Elsewhere

Your Saturday roundup . . . 

Yale 34, Brown 22

John Pitsenberger carried 27 times for a career-high 173 yards and two touchdowns as Yale (6-2, 4-1 Ivy League) won its fourth consecutive game in front of 3,009 in Providence. Pitsenberger got his day started with a 62-yard touchdown run on Yale’s first snap of the game. Dante Reno added two touchdown passes to Nico Brown for the Bulldogs, who piled up 463 yards of total offense.

Brown quarterback James Murphy threw for 366 yards but was intercepted twice and sacked seven times for a loss of 43 yards. The Bears are now 3-5 overall and 0-5 in the Ivy.

Cornell 39, Penn 17

After an 0-4 start the Big Red has climbed back to the .500 mark behind the play of quarterback Garrett Bass-Sulpizio, who completed 24-of-31 throws for 265 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score. Gannon Carothers had back-to-back touchdown runs of 22 yards and one yard in the third quarter and TJ Hamilton had five catches for 123 yards for Cornell, now 4-4 overall and 3-2 in the Ivy.

Aided by a 75-yard run, Donte West carried 15 times for 125 yards to pace Penn, now 5-3 overall and 3-2 in Ivy play. Quarterback Liam O’Brien was 15-of-22 for Penn, but for just 112 yards. A crowd Franklin Field crowd of 10,914 saw Cornell post its first road win in more than a year.

New Hampshire 34, Monmouth 13

Monmouth came into the game ranked sixth nationally in one poll and seventh in the other only to see visiting UNH force recover three fumbles, sack the quarterback five times and hold the Hawks 29 points below their season scoring average in a convincing win before 3,127 in New Jersey.

Monmouth used a touchdown with eight seconds left in the second quarter to tie the game at 13-13, but the second half was all New Hampshire, which outscored the home team 21-0 over the final two quarters. Matt Vezza threw for 173 yards and two touchdowns to lead UNH, which had a 197-71 advantage in rushing yardage. New Hampshire is now 6-4 overall and 4-2 in the CAA while Monmouth falls to 8-2 and 5-1 in the conference.

Central Connecticut 40, Stonehill 10

The Blue Devils jumped out to a 17-0 first-quarter lead and were never challenged while improving to 7-3 overall and 5-0 in the Northeast Conference. Stonehill fell to 3-7 and 2-3.

Elijah Howard had a 93-yard touchdown run among his 17 carries for 178 yards to pace Central Connecticut, which got 261 yards and two touchdowns through the air from Brady Olson. The Blue Devils had a 533-220 advantage in total yards and sacked the Stonehill quarterback five times. Central Connecticut needs to win just one of its last two games to clinch the league title and an automatic bid to the FCS payoffs. Attendance at the game in New Britain was listed as . . . zero.

Bucknell 37, Fordham  19

After a pair of Fordham touchdowns cut into a 17-0 lead, the Bison reeled off 20 consecutive points to put the game away. Bucknell improved to 5-5 overall and 2-3 in the Patriot League while Fordham dropped to 1-9 and 1-5 with its fifth consecutive loss.

The Rams' Gunnar Smith was 14-for-30 for 170 yards with two touchdowns and ran for 86 yards before five sacks dropped that total to 56 yards. Fordham linebacker James Conway had nine tackles and now leads just two more in his final two games to break the all-time NCAA Division I career record of 577. Bucknell got an efficient 17-of-22 for 166 yards and three touchdowns from quarterback Chris Dietrich. Attendance at Moglia Stadium was listed as 2,235.

And in case you missed if from Friday night:

Harvard 31, Columbia 14

Leading just 7-0 after the first quarter, the Crimson scored three touchdowns in the second quarter, and a field goal in the third to move in front 31-0 before the Lions closed out the scoring with a pair of fourth-quarter TDs. Jaden Craig threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns, and Xaviah Bascon ran for 94 yards and two touchdowns for Harvard, now 8-0 and 5-0 in the Ivy League. Chase Godwin had two TD throws for Columbia, now 1-7, 0-5. The nationally televised (unless you have YouTube TV) game drew 3,644 to to the northern tip of Manhattan.

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Today's what could have been trivia . . .

The quarterback who might have clinched the Heisman Trophy yesterday by engineering 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes to preserve No. 2 Indiana's undefeated season and break Penn State hearts, originally committed to . . . wait for it . . . Yale.

That's right. Fernando Mendoza, who grad transferred from Cal to Indiana this year and has the Hoosiers bidding for a national championship, almost ended up at Yale. His other offers? Penn, Lehigh, Bryant, FIU and Cal. (LINK)

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EXTRA POINT

Woke this morning to a reminder that winter is coming:

Week Eight

Things that happen for your team when things are going great, and against your team when things are going poorly:

#FCS Top 25 final:

No. 9/13 Harvard 31
Columbia 14

(Media poll/Coaches poll)pic.twitter.com/xZoZOfR4fw

— HERO Sports FCS (@HEROSports_FCS) November 8, 2025

Harvard 31, Columbia 14

Leading just 7-0 after the first quarter, the Crimson scored three touchdowns in the second quarter, and a field goal in the third to move in front 31-0 before the Lions closed out the scoring with a pair of fourth-quarter TDs.

Jaden Craig threw for 213 yards and two touchdowns, and Xaviah Bascon ran for 94 yards and two touchdowns for Harvard, now 8-0 and 5-0 in the Ivy League. Chase Godwin had two TD throws for Columbia, now 1-7, 0-5. The nationally televised (unless you have YouTube TV) game drew 3,644 to to the northern tip of Manhattan.

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Elsewhere today:

Yale at Brown, Noon

Cornell at Penn, 1 p.m.

New Hampshire at Monmouth, Noon

Stonehill at Central Connecticut, Noon

Bucknell at Fordham, 1 p.m

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Incoming Dartmouth quarterback Jack Cannon threw six touchdown passes and had three more on the ground in a New Jersey state playoff game last night. He was 12-of-14 for 256 yards through the air and ran 12 times for 175 yards as he led Holmdel to a 65-42 win. Find a story HERE.

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EXTRA POINT

When I'm scrolling through the Vermont state online library for a book to read on my Kindle I'm often frustrated when I see a new title I'd like to borrow and click through only to find I'm 12th in line for a copy, and the estimated wait time is several months. I rarely get in the queue and when I do, I often forget about it.

Yesterday I got notification that my turn has come up for one of the few books I reserved and, of course, I'd completely forgotten I was in line. It felt like found money and I downloaded it immediately.

Maybe I should do a little more queueing in the future. ;-)

Tiger Time

Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle looks briefly back at Harvard and ahead to Princeton in this short video from Dartmouth sports publicity:

A week to respond, refocus, and protect the Woods. Coach McCorkle breaks down Princeton week.#GoBigGreen | #TheWoods pic.twitter.com/Oq2t8FDWxq

— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) November 6, 2025

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Per FanDuel Dartmouth is a 10½-point favorite over visiting Princeton. Also:

Harvard is a 27½-point favorite tonight at Columbia 

Yale is a 13½ -point favorite at Brown

Penn is a 10½-point favorite over visiting Cornell  

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Dartmouth defensive end Joshua Johnson quoted in a preview in The Dartmouth (LINK):

“The main thing that happened last year was exposing the offensive tackles with their lack of strength compared to our ends. I feel like that’s a similar thing we’re going to do. Up front we’re just gonna try to beat them, play our scheme and continue on with the fundamentals we’ve been building for years now. There’s no difference.”

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Be sure to visit BGA Overtime tonight for a game preview, and tomorrow night for the game story. BGA OT went up last night with predictions for this week and a recap of what was an historic performance by the Fearful Forecast last week.

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Game notes for tomorrow are up: 

Dartmouth game notes HERE

 

Click HERE for Princeton's notes.

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Did I miss something? Dartmouth is the Big Green, right?

We don’t tiptoe - we stomp.⚫️⚪️
Black on White Fit for this Saturday #GoBigGreen | #TheWoods🌲 pic.twitter.com/Opk7chfL4I

— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) November 6, 2025

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From an FCS Central story headlined FCS Football Playoff Picture (LINK):

IVY

Lock: None

Should Be In: None

Work To Do: Harvard, Yale, Penn, Dartmouth

Harvard took another step toward securing the Ivy League auto bid and potentially an undefeated season with a win over Dartmouth. They remain the only team in the conference with a realistic shot to earn a Top 8 seed. Yale and Penn remain in the auto bid race with only one conference loss, but neither team has played Harvard yet. At this point, Dartmouth has a difficult path forward, needing a ton of help to make the field.

A 9-1 Harvard or an 8-2 Dartmouth would have a shot at sneaking into the field as an at- large. The Big Green have out-of-conference wins over New Hampshire and potential NEC auto bid Central Connecticut State. All four of the teams in this section play the bottom half of the league, and cannot afford an upset this weekend.

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Ivy League players and their national ranking per a HERO Sports piece headlined, 2025 PFF Highest-Graded FCS Players By Position After Week 10 (LINK):

Quarterbacks

2. Jaden Craig, Harvard – 92.9

Wide Receivers

5. Nico Brown, Yale – 88.7

Tight Ends

3. Logan Reaska, Harvard – 80.1

4. Chris Corbo, Dartmouth – 78.4

Centers

4. Aidan Kilstrom, Harvard – 75.8

Tackles

3. Delby Lemieux, Dartmouth – 78.9

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EXTRA POINT

The Northern Lights were supposed to be visible in as many as two dozen states last night. I didn't even bother trying to see them. That's right. This time Charlie Brown didn't even try to kick the football.

I was thinking about that this morning as I watched the sun put on a show climbing above Mount Moosilauke. Maybe I'll think about it again tonight as the sun puts on another show slipping behind Wright's Mountain.

I may never see the Northern Lights from here at our Vermont hillside home, but I can't imagine they would be anywhere near as dramatic as the show that is put on right outside our windows both in the morning and the evening throughout the year. This shot, which appeared on this site a while back, accurately depicts what we've seen time and time again. Take that, Northern Lights!

Notes On A Quiet Thursday

No idea how long it will be up because of rights issues, but for those of us who have YouTube TV and might not have been able to watch the Dartmouth-Harvard game, here's the full broadcast (with former Crimson coach Tim Murphy on color commentary):

On a very quiet day in the blogosphere, here are a few comments from Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle from yesterday's weekly media call. First he addresses part of what went wrong Saturday, and then he goes on to talk about the fix. (Comments are gently edited for clarity):

"Obviously you don't want to fall down 17 points against a team of the caliber of Harvard. I thought our guys did a good job coming out at halftime and really battled and put ourselves right back in the game, in a situation to make some noise.

"But they just out-executed us, and we just didn't make enough plays. When we did get that momentum going, unfortunately we couldn't keep the momentum. We just weren't able to keep that going. I just think it was just a couple plays here and there. Every time we got it going, something (happened and we) couldn't keep it. We couldn't execute well enough."

And on the response in practice this week:

"Good energy, really good energy. The guys came out, and I think that's the one thing we talked about on Sunday, was just execution. We want to make sure we go out and execute at our best. You don't want to be in a situation where that your opponent executes better than you. That's been our biggest message this week. And I tell you what our guys have responded. We tell them, 'Hey, take one snap at a time and let's lock in and focus and execute that.' And they've done a good job to date."

I'll be at practice later today and will have a Dartmouth-Princeton preview on BGA Overtime tomorrow.

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Here's something most of us would have paid no attention to a year ago:

The FCS playoff selection committee’s second released Top 10 ranking of contenders. The 24-team playoff pairings will be announced on Nov. 23. pic.twitter.com/egkdwYOQDt

— Opta FCS Football (@OptaAnalystFCS) November 5, 2025

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With the rankings out, HERO Sports posted its playoff predictions again and the good news for those who follow Dartmouth is the Big Green got a mention. The bad news is where. From the column (LINK):

Bubble Teams Left Out
Ordered from the best chance to make the bracket out of this group to the worst chance.

25. Northern Arizona
26. Dartmouth
27. William & Mary
28. Presbyterian
29. Austin Peay
30. Southern Illinois

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Former Brown standout Michael Hoecht did the Ivy League proud with his response after an Achilles injury during the Buffalo Bills' win over the Kansas City Chiefs:

Unbillievable. ❤️ ❤️ pic.twitter.com/lTrlj437nv

— Pay The Bills | A Trainwreck Sports Production (@PayTheBillsPod) November 6, 2025

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EXTRA POINT

Hiked in a drizzle late yesterday afternoon and woke this morning to a little more rain, which is a good thing. After a very dry summer, wells and ponds in Northern New England are starting to slowly recover. The Dartmouth today has a story headlined New Hampshire lifts statewide fire ban (which actually happened last week).

I've got to admit, this line in the story made me snicker:

While citizens can make fires after 5 p.m., Hanover fire chief Michael Gilbert said students should still be “really cautious of when and where (they are) burning. You don’t want to be too close to anything combustible  … or too close to your home."

I'm just not sure a fire chief would need to warn students at Harvard or Columbia about when and whereto do their burning. On second thought, I'm not really sure he needed to warn Dartmouth students  ;-)

Another Look Back

Dartmouth highlights drawn from the TV broadcast of Saturday's game at Harvard:

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SI veteran Dick Friedman takes a look at last week's game in Cambridge in Harvard Magazine HERE:

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The Big Green drops in Jake Novak's Ivy League Power Rankings:

1 Harvard 

2 Yale 

3 Dartmouth 

4 Penn 

5 Cornell 

6 Princeton 

7 Brown 

8 Columbia 

Listen to Jake's reasoning HERE. 

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This week's Sagarin Ratings among all DI teams with last week's rating in parentheses:

91 Harvard (96)

138 Yale (131)

152 Dartmouth (140)

177 Penn (172)

196 Princeton (190)

213 Brown (213)

220 Cornell (224)

234 Columbia (241)

165 New Hampshire (164)

212 Central Connecticut (211)

239 Fordham (244)

Sagarin has Dartmouth favored over Princeton by 10 points.

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Massey Ratings of only FCS teams:

7 Harvard 

27 Yale

28 Dartmouth 

39 Penn 

68 Princeton 

71 Brown 

74 Cornell 

89 Columbia 

Looking ahead, Massey sees:

Dartmouth 28, Princeton 20 with 76 percent confidence

Dartmouth 31, Cornell 17 with 88 percent confidence

Dartmouth 31 at Brown 24 with 72 percent confidence

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EXTRA POINT

Unfortunately, the internet here at our Vermont hillside home is delivered via DSL and as you can see from this screenshot from yesterday's upgrade of my Mac system, it's not particularly fast. ;-)

For what it's worth, it did not take 11-plus hours to finish the rest of the 14.32 GB upload, but it did take a very l-o-n-g time, finishing sometime after I hit the sack.

The good news is fiber-optic finally came up our dirt road last spring. The bad news is the end user is required to "pull a string" through the conduit that runs from the street to the house before the company will install the fiber. The worse news is that yours truly isn't equipped to do the groundwork for the fiber-optic folks and they couldn't recommend someone who we could pay to do it.

We could always try Starlink, but that's just not going to happen.

A Quiet Tuesday

Week Seven of the Ivy League season marks the first time Dartmouth has not had anyone chosen even to the conference's weekly honor roll. Without benefit of seeing the game film, my nominees would have been wide receiver Ky’Dric Fisher with a career-high five catches for 51 yards – including four that brought first downs – and Zyion Freer-Brown, who matched his career high with 12 tackles for the second week in a row.

Not surprisingly, Harvard quarterback Jaden Craig's was named the Ivy League offensive player of the week. (LINK)

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BGA Overtime went up last night with a few thoughts and observations coming out of the Harvard game (LINK). The Optimist and The Pessimist will be stopping by the site tonight. It will be interesting to get their take.

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Dartmouth is still getting some love in the FCS Coaches Poll:

	FCS Coaches	W-L	Pts	Prev
1	North Dakota St. (25)	9-0	625	1
2	Montana	9-0	598	3
3	Montana St.	7-2	567	4
4	Lehigh	9-0	521	7
5	Tennessee Tech	9-0	488	8
6	Monmouth (N.J.)	8-1	485	9
7	Tarleton St.	9-1	474	2
8	Villanova	6-2	417	11
9	South Dakota St.	7-2	389	5
T10	Mercer	7-1	378	13
T10	Rhode Island	7-2	378	12
12	UC Davis	6-2	367	6
13	HARVARD	7-0	310	15
14	Southeastern Louisiana	7-2	298	16
15	North Dakota	6-3	263	10
16	Southern Illinois	6-3	243	17
17	Illinois St.	6-3	240	18
18	Lamar	7-2	173	14
19	Jackson St.	6-2	157	20
20	ACU	5-4	156	25
21	Stephen F. Austin	7-2	148	23
22	Youngstown St.	5-4	120	19
23	Presbyterian	8-1	115	22
24	Western Carolina	6-3	51	NR
25	South Dakota	6-4	36	NR
	Dropped Out:  None
	Others Receiving Votes: Lafayette, 29; West Georgia, 27; Alabama St., 12; Sacramento St., 12; Northern Arizona, 10; UT Rio Grande Valley, 10; DARTMOUTH, 8; Gardner-Webb, 7; North Carolina Central, 4; Austin Peay, 3; South Carolina St., 2; YALE, 2; Central Connecticut St., 1; Delaware St., 1.

	Stats Perform	W-L	Pts	Prev
1	North Dakota State	9-0	1400	1
2	Montana	9-0	1336	3
3	Montana State	7-2	1289	T4
4	Lehigh	9-0	1183	7
5	Tennessee Tech	9-0	1141	9
6	Tarleton State	9-1	1118	2
7	Monmouth	8-1	1062	10
8	South Dakota State	7-2	879	T4
9	HARVARD	7-0	854	12
10	Villanova	6-2	798	11
11	UC Davis	6-2	794	6
12	Mercer	7-1	759	15
13	North Dakota	6-3	758	8
14	Rhode Island	7-2	728	13
15	Southern Illinois	6-3	580	16
16	Illinois State	6-3	552	17
17	Stephen F. Austin	7-2	463	20
18	Abilene Christian	5-4	459	24
19	Southeastern Louisiana	7-2	441	21
20	Lamar	7-2	317	14
21	Youngstown State	5-4	303	18
22	South Dakota	6-4	259	NR
23	Jackson State	6-2	212	23
24	Western Carolina	6-3	174	NR
25	Presbyterian	8-1	113	25
	Dropped Out of Top 25: Northern Arizona (19), Austin Peay (22)
	Others Receiving Votes (schools listed on two or more ballots):  Northern Arizona (5-4, 2-3 Big Sky), 70;  Alabama State (6-2, 4-1 SWAC), 48; Delaware State (6-3, 2-0 MEAC), 23; Austin Peay (5-4, 3-3 UAC), 19; West Georgia (6-3, 3-3 UAC), 18; Lafayette (6-3, 4-0 Patriot), 15; YALE (5-2, 3-1 Ivy), 8; Sacramento State (5-4, 3-2 Big Sky), 7; New Hampshire (5-4, 3-2 CAA), 6

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With yesterday's addition of safety Kiyanté Ingram, the list of publicly committed Dartmouth football recruits now stands at 22:

• WR Blake Betette, 5-1, 185, Richard Northeast HS/South Carolina

• LB JJ Bolz, 6-2, 220, Bishop Verot HS/Florida

• DB Taiga Briskey, 6-1, 180, West Boca Raton HS/Florida

• DB David Brown III, 6-1, 162, Cypress Woods HS/Texas

• QB Jack Cannon, 6-2, 210, Holmdel HS/New Jersey 

• OL Tim Church, 6-5, 300, Buckingham Browne & Nichols/Massachusetts

• LB/WR George Duggins, 6-3, 200, Mona Shores HS/ Michigan

• DL August Dupree, 6-3, 215/Folson HS/California

• DE/TE Quinn Enguita, 6-4, 215, Bishop Verot HS/Florida.

• WR Kareem Fisher, 6-2, 180, St. Vincent Pallotti/Maryland

• RB/DB Jacob Henry, 5-11, 190, Maumelle HS/Arkansas

• S Kiyanté Ingram, 6-0, 195, McEachem HS/Georgia

• LB Gavin King, 6-4, 230, Loyola Academy/Illinois

• DL/TE Will Maloof, 6-5, 210, St. Peter's Prep/New Jersey

• WR George Loop, 5-11, 170, Isidore Newman/Louisiana

• LB Parker Maiers, 6-1, 220, Brebeuf Jesuit HS/Indianapolis

• OL Brody McLeod, 6-4, 280, Ponte Vedra HS/Florida

• OL Mikey McMahon, 6-4, 290, Bergen Catholic HS/New Jersey

• OL Jake Namnum, 6-2, 292, St. Josephs Prep/Pennsylvania

• K/P Tanner Pidwell, 6-2, 175, Park City HS/Utah

• OL Nick Schenkel, 6-4, 270, Liberty HS/Pennsylvania

• DL Roman Sosnovyy, 6-3, 245, Lyons Township HS/Illinois

Green Alert Take: It could get a little confusing next year with Dartmouth having wide receivers named Ky'Dric Fisher and Kareem Fisher. And how many times do you think Nick Schenkel's name will be confused with that of Nico Schwikal, the current Dartmouth linebacker?

As always, additions and corrections to the list are encouraged using the contact form over there to the right. ;-)

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From The Analyst in a story headlined FCS Football: With Something to Prove, These Postseason Hopefuls Demand a Closer Look (LINK):

Something to Prove (Ivy): Harvard is rolling at 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the Ivy League. Yale and Penn are tied for second place, but Yale won the head-to-head meeting 35-13, so the best-case scenario for the new (but old) kid on the block to gain multiple playoff bids is for the Bulldogs (5-2, 3-1) to win out and claim the automatic bid in a two-team tie for first place with Harvard, and the Crimson remaining unbeaten until that final rivalry game. They will probably have done enough by then to secure an at-large bid.

Green Alert Take: Amazing how things can change in one week. Beat Harvard and Dartmouth is in the driver's seat for the postseason. Lose to Harvard and the drum is beating for a Yale team the Big Green defeated.

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EXTRA POINT

For at least the 25th year in a row we had no trick-or-treaters at our house. It's completely understandable, of course. There's just not enough bang for the buck for kids to hit up houses spread far apart on dirt roads.

But as we do each year, we had candy ready – just in case. The pick this year was peanut M&M's because, well, because if you are going to lay in candy knowing there weren't going to be any trick-or-treaters you might as well lay in something you like.

So we had two bags of the M&M's that each contained four little "fun size" bags.

Let me ask you, how many times have you put together a child's toy or a bookcase or something else and when you finish the package was missing that last nut or bolt? Frustrating, right?

Last night we opened the bag containing the four "fun size" bags and nope, there weren't four bags of M&M's. Nor were there three. There were five. He shoots, he scores!

It doesn't make up for those missing nuts and bolts, but it did make me smile.