On Saturday afternoon, D3football.com publisher Pat Coleman sent this tweet to me and Around the Mid-Atlantic columnist Adam Turer.

So, @adamturer and @NewsTipps -- do we qualify as #odacy today?

— D3football.com (@d3football) October 11, 2014

The Wasps have added to the unpredictability of this year's ODAC by starting off 5-0. Emory and Henry athletics file photo

The answer, of course, is yes. If you scoured the scoreboard or saw the recaps on the front page of D3football.com, you’d know what prompted the question. First off, Shenandoah won its first conference game of the season, and it came over the top of Guilford, a team that was strongly expected to compete for the conference championship. It’s hard to call this shocking after watching Shenandoah last year edge out Hampden-Sydney to deal the Tigers their only conference loss of the season. The Hornets seem to have found themselves in a comfortable spoiler role in the Old Dominion.

The quirk with “ODACtion” is that one-loss teams aren’t out of the running this early in conference play. Those who have been around D-III for a while might remember 2008, when the ODAC had four teams tied with 4-2 conference record (that year’s automatic qualifier team, Randolph-Macon, was “rewarded” with a trip to Mount Union).

Couple this with this season’s unexpected runs from Bridgewater and Emory and Henry, and this conference could justifiably be called the king of parity.

Who would be the parity prince? I’m sure the argument could be made for a few conferences.

• The Centennial has had many years of parity dating back to at least 2004, when it had five of its seven teams tied at 4-2 in conference play (Muhlenberg fell at the hands of St. John Fisher that year in the playoffs). Johns Hopkins has ruled the roost over the past few years, but subsequent spots have seen Muhlenberg, Ursinus, Gettysburg and Moravian all up there – and that doesn’t even count the newfound competitiveness from former perennial zero- and one-win Juniata.
• This year’s Empire 8 would be a good candidate, with all but one team already having a conference win and the development of head-to-head-to-head victory triangles emerging – Alfred beat Buffalo State who beat Ithaca who beat Alfred. To keep with the flashbacks, the E8’s history of parity was probably best highlighted in 2007, when it was the only conference in the automatic bid era to send three teams – Harwick, Ithaca and St. John Fisher – to the playoffs.
• Delaware Valley shook up the MAC race by beating No. 20 Lycoming and is making the Top 25 pollsters re-evaluate where the teams fit in in that conference. The conference may not show the top-to-bottom parity that some of the others mentioned do, but the potential for so many teams each year to snag the AQ makes the MAC a difficult one to pigeon-hole (so much so that it was asked of our expert panel in the preseason Kickoff publication which team would win the MAC. I had picked Lycoming).

What else stood out? Of the nine teams in the Top 10 that played on Saturday, only No. 10 Wabash saw its opponent break into double digits – and that was a mere 13-point outing by Ohio Wesleyan. Moreover, six of those games were shutouts, from a “narrow” 37-0 win by UW-Whitewater to a 62-0 outing by Mount Union, of which perhaps the most notable thing was that Gagliardi Trophy-winner Kevin Burke threw his first interception in 127 attempts dating to last season.

In the Pacific Northwest. The outcome of the NWC game between Willamette and Whitworth caught me off guard. A week after losing to a questionable Pacific team, Whitworth drops a 61-45 bomb on Willamette behind a 389-yard, four-touchdown game from quarterback Bryan Peterson and a 141-yard, three-score game from rusher Duke Degaetano. Willamette, undefeated before this week, was No. 25 on my ballot. Barring a win over Linfield and/or Pacific Lutheran, it’s unlikely the Bearcats will jump back on there again this season.

Hendrix crashes. The second-season Cinderella run of Hendrix came to a stifling halt at the hands of Washington U. The Bears gave Berry its first win in the modern era last week and appeared reluctant to let their faults manifest themselves again this week. Wash U. had a 45-10 lead going into the half.

On my radar. In this past week’s Triple Take, one thing I said I was looking forward to seeing was the MIAA matchup between Olivet and Trine. This game did not disappoint. Both teams were at the top of the conference heap, and lucky for us, they played each other early in the season. Not until late in the third-quarter did the teams separate themselves by more than a touchdown, and despite Olivet pulling ahead, Trine roared down the stretch with the final three scores of the game, pulling out the 46-42 win. Each team posted more than 500 yards of offense and lots of standout individual performances.

More living up to the hype. Texas Lutheran scored 41 second-half points to win the blazing showdown with East Texas Baptist 55-49. Remember what I said earlier about Willamette falling off my ballot. TLU earned my vote with Saturday’s performance and will get the 25th spot from me. Marquis Barrolle had 247 yards on the ground for TLU, and ETBU got a standout game from quarterback Josh Warbington with 426 yards through the air and four touchdowns.

A #whyd3 story: Looking at the tweet below, don’t think some WIAC linemen are getting smaller. Rather, it’s the UW-Stevens Point team working with some of hundreds of players from Youth Area Football teams. UW-SP has been holding “Practice with the Pointers” since 2008.

Always fun! @UWSPfootball practices w/ #StevensPoint Youth Area Football teams. http://t.co/sBQ31r6G2x #d3fb #UWSP pic.twitter.com/FZrxTdWOfX

— UWSP Athletics (@UWSPAthletics) October 10, 2014