Quote from: Ron Boerger on August 21, 2026, 12:28:05 PMTrinity is a narrow favorite (two point) in the SAA preseason poll. 

1. Trinity - 54 (5)
2. Berry - 52 (3)
3. Centre - 38
T4. Maryville - 37
T4. Millsaps - 37
6. Southwestern 27
7. Rhodes - 20
8. Sewanee - 15

Tigers scrimmage TLU Schreiner at home tomorrow night (I think it's TLU, anyway) so I may try to head out to get a handle on whois starting at QB.  Apparently the gap between Hondo Franklin and Welker Horn narrowed in the spring. 

sewanee hires a HC with prior d3 coaching experience but still falls below rhodes who they beat 28-6 last year

Pre-season predictions are in for the WIAC.  UW-PLATTEVILLE expected to lead the conference in 2026.  The rest as follows, from 1-8.

1) Platteville
2) La Crosse
3) River Falls
4) Whitewater
5) Oshkosh
6) Stout Poly
7) Stevens Point
8) Eau Claire

https://wiacsports.com/news/2026/8/21/2026-wiac-football-preview.aspx

Mrs Oz and I have had a week's holiday in tropical Far North Queensland (FNQ, in the local lingo) and as I was walking through part of the hotel, I noticed that not only has Gough Whitlam, Australia's only Prime Minister to be dismissed by the Queen/King, been here, but Bobby beat me here as well.  I'm having a year of Bobby.  You're everywhere.

Quote from: DuffMan on August 21, 2026, 08:38:10 AMI got this email from SJU yesterday, as I am sure many of you did. Seriously? I think back to when our kids were a little younger and needed backpacks full of activities and snacks to get through the afternoon. Heck, I brought a propane heater a few times!

QuoteNew Clear Bag Policy for SJU Football Games
Dear Johnnie Football Fans,
As you prepare for the upcoming Saint John's football season, we want to make you aware of an important change to gameday entry procedures.
A clear bag policy will be in effect for all Saint John's football games at Clemens Stadium this season.
If you plan to bring a bag into the stadium, it must be one of the following:

• A clear plastic, vinyl or PVC bag no larger than 12" × 6" × 12"
• A one-gallon clear resealable plastic bag
• A small clutch bag no larger than 4.5" × 6.5"

Medical, accessibility and diaper bags are permitted and will be subject to inspection.
Backpacks, large purses or totes, coolers, duffel bags, fanny packs, camera bags and other noncompliant bags will not be permitted. Please leave these items in your vehicle before entering the stadium.
To make the transition easier, approved clear bags will be available for purchase beginning with the first home game at the SJU Spirit Shop, football stadium shop and Spirit Shop cart in the tailgating lot.
Thank you for helping us make gameday safe and welcoming for everyone.

Go Johnnies!

Saint John's University

Safe and welcoming?  Even rural central Minnesota is getting the bag inspection routine now.  That's a shame.

Hi all! Long time reader, first time poster looking to increase Amherst representation on this forum. Amherst looks poised for another year of improvement with a lot of returners on offense and you can always rely on Bussard and Mills' having a good defense. Other big news I heard is that former Co-DPOY, Kemit Fisher, is back to help out with the D-Line this year.

PAC Preseason Poll

1. Grove City (11)
2. Franciscan (2)
3. Allegheny
4. Geneva
5. St. Vincent
6. Waynesburg
7. W&J
8. Chatham
9. Hiram
10. Bethany
11. Westminster
12. Thiel
X. Saint Francis

Saint Francis is moving from DI to DIII and wasn't voted on by the coaches.  Nevertheless, they are playing a full PAC schedule.  It could be brutal.  They currently have 15 players listed on the roster.  Every single player but one is a freshman.  The one non-freshman is senior Alvaro Planas, who started 16 games last year and was named first team all NEC last year (4g/2a) when they were playing D1.  Planas is a product of the Real Valladolid Youth Academy, where he played for 9 years.  He's got the #10 jersey and I expect that will mean something on this team. 

St. Francis lists Planas, Japhy McGuiness (who was raised in Saudi Arabia and has played the past few years in Spain), and Lorenzo Plaza (who is from the Phillipines, but played for Western Reserve Academy outside of Cleveland) as their players to watch for 2026

Not really sure where Quinn Phillips is getting a 5th year of eligibility from for Hobart as he's currently listed on the roster. Can only get a medical redshirt if you played in a 3rd or fewer games in the injured season and he played 41% of games that year. Seems like some compliance funny business going on there. 

Who even knows this year.  And I'm close to getting to the point where it's "who even cares" if we continue to see the same nonsense from SLU. I want to follow the league as thoroughly as I always have but it's much more difficult to have interest when the powers that be for SLU soccer don't show interest. Results are one thing, the product is another.  SLU had a good spring and the coach finally ditched some of his ridiculous bias against the transfer portal after getting beat over the head by Cortland for so long, but we shall see.

Teams haven't been repeating the last several seasons because it's exceedingly more difficult playing with a target on your back as well as the home and away scheduling flips season to season. Hobart will probably be picked first especially with Vassar losing all that they did. Hobart will hope to avoid a repeat cycle of 2023 to 2024. Won the league in 2023 off the back of lots of wonder goals which regressed in the NCAA tournament and then underperformed in 2024.  Hobart also had a lot of wonder goals in the 2nd half of 2025 which again regressed in the first round.  They maintain most of their offense from last season, but now have the target on their back but will be better positioned than most of the league to start.

Skidmore had a nice season last year, but one has to wonder how much teams will adjust to them now that they won't catch anyone by surprise.  It's hard to imagine RPI continuing to be as poor as they have, but then again I've said similar things about SLU and nothing has changed yet.

Here's the SimpleCoach pre-season Top 25:

Rank   School
1   WashU
2   Emory
3   Chicago
4   Tufts
5   Messiah
6   Case Western
7   Williams
8   Wesleyan CT
9   MIT
10   Pomona-Pitzer
11   Colby
12   Johns Hopkins
13   Carnegie Mellon
14   WI La Crosse
15   Middlebury
16   Cal Lutheran
17   Calvin
18   Misericordia
19   Amherst
20   Swarthmore
21   Christopher Newport
22   NYU
23   Washington & Lee
24   Rochester NY
25   Rowan

You can see his explanation of the rankings on his YT channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orbZH-09kFk

Quote from: unionpalooza on August 21, 2026, 06:08:11 PMI've often wondered to what extent the proliferation of D1AA/FCS and D2 programs in the Northeast is part of the reason that NY/PA/NJ went from regularly producing D3 title contenders to producing almost none. Prior to 2000, a team from one of those states played in the Stagg Bowl 23 out of 28 years.  Some of that is explained by regional brackets, but certainly not all. A lot of the difference-maker kids who would have have been playing at Ithaca, Union, Rowan, W&J, etc. once upon a time are, these days, playing at UAlbany,Stony Brook, Wagner, Fordham, etc. (all former D3), Monmouth/Robert Morris type schools (new programs) or Lafayette/Lehigh-type schools (which used to be non-scholarship).  There was a little bit of this elsewhere - for example, the Pioneer League teams that moved up in the Midwest, but they're all non-scholarship.

As a data point, consider that three of the best QBs to play D3 in NY since 2000 - Jason Boltus, Joe Germinero, and Shane Sweeney - were all transfers from just one of those schools: UAlbany. (There's also Tyler Szalkowski, another UAlbany transfer currently tearing it up at Utica).

I've often wondered to what extent the proliferation of D1AA/FCS and D2 programs in the Northeast is part of the reason that NY/PA/NJ went from regularly producing D3 title contenders to producing almost none. Prior to 2000, a team from one of those states played in the Stagg Bowl 23 out of 28 years.  Some of that is explained by regional brackets, but certainly not all. A lot of the difference-maker kids who would have have been playing at Ithaca, Union, Rowan, W&J, etc. once upon a time are, these days, playing at UAlbany,Stony Brook, Wagner, Fordham, etc. (all former D3), Monmouth/Robert Morris type schools (new programs) or Lafayette/Lehigh-type schools (which used to be non-scholarship).  There was a little bit of this elsewhere - for example, the Pioneer League teams that moved up in the Midwest, but they're all non-scholarship.