Steamy Game Day At Yale

It's game day and time for a quick blog before loading up the car and heading down to New Haven, Conn. ... The forecast is calling for sunny skies with the temperature perhaps topping 80 degrees during the game. ...

With it being that warm (hot?) depth may be a factor. Even if it's not that warm, Yales depth will be a factor according to Bulldog coach Jack Siedlecki. From the New Haven Register:

"The defensive line is very unusual. We've really shut down the run game, and once you do that, and people start throwing 30, 40 times, you better have a lot of people to rush the passer, because if you don't your D-line is going to get exhausted. We have the ability to replace three guys at a time, and when you do, you have three fresh guys rushing now. It gives players the ability to know they can go all out this play because someone new is coming in for them next."

This game will be a severe test for Dartmouth's offensive line, which has surrendered just one sack this fall. Yale defensive lineman Stephen Schmalhofer, quoted in the Hartford Courant, talking about the Bulldogs' last game:

For the third week in a row, we completely obliterated a team's running attack. (They) got very predictable. They were throwing the ball almost every down in the second half."

Schmalhofer, by the way, offers interesting perspectives on football in his blog, Ivy Catholic. From the front page of his blog:

You have stumbled across the blog of a young Catholic man at Yale University. His time in New Haven is divided between playing Ivy League football and studying history. Is he preparing for the next Crusade or the next Counter-Reformation?

I wanted to post a link to Craig Haley's story in the Trenton Times about Princeton playing today against Hampton, one of the HBCUs. (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). The Trenton Times site is given me a forbidden message so I defaulted to a cache of the story. You can read it here.