Why the suburbs will be the focus of Division III college football Saturday
Wheaton College football coach Jesse Scott would love to go to Saturday’s game in Naperville between No. 2-ranked Bethel College and No. 1 North Central.
“From a fan perspective I’d be super excited to see that game,” Scott said. “From a coach’s perspective, man, we’re tunnel-visioned on the task at hand here. And it wasn’t until fairly late in the summer where I actually connected the dots and realized that was going on down the road on the same day, minutes apart from each other.”
Scott has a pretty tough task of his own Saturday afternoon. His fifth-ranked Thunder host No. 3 Mount Union, a team that won 13 national championships between 1993 and 2017.
The suburbs are the place to be this weekend to see the best in Division III football. Both game times have changed due to the weather forecast, with North Central now starting at 11 a.m. and Wheaton kicking off at noon. Each is an hour earlier than originally scheduled.
“It’s really cool, it’s really cool,” added North Central coach Brad Spencer. “I mean, in (Division III), to my knowledge, our fact checking, we’ve never seen a 1 vs. 2 square off to begin the season, and you’ve got two top-five teams playing just north of us in Wheaton. …
“So you’ve got four of the top five teams in the country playing within a handful of miles of each other. That’s pretty cool. I know that’s definitely never happened. I know the guys have been really excited about it since we inked this game back in the winter. Certainly it’s given them a heightened focus and intensity in some ways.”
But why schedule such tough opponents in Week 1?
“I think philosophically my retort to that is, why not?” Scott said. “Programatically we’ve got aspirations to sort of stand at the mountaintop, and if we’re ever going to get there, we can’t just be hoping to be that type of team in December. We have to be prepared to do it at the beginning of the year too.”
Spencer’s Cardinals have been to that mountaintop three times since 2019. The Cardinals defeated Mount Union to win the 2022 and 2024 Division III national titles.
North Central hasn’t had much regular-season competition lately, winning in 2025 by an average of 47.6 points a game, including a 35-0 win over Wheaton. Bethel could provide a test that will toughen the Cardinals for this year’s playoff run.
The Cardinals defeated Bethel 35-21 in the national quarterfinals last December, losing to Wisconsin-River Falls 24-14 in the final. River Falls is ranked seventh to start the season.
Wheaton opened the 2025 season at Mount Union, losing 37-29, so the players know what they’re up against.
“Our returners know that we have what it takes to play against this caliber of a team, and you couple that with what we did in the playoffs last year, and I think there’s absolutely belief, and simultaneously that they realize the degree of urgency that Saturday is going to require,” Scott said.
This weekend is big for the fans of CCIW rivals Wheaton and North Central as well. It’s the first time Wheaton is hosting Mount Union.
“This one’s personal to a lot of our alums because there would literally be seven teams in Wheaton’s history whose seasons came to an end in Alliance, Ohio, since the year 2000,” Scott said of the home of Mount Union.
If ever there was a day to find a way to be in two places at once, Saturday is it.
“I know some of the folks around the country probably wish that our games were starting more than an hour apart,” Spencer said. “It’s really good football that’s going to be played there, so it’s a lot of fun. I think the D3 world is going to have their eyes on DuPage County here pretty heavily on Saturday for three or four hours.”