Payton Power

Holy Cross quarterback Dominic Randolph has been added to the Walter Payton Award watch list for the outstanding offensive player in the FCS. That means Dartmouth played against four of the 16 finalists over the first five weeks of the season. If you are wondering about the difficulty of the Big Green's early season schedule, that's just another indication. The four Dartmouth played against:

• Week One: Colgate - Tailback Jordan Scott
• Week Two: UNH - Quarterback Ricky Santos
• Week Three: Penn -
  
• Week Four: Yale - Tailback Mike McLeod
• Week Five: Holy Cross - Quarterback Dominic Randolph

And here's the thing: All of the above except Santos will be back next year and UNH appears to have its next really good QB in the wings. ... Colgate linebacker Mike Gallihugh is on the Buchanan list for the top defensive player in the FCS.

The latest Gridiron Power Index has been released by the College Sporting News and Dartmouth is ranked fifth in the Ivies and 72nd (of 122 teams) overall. The rankings:

• 11 Yale
• 16 New Hampshire
• 31 Holy Cross
• 32 Harvard
• T-38 Colgate
• 65 Brown
• 67 Cornell
• 72 Dartmouth
• 74 Penn
• 85 Princeton
• 109 Columbia

Curious how Week 10 opponent Princeton matched up against Yale? What the Tigers did well and not so well? Check out this Yale Daily story.

How does this 9-0 Yale team compare to school's last undefeated and untied football team? The New Haven Register asks some of the members of the 1960 team, which won a share of the Lambert Trophy, emblematic of Eastern supremacy.

Brown football players dressed in pink T-shirts raised money for the fight against cancer in a bench-press competition according to this story in the Daily Herald. Also participating was Brown coach Phil Estes, who hit the 165-pound weight with the same fervor of his players. A funny quote from Estes:

"It's always nice when I can match the players. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I was trying to get to my age, 49, but I only hit 40."

Speaking of Brown, national offensive player of the week Bobby Sewall may have met his match in terms of versatility. When Nicholls State's Ladarius Webb earned the Southland Conference special teams player of the week award on Monday he became the first Division I player ever to win a conference's offensive, defensive and special teams player of the week awards all in one season. Webb is a defensive back and twice has won the weekly defensive award. He won the offensive award as the emergency fill-in quarterback on week before finishing his cycle with the special teams honor this week.

It has taken some time but Jay Fielder is finally starting to be appreciated a bit more in Miami. The latest example was in a Q&A with former Dolphin wide receiver James McKnight that appeared in the Sun-Sentinel. McKnight was asked:

Having played with Jay Fiedler, wouldn't you agree he never got the respect he deserved? He certainly won a lot of games for the Dolphins and never complained. Wasn't he just a scapegoat for Dave Wannstedt's conservative offensive game plans?

McKnight's answer:

Yes, yes and yes. Jay was definitely not valued justly during his time with the Dolphins. ...

To read more of McKnight's answer, check out the Sun-Sentinel story here.