MINNEAPOLIS – Guilford College’s football team is ranked 25th in this week’s D3football.com Top 25 Poll. The Quakers, who often received votes in the website’s rankings in 2014 and 2015, are ranked among the top-25 teams in the poll’s 13-year history.
The D3football.com Top 25 is selected by a panel comprised of 25 coaches, sports information directors and media members from across the country. Defending NCAA Division III champion University of Wisconsin-Whitewater retained the top spot with 618 points and 19 first-place votes. The University of Mount Union, last year’s national runner-up, stands second with 600 points and four first-place votes.
Coach Chris Rusiewicz’s club received 40 points in the rankings after posting convincing wins over Greensboro College (77-13) and Methodist University (55-7). It is eight points behind Ithaca College and the lone Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) squad listed. The Quakers have outscored their opposition 132-20 after two games and average over 620.5 total offensive yards per game. Guilford leads Division III in points per game (66) and first downs (64).
Despite having played less than five quarters this year, senior quarterback Matt Pawlowski (Greensboro, N.C./Northwest Guilford) leads Division III with 10 touchdown passes and ranks fourth with 62 points responsible for. Teammate De’Eric Bell (Jackson, Ga./Jackson) is second nationally with 298 kickoff return yards and fourth with 236.0 all-purpose yards per game. Like Pawlowski, the sophomore running back has played just over five quarters in two games.
Guilford hosts Averett University Saturday (9/19) at 7:00 p.m. in the Quakers’ home opener and Homecoming game.
MINNEAPOLIS — Hardin-Simmons returns to the D3football.com Top 25 for the first time since the week of Sept. 19, 2011, and Guilford reached the Top 25 for the first time in the poll’s history. The full D3football.com Top 25, through games of Saturday, Sept. 12:
# School (1st votes) Rec Pts Prev. 1 UW-Whitewater (19) 1-0 618 1 2 Mount Union (4) 1-0 600 2 3 Linfield (2) 1-0 565 3 4 Mary Hardin-Baylor 2-0 545 4 5 Wesley 1-0 520 5 6 Wartburg 2-0 499 6 7 Wheaton (Ill.) 2-0 464 7 8 St. John's 2-0 433 8 9 Wabash 1-0 404 9 10 John Carroll 1-0 381 10 11 Johns Hopkins 2-0 355 11 12 St. Thomas 2-0 351 12 13 North Central (Ill.) 1-0 328 13 14 Washington and Jefferson 2-0 278 14 15 Thomas More 2-0 277 16 16 Hobart 2-0 274 15 17 Wittenberg 1-0 223 17 18 Rowan 1-0 198 20 19 Centre 2-0 152 21 20 UW-Oshkosh 1-1 126 24 21 Hardin-Simmons 2-0 114 -- 22 UW-Platteville 2-0 103 25 23 Bethel 1-1 65 19 24 Ithaca 1-0 48 -- 25 Guilford 2-0 40 --
Dropped out: No. 18 Texas Lutheran, No. 22 Chapman, No. 23 Muhlenberg.
Others receiving votes: Cortland State 38; Widener 31; Concordia-Moorhead 17; Texas Lutheran 16; Chapman 12; Chicago 11; Gustavus Adolphus 7; Morrisville State 5; Amherst 4; Muhlenberg 4; Illinois Wesleyan 4; Maryville 4; Franklin 3; Ohio Northern 3; Pacific 2; Alfred 1; St. John Fisher 1.
The D3football.com Top 25 is voted on by a panel of 25 coaches, Sports Information Directors and media members from across the country, and is published weekly.