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NCAA Division III Football Playoffs: Quarterfinal Preview & Predictions

NCAA Division III Football Playoffs: Quarterfinal Preview & Predictions

Here’s a look ahead at all four Division III playoff games this weekend — along with predictions for the entirety of the quarterfinals.

Dec 11, 2024 by Briar Napier
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With an expanded postseason that’s lived up to the hype through three rounds, the NCAA Division III football playoff field is now down to just eight teams.

All eight, from the established powerhouses to the surprising upstarts, will be hoping that their Christmas trees have a trip to the national semifinals wrapped up after this weekend.

With last season’s national champion now out of the picture, it is guaranteed that a new top dog of D-III football will be crowned in a few weeks, but it is up to the remaining quarterfinalists to decide who that may be.

Lots of action is still left in store in D-III football, and with so much at stake, we’ll be bound to see some hijinks across the landscape this weekend as the final four becomes set in stone.

Here’s a look ahead at all four Division III playoff games this weekend — along with predictions for the entirety of the quarterfinals:

Bethel (Minnesota) at Susquehanna

In a division where established powers can tend to dominate, Susquehanna defeated one in order to get back to the national quarterfinals for the first time since 1991.

The Landmark Conference champion went into one of the toughest environments in all of D-III football — Clemens Stadium at Saint John’s — and came out on top over the two-time Stagg Bowl winners by a 41-38 margin in a barnburner, capped off by a game-winning 37-yard field goal by River Hawks kicker Dominic Bourgeois as time expired to send SU through.


Back in central Pennsylvania for the quarters, Susquehanna has another Minnesotan team coming to face it this weekend — and it likes to cause a little bit of havoc.

Bethel knocked out Wartburg on the road by a 24-14 scoreline in its own third-round win, forcing three missed field goals and three interceptions on the defensive end as the Royals returned to the quarterfinals after a six-year absence. One of those picks, a 59-yard interception return for a touchdown by national interceptions leader Matt Jung (nine picks this season), helped Bethel build its lead to two scores in the fourth quarter and hold on.

The Royals will undoubtedly be a tough out for the River Hawks this weekend, featuring the ball-hawking ability of Jung in the secondary plus one of the best quarterbacks in all the land in Cooper Drews, who sits third nationally at 3,574 passing yards on the season and is one of just six quarterbacks in D-III with at least 40 touchdown throws (he has 42 entering this weekend). But there are a couple of things that slide in Susquehanna’s favor going into Saturday, not even including the fact that it gets to play a game deep into the playoffs at home.

First, Bethel’s only two losses on the season each came to the Johnnies, the same team that SU not only beat but relatively contained this past weekend. Sure, national passing leader Aaron Syverson did his thing for SJU (466 yards, five touchdowns through the air), but it finished just 3 for 8 on third down and massively trailed in possession, with SU having 39:45 to SJU’s 20:15 to limit the lethal Johnnies offense.

And second, star running back Rahshan La Mons is hitting his stride at just the right time for the River Hawks.

One of the best freshmen in the country, La Mons, already the program’s single-season rushing yardage record holder, needs just 47 yards to break 1,500 on the season while he’s been amid a killer stretch of at least 121 rushing yards in four straight games. He had the best game of his career against the Johnnies, too, carrying it 29 times for 176 yards and three touchdowns while also making seven catches for 55 yards as the River Hawks’ workhorse.

With all of that in mind, Susquehanna will win this weekend and party like it’s 1991 — its last trip to the national semifinals.

The pick: Susquehanna

Springfield at North Central (Illinois)

When the D-III football playoff bracket was revealed following the conclusion of the regular season a few weeks back, many penciled in a potential Stagg Bowl rematch between North Central and defending national champion Cortland to be the showdown of the quarterfinal round.

Springfield had something to say about that.

The Pride pulled off the shocker of the third round this past weekend by beating the Red Dragons 40-28 on the road, going to Cortland for their program-record 12th win of the season and biggest yet. 

Prepping for its first quarterfinal trip since 2000, Springfield (unbeaten this year as the NEWMAC champion) will be looking to knock off another D-III power and continue on a stunning run through the playoffs with — in no surprise to longtime fans of D-III football — one of the most lethal rushing offenses in the country.

Though the Pride is routinely at or near the top of the D-III national rushing offense charts, they’ve stepped it up a notch on the ground this season as they not only lead the country in rushing yardage but also broke the all-time D-III single-season rushing yardage record this past weekend. With 5,327 yards on the ground this year to date (444.2 yards per game), Springfield has a clear identity and dares teams to try and stop it; most can’t, especially when Gagliardi Trophy semifinalist Arsen Shtefan (1,624 yards, 21 touchdowns) is carrying the rock.

If there is a team out there that’s geared to potentially shut down Springfield’s near-unstoppable rushing attack, however, it might just be North Central.

Seeking a fifth consecutive Stagg Bowl appearance (minus the COVID-19-canceled game in 2020) and third national championship in that same span, the Cardinals are continuously the cream of the crop in D-III football and just got a big favor from the Pride as they’ve taken out Cortland. Of course, North Central will need to beat Springfield first before it can take advantage of that fact, but allowing just 76.1 rushing yards and eight touchdowns on the season are impressive numbers for a Cardinals defense that has faced four different ranked opponents already this year.

Oh, and as the most prolific offense remaining in the playoffs with an average of 54.5 points scored per game, the Cardinals — who have 46 total touchdowns this season from reigning Gagliardi Trophy winner Luke Lehnen plus one of the nation’s best running backs in Joe Sacco — are absolutely ruthless and can hit teams in a number of ways, with Lehnen still being a 2,500-yard passer despite the fact that North Central ranks third nationally in rushing offense (307.3 yards per game).

Springfield has absolutely proven that it’s dangerous and not to be taken lightly, but with a crop of players who know how to make playoff runs and perform when the stakes get raised, the Cardinals will fly on through back to the semifinals in this one.

The pick: North Central

Mary Hardin-Baylor at Johns Hopkins

If this were a year earlier, we probably wouldn’t be talking about Mary Hardin-Baylor being a playoff team at all, much less one playing in a game where a spot in the national semifinals is up for grabs.

The Crusaders, who finished the regular season with a 6-3 record and failed to win the four-team American Southwest Conference, had to rely on the selection committee to earn a spot in the playoffs as the expanded postseason field (which took in 12 at-large bids compared to just four in 2023) saved the Cru. MHB got in by the skin of its teeth, though the 2018 and 2021 national champions were not going to have an easy path toward any semblance of a deep playoff run.

And then the Cru just kept on winning, no matter who was thrown at them or under whatever circumstances.

Going on the road for three playoff games in a row, MHB took out Trinity (Texas) in the first round, got revenge over ASC champion Hardin-Simmons in the second round after two conference losses to the Cowboys and made the long trek to Linfield to win 28-18 in Oregon this past weekend, beating the Wildcats in wet, cold conditions to return to the quarterfinal round.

The Crusaders will need to be road warriors again Saturday to make it to the semifinals, traveling to Baltimore to square off with a Johns Hopkins squad that wants to finally be the team to make it to the first Stagg Bowl in school history.

The Blue Jays would love themselves a second potential crack at Salisbury (which they lost to in the regular season) in the semifinals if both teams win their quarterfinal matchups this weekend, but before that happens, they first need to make sure that they don’t get too far ahead of themselves against an MHB team that has started clicking and found its mojo. 

Johns Hopkins’ defense has been its calling card late in the year, shutting out back-to-back opponents to close the regular seasons and wrap up the Centennial Conference’s automatic bid to the playoffs. Once in the postseason, the Blue Jays limited a Grove City offense that had hit the 50-point mark five times to just 14 points (all in the fourth quarter), and they bothered DePauw — which had been averaging over 50 points a game — enough to limit the Tigers to just nine points in their third round clash last Saturday.

Another low-scoring game will benefit the Blue Jays, who have held seven different teams to under 10 points this year and have done it against statistically stronger offensive teams than Mary Hardin-Baylor, which still has options to turn to on the offensive end. However, the Cru are also prone to mistakes; they’ve thrown 19 interceptions this season between two different quarterbacks, giving more footballs to the other team than touchdowns thrown (17).

Unless MHB has potentially its biggest upset yet up its sleeve, Johns Hopkins should be able to hunker down on defense and get the plays that it needs on the offensive end to move on to the semis for the first time since 2018.

The pick: Johns Hopkins

Mount Union at Salisbury

An away playoff game this late into the bracket is a rarity for Mount Union, D-III’s most successful football program of all time with 13 national championships and 35 playoff appearances. But the perfect Purple Raiders will be trying to ensure this weekend that a vintage postseason run is still in the cards, no matter what is in their way.

Winners of 74 consecutive regular season games, Mount Union still didn’t win the Ohio Athletic Conference for the 35th time in a convincing manner, only winning by one score each against John Carroll, Marietta, and Muskingum. But as soon as it turned into win-or-go-home football, the Purple Raiders, like clockwork, entered another gear.

In a first-round rematch with rival John Carroll in which a Blue Streaks upset wouldn’t have been a shocker (considering that JCU had taken Mount Union to the wire in a 37-31 thriller in September), the Purple Raiders demolished their OAC foe in a wire-to-wire 42-7 blowout. They then had a little more trouble in the second round with visiting Carnegie Mellon, but a sack on the Tartans’ final offensive series by All-American linebacker Rossy Moore sealed the deal for Mount Union in a 24-19 victory — the program’s 114th in the playoffs all-time.

The Raiders need to make a road trip to pick up playoff win No. 115, however, and Salisbury is by no means going to make it easy.

Also undefeated, the Sea Gulls rolled to the New Jersey Athletic Conference title and has three victories over top-20 opponents this season — all by at least 21 points. There were two regular-season romps over Muhlenberg and fellow quarterfinalist Johns Hopkins, and then there was last weekend’s 35-14 victory over No. 15 Randolph-Macon, when Salisbury’s run-heavy offense carried it 43 times for 287 yards and three touchdowns to make the quarters for the sixth time in program history and first since 2019.

The Sea Gulls don’t just have one bell-cow running back, but a bevy of them that Mount Union is going to be tasked with containing this weekend with a semifinal spot on the line. Only Springfield averages more yards on the ground per game nationally than Salisbury’s 335.5 as six different players have at least 200 rushing yards this season, led by 991 from senior Ronald Clark. A total of 60 rushing touchdowns means that the Sea Gulls know how to find the endzone, too.

No program in D-III is more synonymous with postseason success than Mount Union, however, and it has its own weapons that Salisbury is going to need to try and shut down.

The Raiders also have a strong rushing offense with the sixth-best nationally (248.7 yards per game), though it’s Tyler Echeverry doing the heaviest share in the backfield with 1,406 yards and 24 touchdowns on the ground this year. Noah Beaudrie is capable of airing it out in the pocket, too, as he has 16 touchdowns to just two interceptions in the passing game thus far this season.

It’ll be a close one at Salisbury that may come down to who holds more possession, makes fewer mistakes, and has more plays made through their rushing attacks. Mount Union looks like it has figured out its early-season kinks, however, and if that’s the case, it’s hard to pick against the Purple Raiders this late in the playoffs.

The pick: Mount Union

AFCA NCAA Division III Football Rankings In Week 13

  1. North Central (Ill.) (38) 10-0
  2. Cortland (N.Y.) (11) 10-0
  3. Mount Union (Ohio) (1) 10-0
  4. St. John’s (Minn.) 10-0
  5. Hardin-Simmons (Tex.) 10-0
  6. Susquehanna (Pa.) 9-1
  7. Salisbury (Md.) 10-0
  8. DePauw (Ind.) 10-0
  9. Wisconsin-Platteville 9-1
  10. Wartburg (Iowa) 9-1
  11. Endicott (Mass.) 9-1
  12. Linfield (Ore.) 9-1
  13. Aurora (Ill.) 9-1
  14. Hope (Mich.) 10-0
  15. Carnegie Mellon (Pa.) 9-1
  16. Grove City (Pa.) 9-1
  17. Johns Hopkins (Md.) 9-1
  18. Washington & Jefferson (Pa.) 9-1
  19. Springfield (Mass.) 10-0
  20. Wisconsin-La Crosse 7-3
  21. Randolph-Macon (Va.) 9-1
  22. Wisconsin-Oshkosh 6-3
  23. Lake Forest (Ill.) 10-0
  24. Coe (Iowa) 9-1
  25. Wisconsin-River Falls 7-3

Dropped Out: Wisconsin-Oshkosh (23), Marietta (Ohio) (24)

Others Receiving Votes: Wheaton (Ill.), 75; Bethel (Minn.), 71; Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 40; John Carroll (Ohio), 35; Wisconsin-Whitewater, 35; Hobart (N.Y.), 28; Ursinus (Pa.), 21; Wisconsin-Stout, 18; Wabash (Ind.), 12; Berry (Ga.), 12; Mary Hardin-Baylor (Tex.), 10; Alma (Mich.), 4; Marietta (Ohio), 3; Massachusetts-Dartmouth, 3; Maryville (Tenn.), 1; Texas Lutheran, 1.

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