Monday Morning Quarterbacking

One week. Huge difference.

Last Saturday the Dartmouth defense had the unenviable task of trying to stop the surgical passing attack of New Hampshire quarterback Ricky Santos. This Saturday the Big Green will face a Penn passing attack that last week was something less than surgical with seven interceptions.

To put the numbers in perspective, Santos had seven interceptions in 13 games last year. He threw 432 passes, recorded 29 touchdowns in the air and had as many picks as Penn's QB's had on one Saturday evening against Villanova.

Don't for a second expect the Quaker quarterback(s) to have that bad a game this weekend, but the Daily Pennsylvanian warns, "if any Ivy defense makes the easy decision to drop back into a zone, it will still mean trouble."

The Sports Network quotes a clearly frustrated Penn coach Al Bagnoli on his team's loss at Villanova: "You can't beat anybody, never mind a good team on the road, when you have that volume of turnovers. As sure as I'm sitting here, we had people open."

Yale's 51-12 win over Cornell marked the Bulldogs' highest scoring game against the Big Red since 1889. The Yale Daily News shares the numbers. Cornell coach Jim Knowles, maintaining a sense of humor at the start of the postgame press conference: “Do I have to make a statement? Can I plead the fifth?”

A couple of other notable games took place at Lafayette's fabulously refurbished Fisher Stadium and at Harvard in the historic first game under the lights.

Of his team's win in Easton, Pa., Princeton coach Roger Hughes was quoted in the Princetonian as saying: "Lafayette is a good team and to come in here and win, I don't know if people realize how big a win this is. And scoring 20 points on the No. 1 defense in Division I-AA is outstanding."

The Harvard Crimson reports the attendance of 18,898 for the Harvard-Brown game was "an increase of 60 percent over the 11,134 in attendance at the 2005 home game against Brown. It was the largest attendance for a home game in more than a decade, excluding the yearly Harvard-Yale match-up, which routinely draws more than 30,000 fans."

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Rob Talley, the Dartmouth defensive coordinator through the 2004 season, is off to a fast start in his first head coaching job at Stonehill. He has the Skyhawks, who were 1-9 last year under his predecessor, out to a 3-0 start. Their win over C.W. Post Saturday was the first in school history. It's just the second time in Stonehill's 20-year football history the school has been 3-0.

Former Dartmouth head coach John Lyons led Kimball Union Academy to a 32-0 win Saturday in its first game of the season.

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This is a fun one.

The Missoulian writes about newly remodeled "skyboxes," at the University of Montana's Washington-Grizzly Stadium. (Remember, the Griz play at the FCS level -- I-AA if you will -- the same as Dartmouth and the rest of the Ivies.) The story reports there are 47 of these boxes including the "double-wide" featured in the story. From the Missoulian description of this particular box:

It's got granite countertops, comfy seating for 26, a wet bar, cafe tables and a bird's-eye view of the Grizzlies' playing field.

Pushing the suite into the envy zone: Subzero refrigerator “drawers,” a built-in Subzero glass refrigerator, an icemaker the size of a wastebasket, and a state-of-the-art, under-the-counter microwave that also pulls out like a drawer.

The crowning glory - or at least the most memorable design element - are the suite's five flat-screen televisions providing instant replay action and including a 42-inch bear-sized screen - and a television in the bathroom.

Two of the "conglomerate of football fanatics and friends," who lease the box played football at Dartmouth. Brad Kliber '85, was an offensive lineman (and is pictured in the story) while Jack Manning '72, was an All-Ivy defensive back. Manning, by the way, occasionally takes his eyes off the Griz to see what's happening in Hanover where nephew John Manning '07, has been a starting corner for two years.