Renewing Acquaintances Part II

Sunday's junior varsity football game is expected to find freshman quarterback Alex Jenny on the Dartmouth sideline and Phil Hastings, his favorite receiver from Wayland High in Massachusetts, on the Middlebury side. Jenny and Hastings have been fast friends and teammates together for 12 seasons of football, basketball and baseball. ... Also renewing acquaintances, as blogged yesterday, Dartmouth QB Max Heiges and Middlebury QB Cam Taylor, who have been friendly rivals since grammar school in California.

Dartmouth didn't get much love from old friend Matt Dougherty this week as the former Big Green intern and current I-AA guru for The Sports Network picks Colgate to win, 31-13.

The Columbia Spectator notes that 13 players who were on last year's opening day roster have left the team either because of injury or because they chose to pursue other interests. That's tough when depth is a problem anyway.

The Spectator continues its preview series with a look at Penn.

The Cornell Sun talked with football coach Jim Knowles and got an interesting spin on the text messaging issue. Said Knowles:

“I’m a text freak. If you’re 41 like me, and you don’t know how to text, then you’re out of the loop. You have to be in today’s age. We use it with our players, our staff and our recruits.”

Finally this: I wrote last week about the adjustment high school stars have to make when they may find themselves deep on the depth chart or serving as scout team players as college freshmen. That lesson hit home last night when a certain 7th grader who has played virtually every down since he started in football -- and always has been one of his team's premier players -- got on the field for just a handful of plays in Hanover's 7th/8th grade win over Lebanon, 19-6. It's relatively easy as a parent (and someone who has been around sports for a long time) to understand what is happening. Helping a very, very disappointed boy of 12 understand that is a lot harder.