Chance To Earn Respect

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens says it frequently. Respect is earned.

The Big Green will have a chance to earn some today when it plays host to 2-1 Yale on Memorial Field in a game being televised live on NESN (New England Sports Network). While more restrained than the opinions expressed in some of the student media yesterday, the sentiments shared in a couple of blogs this morning are a reminder that the Dartmouth program will have to win games to win critics over.

Writing about Bulldog tailback Mike McLeod New Haven Register's Portal 31 Yale football blog says:

"McLeod was held out of practice on Wednesday but practiced without restriction on Thursday. McLeod's 3.3 yard per carry average could get healthy against a Dartmouth defense which is allowing 6 yards per carry in the first three games of the season."

In his weekly predictions, Jake Novak of The Roar Lions Roar Columbia blog writes:

The Big Green proved it could overcome its murderous early season schedule last year, but it seems that Dartmouth is succumbing again to gravity. Yale will face a better Dartmouth offense than they've seen in recent years, but it won't be enough because good running backs seem to feast on the Big Green "D". Yale has a good running back named McLeod or something.

Hanover, the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire, and all of Northern New England is ablaze right now in red, gold and green as the foliage season hits peak. Cameras in hand, Leaf Peepers abound and with good reason. A "regular reader," sends along a link from a ForbesTraveler.com piece about America's prettiest towns. One of them: Hanover. Here's what the site had to say:

"Hanover, in the Connecticut River valley, is home to Dartmouth College, founded in 1769, and Melville describes it as "the quintessential New England college town , complete with whitewashed colonial-style buildings shaded by sugar maples that turn blazing red in the fall."

Yup.