There's a discussion going on elsewhere on the Internet about Ivy League football teams opening up in almost three weeks against opponents who will be playing their second, third or fourth game. (Find the composite Ivy League schedule here.)
Here are the Ivy League teams, who they are playing in the 2008 opener, and what game number it is for that opponent:
Dartmouth-Colgate (4)
Brown-Stony Brook (4)
Columbia-Fordham (4)
Cornell-Bucknell (3)
Penn-Villanova (3)
Princeton-Citadel (3)
Yale-Georgetown (3)
Harvard-Holy Cross (2)
A little history lesson. Dartmouth and the other Ivies almost always opened against non-league opponents until 1975.
From 1960 until 1975, the Big Green's first-game opponent was either New Hampshire or Massachusetts in every year except 1963, when it was Bucknell. Both UNH and UMass were reasonable opponents to open with from Dartmouth's perspective.
First, UNH and UMass were generally playing just their second game. (The exception was 1974 when UMass had two games before playing Dartmouth.)
And second, far from being outclassed against the two non-league opponents, Dartmouth had historically held the hammer in those series. The Big Green was 20-0-1 against UMass through 1971 and 16-0 against UNH through 1972.
But things were starting to change. After 20 consecutive losses in the series, UMass defeated Dartmouth in the opener in both 1974 and 1975. New Hampshire, meanwhile, defeated the Big Green for the first time in 1973. (Dartmouth won the next renewal of the series in 1976 but has gone 0-15-2 against the Wildcats ever since.)
Clearly, the landscape was shifting. Recognizing what was happening, the Ivy League presidents responded with a dramatic scheduling change, opting to open the season with Ivy-Ivy games. As a result, from 1976 through 1999, Dartmouth opened up every year against either Penn or Princeton (again with one exception - a 1994 game against Colgate).
The advantage of the Ivy-Ivy openers, of course, was that both teams would enter the game with the same number of practices and the same number of games (none) behind them.
The disadvantage of Ivy-Ivy openers was the tremendous importance placed on a first game.
Case in point: In 1984, Dartmouth lost its opener to two-time defending champion Penn, which looked like another powerhouse. With a conference loss in the books and the Penn game behind it, the Big Green's championship hopes were out of its hands if Penn ran the table. When the Quakers did that, Dartmouth had been effectively eliminated from the Ivy League race in the first week of the season.
The same thing happened in 1986 and 1993 when Dartmouth lost its opener to Penn.
Only one time from 1976-1999 did the Ivy League champion lose two games (1982). What that meant was, with a loss in the opener your team's back was against the wall for the rest of the season just to have a chance to tie for the title.
It really is a Catch-22. Do you play an opponent who is in its third or fourth game of the season? Or do you play a game on a more level playing field, but a game that can essentially eliminate you from the conference race on the first Saturday of the season after all that offseason work, all those spring practices, a summer of running and lifting and three weeks of preseason?
What's your call?
A Holy Cross team doctor who played against the Big Green may be just a tad conflicted when the teams play on Oct. 18. He's a graduate of Dartmouth Medical School. (link) ...
This is kind of fun. Steve Koreivo is a big-time college football fan who has seen all 119 FBS teams in person - and a bunch of FCS teams as well. The New York Times has a story. He's been to two Dartmouth games: 1996 against Princeton and the same year against Lehigh. The Big Green, by the way, won both games and finished that season undefeated. For a full list of games Koreivo has seen, click here.
And finally, that certain Hanover High junior and her mom are running in the annual Labor Day road race across the river in Norwich, Vt., this morning. The junior is running in a group with her cross country team, which is using the race for a training run and plans to cross the line together. Mom will come in, well, a little later ;-)
Check Green Alert Premium tonight for a full wrapup from the first practice of the preseason in full pads.
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