Robin's Arrival Means ...

Looking through the window just now I spotted my first robin of the year up here on the shoulder of Moose Mountain. The bird appears a little forlorn (or confused?) looking from a birch branch down at all the snow but with sunshine and the temperature predicted to reach 50 degrees today, it won't be long until there's grass showing. The red-breasted one's arrival is another sign that spring football is coming.

Oops. A look at the calendar reminds me that I forgot to issue the "two-week warning" for the start of spring ball in Monday's blog. While the players have been informally gathering to toss a football when they can, there are now 11 days until spring football officially kicks off. Remember, drills start April 14. ...

While we wait, a few tidbits from my conversation with coach Buddy Teevens last week. ... Linebacker Joe Battaglia and offensive lineman Elliott Dial have received the OK to return next fall as fifth-year seniors. ... While they will be back, sophomore offensive linemen Evan Nogay and Bo Yanker have decided not to return. ... Freshman tailback TJ Cameron has had all the hardware removed from his problematic ankle and is moving well. ... The coach has been encouraged by the progress of freshman linebacker Carter Scott, who was lost for the season when he hurt his knee at New Hampshire. ... Among the notable position changes anticipated is freshman defensive end Charles Bay moving inside. ... Teevens said "six or eight" players earned a 3.7 gpa or better for the winter term. ...

The Chicago Tribune has a story about a former Dartmouth offensive lineman named Hank Paulson. Whatever happened to him? Find the story here.

Cornell has released its admission numbers. The Cornell Sun has a short story that reports the school had 33,011 applicants, waitlisted 3,432 and denied admission to 19,305. That seems to suggest, if you do the math (33,011 - [19,305+3,432]), that there were 10,274 admits, which sounds high. I went back to double-check the story to see if it mentioned the number of admits and it did not. Then I went surfing the regular cornell.edu web site to find the source material for the story and couldn't learn anything there. After that I went to the Ithaca Journal and didn't find anything. So stay tuned for a possible if/when all the numbers are posted.