On Saturday, postseason fates will be decided. Conferences will be won and lost. A playoff will begin.
Not in the FBS mind you; it’s a pretty boring week over there. I am, of course, talking about the purest distillation of college football: Division III.
The gridiron will separate the haves and the have-nots as the 32-team field is set. It will determine which combination of Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas, and Illinois schools will ultimately set up the NCAA’s truest Final Four.
Can Carnegie Mellon defeat Case Western Reserve in the Academic Bowl and earn the Presidents Athletic Conference’s automatic bid? Will Baldwin Wallace avenge a 2019 Cuyahoga Gold Bowl loss vs. John Carroll to secure an at-large bid from the Ohio Athletic Conference? Can Bethel upset St. John’s to wrest control of the MIAC in its first full season since kicking St. Thomas out for being too good at sports?
These games will all at least kinda/sorta rule and provide a reasonable distraction from an underwhelming slate of games that features Purdue’s endless thirst for top five blood and No. 4 Ohio State, No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 13 Baylor battling to see who is the bigger fraud, and a showdown between No. 12 Wake Forest and No. 16 NC State showdown that could ultimately determine the fate of the ACC.
Wait no that last one is actually pretty great.
Anyway, since I can’t find any reputable Division III lines anywhere (probably for good reason, though it would be delightful to see something like Mary Hardin-Baylor -71.5 vs. Simpson), let’s talk about this week’s FBS games instead.