Check this out!
It’s interesting to me that some of the “South” division schools are actually geographically at a more northern latitude that some of the “North” division schools.
Even D3 knows there’s money to be made by milking football.
It’s not quite like that.
In reality, they had to come up with something like this, simply because recent expansion has made it impossible for them to continue playing the ten team “round robin” schedule with no non-conference games that they had been playing.
So instead…the first three weeks will be set for “intersectional” play with two non-conference opponents, and a bye week. Weeks 4-10 will see each team play all five of its division members, and two opponents from the other division. Week 11 (the final week of D3 season) will feature both a “championship” game of #1 North v. #1 South, #2 v. #2, #3 v. #3, etc.
There’s some sort of scheduling algorithm to ensure that except for the championship game, that will not be a rematch.
At season’s end, you have an undisputed conference champion in time for the start of the D3 playoffs.