How About That

Less than three weeks after the position came open, Penn has a new head football coach, and it's a familiar name in these parts.

Succeeding Ray Priore will be Ricky Santos, the former star quarterback and then head coach at the University of New Hampshire. Santos, who guided the Wildcats to the NCAA playoffs this fall, posted a 37-24 overall record and a 28-12 CAA record at his alma mater.

Find a Penn press release announcing the hiring of Santos HERE.

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Speaking of Wildcats, the Villanova variety of the animal advanced to the FCS quarterfinals yesterday with a dramatic 26-21 win over fourth-seeded Tarleton State. 'Nova will carry the banner of the Northeast into this week's matchup with unseeded Illinois State, which has defeated No. 1 North Dakota State and No. 8 UC Davis in its last two games.

Villanova has several familiar names on its roster. The Wildcats' leading receiver is Princeton graduate Luke Colella, who has 73 catches for 1,013 yards and eight touchdowns this fall, all team-highs. On the defensive side Harvard grad Kaleb Moody and Penn grad Julian Talley are both in the Villanova secondary.

The Wildcats' placekicker is Central Connecticut product Jack Barnum. Their starting quarterback was previously at Nicholls State.

Green Alert Take: It's fun to see a team from this part of the country go deep into the FCS playoffs. Worth noting is that Villanova will be joining fellow CAA expats Richmond and William & Mary in the Patriot League next year and will likely have to change its approach to using transfers. The current Patriot League rules allow grad student participation only for students continuing on at their own school under certain conditions (LINK).

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Did you know that famed WWE wrestler (and actor) John Cena, who just finished his career in the ring, is the grandson of legendary Dartmouth baseball coach Tony Lupien? It's true. His mother, Carol, is Lupien's daughter. Find a story about Tony Lupien and his grandson HERE.

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EXTRA POINT

Watching the Army-Navy game yesterday afternoon I couldn't help but think about my grandfather, who grew up in Nevada and went on to graduate from the Naval Academy. In his later years he used to turn his hearing aid off while watching the Army-Navy game if Navy was losing. He wouldn't have heard much of yesterday's game – but the sound would have come in loud and clear at the end.

From Hanover to Hard Rock

Isaiah Johnson '22, the former Dartmouth corner who spent two years as a grad transfer at Syracuse, has been activated by the Miami Dolphins, who play Monday night at the Steelers. From a team release (LINK):

Johnson has appeared in three career games with the Dolphins (2025) and has recorded one special teams tackle. He made his NFL debut in Miami's Week 6 matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers and played in Week 9 against Baltimore and in Miami's Week 10 victory over the Buffalo Bills. He entered the NFL as an undrafted college free agent with Miami in 2024 and spent the season on the practice squad. He played his final two collegiate seasons at Syracuse (2022-23), where he appeared in 25 games with 19 starts and totaled 115 tackles (74 solo), two interceptions, nine passes defensed and one forced fumble. He began his career at Dartmouth (2018-21), where he earned first-team All-Ivy League honors in 2021 after registering 55 tackles (38 solo), one interception returned for a touchdown and seven passes defensed.

To watch a three-minute interview with Isaiah Thomas from the start of training camp last summer, click HERE. Find his Dartmouth bio HERE.

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🏈The winner of the 2025 Buddy Teevens Award is @BYUfootball ’s @kalanifsitake ‼️🏆 #MaxwellFootball🏆 pic.twitter.com/nAjSOt2ml1

— Maxwell Football (@MaxwellFootball) December 13, 2025

Dartmouth put out a release HERE when the Buddy Teevens Award was introduced in January of 2024.

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On3 has a release headlined Top players expected to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal. (LINK)

Which of these schools on the list is not like the others?

1. Arizona State QB Sam Leavitt

2. Michigan State WR Nick Marsh

3. Tennessee DB Boo Carter

4. Notre Dame QB Kenny Minchey

5. Miami (Ohio) EDGE Adam Trick

6. Yale WR Nico Brown

7. Missouri RB Marquise Davis

8. Coastal Carolina OT Nick Del Grande

9. Liberty RB Evan Dickens

10. Northern Illinois OT Evan Malcore

Several points to note.

First, Nico Brown was a senior at Yale this fall, so he'll be a grad transfer.

Second, Brown did not have a single catch in his career before this fall. He finished his senior year with 71 catches for 1,085 yards and 11 touchdowns, averaging 15.3 yards per catch.

And finally, Brown had 11 catches for 107 yards and one touchdown in Yale's FCS playoff loss at Montana State. Do you think he'd be on this list if Yale had not made the playoffs?

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EXTRA POINT

For months we were getting almost daily phone calls informing us that the extended warranty on our car was running out. They were spam calls of course.

For the past few weeks we've been getting calls about help seeking a settlement after our recent car accident they heard about. There was no car accident of course.

Yesterday I decided to stay on the line so an agent could answer my questions When he came on and I asked him to tell me a little more about his accident he abruptly hung up. Can you believe that?  ;-)

This And That

 Dartmouth football coaches in the Ivy League era by overall winning percentage::

	W	L	T	Pct
Bob Blackman	104	37	3	.732
Sammy McCorkle	21	9	0	.700
Jake Crouthamel	41	20	2	.667
Buddy Teevens	117	101	2	.536
John Lyons	60	68	1	.469
Joe Yukica	36	47	4	.437

Find Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle's Wikipedia page HERE.

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Dartmouth photo

From a Dartmouth athletic story headlined Teevens Center Hosts Inaugural Research Forum:

 On November 4, the Teevens Center for Peak Performance hosted its inaugural Research Forum, bringing together Dartmouth students, faculty, coaches, clinicians and athletics staff to explore cutting-edge work in health, wellness and human performance. 

The event marked the formal launch of Pillar III of the Teevens Center mission: advancing research and innovation in performance science. In his opening remarks, Duncan Simpson, the Director of the Kirsten and Eugene F. "Buddy" Teevens '79 Center for Peak Performance highlighted the forum's purpose to "increase awareness of the great work already happening, spark new ideas around the performance problems we want to solve and foster collaboration across disciplines and expertise."

The forum also honored the legacy of Coach Buddy Teevens, whose forward-thinking approach positioned research as a catalyst for solving real-world challenges and enhancing student-athlete well-being.

Read more HERE. 

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The Manchester Union Leader doesn't cover Dartmouth sports the way it did years ago, but the state's largest newspaper does do a pretty good job telling the story of the awakening of the Big Green hockey program in a story headlined, By shifting culture, Cashman has built Dartmouth men's hockey team into national contender. From the story:

No. 8 Dartmouth (10-0, 6-0 ECAC) is off to its best start since its 1942-43 season, when it went 14-0-1, and ranks No. 1 in the nation in the National Collegiate Percentage Index (NPI), which replaced the PairWise system this year.

Read more HERE.

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EXTRA POINT

Several years ago we added our names to a list of people interested in signing up when fiber broadband internet came up our road. That day arrived not all that long ago, but there was a catch. We would be responsible for "pulling a string" between the road and our house, enabling the fiber to be tied to it and yanked through a conduit into our basement. We were told it was an easy process using a shop vac to blow a plastic bag through the piping, but because our conduit has two legs, and where the conduit enters the house was sealed up, I wasn't about to try to do it myself.

Several emails back-and-forth with the internet provider to try to find someone to help out proved fruitless, and so we have stuck with DSL, which limps along at its own leisurely pace.

Out of the blue last week we got a call informing us that thanks to a grant it received, the internet provider could send someone to do the preliminary work that had intimidated me and were we still interested? They told me would be done at no cost and take less than an hour. I said, "Sign me up!"

The installer showed up yesterday and the "less-than-an-hour" job ended up taking about three hours. The fellow told me it's a good thing he had done a number of installs like ours or it would have been even more problematic. Yeah, it's a good thing I didn't try to do it myself.

No word yet about when the rest of the install will take place. I expect there will be a hiccup or two before we have everything up and working smoothly, but it would seem the days of needing four hours to update my Mac or 15 minutes to download a single podcast will finally be coming to an end.

Top 10

 Senior DJ Crother moved this fall into Dartmouth's all-time, top-10 for single-season rushing yards this fall:

		Year	Yards	Avg.	TD
1	Al Rosier ‘91	1991	1,432	5.6	12
2	Nick Schwieger ‘12	2011	1,310	5.4	10
3	Nick Schwieger ‘12	2010	1,133	4.7	14
4	Shon Page ‘90	1990	1,087	5.0	11
5	Dominick Pierre ‘14	2013	1,064	5.0	13
6	David Clark ‘90	1989	1,063	4.9	4
7	DJ Crother ‘26	2025	959	4.9	10
8	Michael Gratch ‘02	2001	916	4.7	6
9	Greg Smith ‘97	1996	885	4.0	10
10	Dominick Pierre ‘14	2012	830	5.0	9

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Recruiting guru Mide Farrell's site now has a piece headlined Top FCS Players to Watch in Transfer Portal – Offense and Dartmouth tight end Chris Corbo is one of five Ivy Leaguers among the 17 players listed:

QB Jaden Craig – Harvard

OG Derek Osman – Harvard

OT Netinho Olivieri – UPenn

WR Jared Richardson – UPenn

TE Chris Corbo – Dartmouth

Of Corbo, the site includes this:

Senior

6-foot-5, 250-pounds

North Caldwell, New Jersey

2024/2025 Stats: In his last 20 games, Corbo had 77 receptions for 831 yards and 11 touchdowns; in 2025 he finished with 45 receptions for 516 yards and four touchdowns

One point worth noting. Because the portal doesn’t open until next month the only players technically available now are seniors, and all of the Ivy Leagues listed are seniors.

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This is kind of fun. Former Dartmouth defensive lineman-turned-Olympic gold medal shot-putter Adam Nelson's '97 daughters attend his alma mater, The Lovett School in Atlanta. Daughter Caroline is now playing flag football for the school and her sister, Lauren wrote a story about her HERE.

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EXTRA POINT

For a long time we have had a fancy Christmas tree stand that makes getting the tree up straight and stable eazy peazy. Except, it turns out, when it doesn't.

Apparently, for the first time ever, we didn't get the tree properly situated in the stand. We found that out today when it started to lean as the last decoration was going on. Unfortunately, we have no alternative but to de-decorate the tree, reset the stump in the stand, and decorate again. And so you know, our tree has a lot of ornaments.

This predicament calls to mind the little parade we have in our town. It runs less than a quarter of a mile and then turns around. The saying is, "It's so nice you see it twice."

I guess our tree this year is, so nice, we'll decorate it twice. (Although the be perfectly honest, Mrs. BGA does almost all of the decorating. My super power is de-decorating. ;-)