Maybe The Opener Changed Their Minds

I just downloaded the 16-page Penn preseason football guide produced by the Daily Pennsylvanian in PDF. (LINK) It's a nice piece of work but doesn't exactly toss any love Dartmouth's way. The preview has 13 prognosticators who offer their guesses for the final Ivy League standings. Six pick Dartmouth to finish eighth and seven pick the Big Green seventh. You do the math; no one picks Dartmouth any higher than seventh.

An inside story includes this thought:

"... (I)n a league full of parity, pretty much anyone outside of Dartmouth has a shot to win it all."

To quote the immortal Sammy Davis Jr., "Ouch, babe."

The guess here is that if they polled the prognosticators after Saturday's opening games instead of before, Dartmouth would have been treated a little more kindly.

On the other hand, it might be a good thing if the re-polling takes place before this weekend when the Big Green figures to have its hands full with UNH and quarterback Ricky Santos. Old friend Andy Gardiner has a USA Today story headlined: New Hampshire rides high aboard sizzling Santos. It includes this quote from UNH coach Sean McDonnell about his QB:

"He's gone from good to great, and now he has to go from great to wherever he wants to go. The expectations for him are so high that he has to do more."

ESPN.com has a travel story about the oldest football stadia (hate that, so I'm going with stadiums) in the country. (LINK) Having done a ton of research when I wrote the Ivy League chapter for ESPN's College Football Encyclopedia, I didn't find much in the story that's new but it's worth reading. It focuses on Harvard Stadium, Yale Bowl and Franklin Field, three of the four oldest um, stadiums, in the nation. (Georgia Tech has the other.)

While you are on the pace, check out the photo slide show that accompanies the story. It's headlined: Monuments to the Past. That's an accurate, but unfortunate headline.

Speaking of stadiums, the Yale Daily has a blurb about a start date for the next stage of the Yale Bowl project. I know this is sacrilege, but I wish the folks in New Haven would consider doing what Bucknell did with the closed end of its little horseshoe. (Aerial picture) (Ground Level Picture) Enormous hedges in one end zone spelling out YALE would be pretty impressive and the place would look a lot less like a "Monument to the Past," if it didn't seem quite so empty. Given the historic nature of the facility, they probably wouldn't consider it and might not even be allowed, but it's an idea. It sure worked at Bucknell.

To access the UNH game notes for Saturday's game over in Durham, click here.