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DECEMBER 15, 2025
composed by STEVE ULRICH
No publication covers NCAA Division III better. #whyD3

😄 Hello, Monday. Last week of the work year in DIII

🎶 Your Morning Pick-Me-Up. Jessica. Allman Brothers

🗞️ In Today’s Playbook. Trump Calls NIL 'Disaster,' Reiterates Willingness to Get Involved. Could Financial Aid Previews Level the Early Decision Playing Field? And Then There Were Four. NCAA Soccer Plan May Benefit From MLS Shift

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Top Story

1. President Donald Trump Calls NIL 'Disaster,' Reiterates Willingness to Get Involved

“Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday while honoring the “Miracle on Ice” 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team, President Donald Trump called NIL a “disaster” in college sports. He also further signaled his willingness to get involved.

Trump has been vocal about settling the landscape in college athletics. He signed an executive order earlier this year called “Save College Sports” to prohibit third-party, pay-for-play payments and directs the Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to clarify that athletes are amateurs and not employees.

But as dollars continue to fly through NIL and revenue-sharing, Trump called for a “strong salary cap” and said colleges are putting themselves in tough financial shape as a result. He stressed the need for action and reiterated he’d step in, if necessary.”

» Driving The News. “President Trump’s assessment of college athletics centers around Olympics sports, which he has said multiple times are caught in the middle of the current landscape. He said Friday schools have been cutting those non-revenue sports, calling them “training grounds” for the Olympics.”

» Quotable. “I think that it’s a disaster for college sports,” Trump said of NIL. “I think it’s a disaster for the Olympics. We’re losing a lot of teams. Colleges are cutting their, they would call them, sort of the lesser sports. They’re losing them at numbers nobody can believe. And they were really training grounds, beautiful training grounds. Hard-working, wonderful young people. They were training grounds for the Olympics, and a lot of these sports that were training so well would win gold medals because of it. Those sports don’t exist because they’re putting all that money into football.”

2. Could Financial Aid Previews Level the Early Decision Playing Field?

“With the imminent arrival of early-decision results comes a new round of hand-wringing about the admissions practice, which affords students a better chance of getting accepted to their top institution but requires them to commit if admitted.

Critics argue that the practice disadvantages low- and middle-income students, who fear being locked into attending a college before they know if they can afford it - although many colleges with an early-decision option allow students to back out over financial constraints. It also prevents applicants from comparing financial aid offers across multiple institutions.”

» State of Play. “Because there is so much uncertainty, families with high incomes are more likely to choose early decision and therefore benefit from its more favorable odds. It’s the perfect tool for maximizing revenues at schools positioned as luxury products, with price tags to match,” wrote Daniel Currell, a former deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021, in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday that argued for the end of early decision.”

» Driving The News. “Early financial aid offers are among the various steps institutions have taken in recent years to improve cost transparency and, in many cases, show students that their institutions are affordable. Others include improved cost estimators and campaigns offering free tuition for families under a particular income limit. Institutions hope that such innovations will help prevent students from writing off their institutions - particularly selective institutions that offer significant aid - due to their sticker prices.”

» Quotable. “I think raising awareness of early decision as a viable option for more students is one step that higher education could take to make it a little bit more equitable,” said James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, an advocacy organization focused on “reimagining elite higher education,”

3. And Then There Were Four

Two teams return to the national semifinals, another makes its first appearance in nine seasons, while a fourth reaches the Final Four for the first time in the DIII football championship tournament.

North Central d. Bethel, 35-21
RB Donovan McNeal rushed for 144 yards and three TDs as the defending national champions ousted the Royals. The Cardinals ran for 312 yards and are the last remaining undefeated team in DIII at 13-0.

John Carroll d. Berry, 21-13
QB Nick Semptimphelter threw for 256 yards and a pair of scores as the Blue Streaks advanced to the national semifinals for the first time since 2016. The JCU defense forced seven Viking turnovers, picking off five passes, including a pair of Dylan Crasi.

Johns Hopkins d. Susquehanna, 40-10
QB Bay Harvey ran for two scores and threw for two more as the Blue Jays trounced the River Hawks to return to the semifinals. RB Geoff Schroeder ran for 126 yards and TD, while Robby Enright snared a pair of scoring tosses.

UW-River Falls d. Wheaton, 46-23
QB Kaleb Blaha threw for 407 yards and four TDs, while RB Trevor Asher ran for 106 yards and found paydirt three times as the Falcons rolled up 507 total yards on their way to a first-ever trip to the Final Four. Wheaton QB Mark Forcucci threw for 331 yards in a losing cause.

» National Semifinals (Saturday). Johns Hopkins at UW-River Falls. John Carroll at North Central

4. College Cup Cash Cow? NCAA Soccer Plan May Benefit From MLS Shift

“As the final four teams vie for the NCAA men’s soccer College Cup in North Carolina this weekend, work continues on plans to overhaul the college game. And those reform efforts may have received a boost from a radical change at the pro level: MLS’ recent decision to change its calendar.

Like MLS, the NCAA holds its soccer playoffs during the late autumn, in the long, eclipsing shadow of the NFL and college football. It’s one of several issues bedeviling the college game, particularly on the men’s side, as it struggles for relevance amid the collapse of amateurism and changes in the American soccer development system.”

» Field Awareness. “MLS announced last month it will move its playoffs to the spring, part of a calendar switch to a July-to-May season. That change, set for the 2027-28 season, puts the U.S. pro league more in line with the rest of the world and its playoffs safely outside the American football footprint. It also dovetails with reforms proposed by U.S. Soccer’s NextGen College Soccer Committee. In a white paper released in October, the committee recommends moving the men’s game, and perhaps the women’s, from the current fall-only schedule to one that covers the entire scholastic year and culminates in an April playoff festival.”

» What They’re Saying. “If you lay all of the college calendars on top of one another, you see this really interesting window between the end of March Madness and the start of the spring postseason for lacrosse, softball and baseball in that second half of April, early May timeframe,” NextGen committee chair Dan Helfrich said. “We feel very confident that we can activate the college athletics fan in a way that galvanizes and grows soccer.”

5. Lightning Round ⚡️ 

» Infractions. “A representative of SUNY Old Westbury’s athletics interest, falsely promised women’s basketball scholarships to prospective student-athletes during the 2023-24 academic year. The representative offered full-tuition aid based on athletic ability to 10 women’s basketball prospects, nine of whom committed and enrolled based on the representative’s promises. The Committee on Infractions approved the parties' agreed-upon penalties, including one year of probation, vacation of team and individual records, a fine of $1,250 to the NCAA, permanent dissociation of the booster, and a one-year prohibition of utilizing boosters in recruiting for the women’s basketball program. The head coach is subject to a one-year show-cause order with specific restrictions.

6. Comings and Goings

AVERETT - Named Matt Quinn head football coach. Drew Martin resigned his position as director of athletic communications to accept a new role as director of the Office of Marketing and Communications. Dominik Pocrnja promoted to director of athletic communications
GETTYSBURG - Named Dan Malone head men’s soccer coach
ITHACA - Announced head football coach Mike Toerper resigned to accept position at Cornell University
SEWANEE - Named Joe Freitag head football coach
WITTENBERG - Named Kennedy Cook assistant football coach

7. On Turning 100, Comedy Legend Dick Van Dyke Says: ‘You Want to Live More, Which I Plan To’

“Comedy icon Dick Van Dyke celebrated his 100th birthday on Saturday, hitting the century mark some six decades after he sang and danced with Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins” and starred in his self-titled sitcom.

“The funniest thing is, it’s not enough,” Van Dyke said in an interview with ABC News at his Malibu, California home. “A hundred years is not enough. You want to live more, which I plan to.”

Van Dyke became one of the biggest actors of his era with “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran from 1961-66 on CBS; appeared with Andrews as a chimney sweep with a Cockney accent in the 1964 Disney classic “Mary Poppins” and, in his 70s, played a physician-sleuth on “Diagnosis: Murder.”

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