This year Iowa’s Division 3 Schools start the season off on Thursday September 4th, in Mt. Vernon when Coe College meets Cornell College in the “oldest college football rivalry game” west of the Mississippi River.
The annual showdown which started in 1891 (yes, that is not a typo) will be by my count the 135th meeting between the two teams this year in Mt. Vernon. It will be the head coaching debut of Iowa High School Hall of Fame Coach Curt Ritchie leading the Rams. They will be facing Coach Tyler Staker-led Coe College Kohawks, who have made the D3 Football Playoffs the last two years running.
We will be diving into this game in more detail as it gets closer, practices are in full swing, and rosters are fully set.
Week One then has a full slate of games kicking off on Saturday September 6th for all the rest of the Iowa D3 teams.
The other September 6th games that jump out to us in “our way too early look ahead” are:
1. Luther College hosting Millikin University on the blue turf in Decorah. The Norse are coming off a winless 2024 campaign and face a Millikin University that has gone 0-10 the last two years running. The Millikin Big Blue play in possibly the most rugged D3 Football Conference in the Country – the CCIW – which likely will put two teams in the NCAA D3 Football playoffs every year. The CCIW is packed with powerful squads most notably North Central Cardinals from Naperville, IL. North Central has won the NCAA D3 Football Title 3 of the last 5 years (and lost the title game the other 2 years to place 2nd).
This is the last year Luther College will play in the rugged American Rivers Conference (ARC) before moving to join Cornell and Grinnell in the Midwest Conference in 2026. So, when the Norse face the Big Blue on the Blue turf it will be a great opportunity to start building some momentum in 2025 and beyond when they move to the Midwest Conference.
2. Loras College will be hosting Hope College from Holland, MI. in the Rock Bowl in Dubuque, Iowa. The Hope College Flying Dutchmen are a strong D3 program that lost in the 3rd round of the 2024 D3 Football playoffs to the aforementioned National Champions North Central College. That will likely be a strong team coming into the Rock Bowl….Now, if we could next year get the Hope Flying Dutchmen to start playing the Central College Dutch from Pella, it would be perfect. We could name it the Battle for the Tulips….or Double Dutch…man, would that be fun.
Speaking of the Dutch-
3. Central College goes on the road to Bloomington, IL to play Illinois Wesleyan University. The Dutch have a proud history and have been with Wartburg and Coe the three headed power in the A-R-C for the past decade. Illinois Wesleyan last year was a deceiving 5-5 as they played in the powerful CCIW league. To further define what I mean as a deceiving 5-5 record – Illinois Wesleyan only lost to North Central IL by 22 points in 2024. The only game North Central played that was closer than that was the national title game, where they won by 16 points. This could be a very interesting game, and it will be week one test for the men in red from Pella.
We will be diving into other key games for week one – University of Dubuque vs. UW Stout, Monmouth vs Wartburg, and more for week one as rosters are finalized and the coaches start to get a feel for what exactly 2025 looks like.
It is going to fun to cover and watch. As always, we appreciate your comments and support.
