"It's all starting to come together"

Good thing the scrimmage was yesterday. The wind is absolutely howling out there right and and we've had some heavy rain already up here on the side of the mountain. ...

The Manchester Union Leader has a story out of Dartmouth media day. It quotes Buddy Teevens: “The first year in any transition is difficult. Having gone through a year, and assessed our talent more deeply, now it’s all starting to come together.” ...

No tremendous surprises in the openers for two of Dartmouth's non-conference opponents. Colgate fell at UMass, 28-7, and Holy Cross topped Georgetown, 26-13. Green Alert Take: Colgate certainly hoped to perform better against the Minutemen, but that's a tough, tough opener. Don't read too much into the loss. The 'Gate has struggled in opening games and come on like gangbusters in recent years. As for Holy Cross, don't read too much into the win. With Kevin Kelly as head coach and a new (if small) stadium, Georgetown has the first pieces in place to grow into a nice Patriot League team. But the Hoyas aren't there yet.

Something interesting out of Harvard media day: Not only was the Crimson scheduled to travel to New York for a scrimmage with Columbia (canceled because of the weather) but the junior varsity had its own scrimmage against Division III WPI. Wow. A jayvee scrimmage.

The news from Carolina yesterday for former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer wasn't good as he was waived. (After two years yo-yoing between the Panthers and their practice team, he's no longer eligible for the practice team.) According to the Herald web site, "(T)he team chose to keep a fourth tight end rather than hanging onto backup fullback Casey Cramer to fill the five backfield jobs." Green Alert Take: No question the Panthers like Cramer. The bet here is that if there's an injury, he'll be back with the team as soon as they can make a phone call. Unless, of course, someone else swoops him up. His NFL career isn't over unless he wants it to be.

Check the main site later today for the Green Alert take on Saturday's scrimmage on Memorial Field.

Finally, have patience with the new Dartmouth athletics web site. I was told yesterday that it's still very much a work in progress, that the "teaser" story on the front page that keeps changing isn't supposed to change (hooray) and that the site hasn't been formally introduced. Oh, and if you've been wondering about the charge for the live streaming video, it will be less than $10 per month to watch every event on the site.