double headers and OOC non D3 teams.
https://stats.ncaa.org/selection_rankings/nitty_gritties/46111

Still halfway through the season but the SAA has a good chance of getting three teams in the playoffs if the top 3 all finish out well depending on how the head to head games play out. Also the WIAC is beating up on each other and shuffling rankings, but NPI is what gets team into playoffs, not Top 25 votes.

Lot of ball left to play. CMU needs to win their conference.

Welp D3 voters dumped both UMHB and Trinity from the Top 25 rankings today.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on October 02, 2025, 10:04:16 PMWeek #4

1) TUTX 30 points  (1,1,1,2,5)
2) HSU  27 points  (2,2,3,3,3)
3) H-SC  23 points  (1,2,2,4,x)
4T) UMHB 17 points (1,3,4,6,7)
4T) Berry 17 points (4,4,4,5,6)
6) RMC    11 points  (3,5,7,7,7)
7) Maryville  10 points (5,5,6,6,x)

RV Centre  2  (6,x,x,x,x)
RV Bridgewater 1 (7,x,x,x,x)


Just my opinion, but I think that Bornpowerindex still has too much built in data to keep the indices of 2025 teams from bursting from past performances. Also, I believe that UMHB is getting much support from its non-D3 opponents, Hampden-Sydney is still carrying the burden of the previous season(s). Bornpowerindex is my 5th ballot. Any takers?

I had the same teams in a similar order. Would be awesome to get a few more R3 voters on board to see their input on placement...Should be a fun conference schedule for all the leagues in R3. I've really enjoyed seeing the Region as a whole have a lot of teams on the national stage being recognized with D3 votes!