Friday, December 19, 2008

Before The Snow Falls ...

Just a quick blog this morning with upwards of a foot of snow headed this way and a lot to get to before the white stuff starts to come down. (And there's another big one expected Sunday, so you can be pretty sure it's gonna be a white Christmas in these parts.) ...

Former Dartmouth assistant Don Brown has followed in the footsteps of Holy Cross coach Tom Gilmore and withdrawn his name from the list of candidates to replace Jack Siedlecki at Yale. No explanation as to why the current UMass coach opted out, but is it possible Yale is the latter-day Nebraska, where potential coaches worry that very good won't be good enough?

Remember Frank Solich, who went 58-19 at Nebraska without ever having a losing record only to be let go after a 9-3 season? His biggest mistake was not being Tom Osborne. Now read what the New Haven Register wrote about Siedlecki, who wasn't Carm Cozza:
Siedlecki had a 70-49 record, won two Ivy League championships and led the Bulldogs to a 23-7 record over the last three seasons. Despite that success — which included 17 wins in 18 games over one stretch — Siedlecki’s Bulldogs beat Harvard only once in the last eight years, leading to some high anxiety for certain influential alumni.
Granted, there was that little issue of losing to Harvard, but it's still hard to believe the pressure Siedlecki apparently was under with that kind of record. Could it be that the coaches who withdrew wondered if there was enough support to top the 23-7 benchmark that wasn't enough to save Siedlecki?

The 2009 Dartmouth-UNH game, rumored to be on the ropes a few times, is the New Hampshire opener until the Wildcats fill in the front end of their schedule according to Allen Lessels' story in the Manchester Union Leader. UNH is on the lookout for a BCS "money game," but between Appalachian State's very costly victory over Michigan and the Wildcat's own success in guarantee games, landing a payday is proving to be tricky. Maybe they'll find a game on Sept. 26 and have to beg out against Dartmouth. ;-)

New York Times George Vecsey writes about the courage shown by former Dartmouth and Cincinnati Bengal linebacker Reggie Williams, who has had the fight of his life trying to save his leg. He writes:
Williams was sustained by a network of great friends, many of them African-Americans of talent and character who had been recruited to Dartmouth College in the tumultuous but idealistic ’60s and ’70s — the generation that led to our new president, to new hope.
The Pioneer Press has a brief note about Dartmouth co-captain elect, Timmy McManus:
For just the second time in Dartmouth football history, a junior — former St. Thomas Academy star Tim McManus — has been named captain for next season. McManus, who set several passing records at St. Thomas, was a District Academic All-American this past season at Dartmouth.
A small correction. McManus is actually the third junior captain in the Ivy League era. He was preceded by Caleb Moore (1999 and then again in 2000) and Clayton Smith (2003 and again in 2004). Moore was the first two-year captain since James Robertson in 1920 and 1921.

Dartmouth played against three coaches that earned votes in the Eddie Robinson balloting for FCS coach of the year. Colgate's Dick Biddle was 16th, Brown's Phil Estes was 19th and UNH's Sean McDonnell was 22nd.

Receiving votes for the Buck Buchanan Award as the nation's top defensive player in the FCS were Yale's Bobby Abare and Harvard's Matt Curtis.

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