Busy Blogging Sunday

Busy day on the blogging front, so let's get to it. ...

After missing his freshman year with a knee injury suffered in a Colorado all-star game, Dartmouth junior Lane Shipley started to demonstrate what he could do last fall and gave furhter indication about what could come this year during spring football. The Steamboat Pilot has a story about Shipley and several high school teammates eager to make their mark in Division I football. Regarding Dartmouth's junior nose guard, who is bidding for a starting role this season, the paper says:

Now up to 260 pounds, Shipley said he’s got high hopes for this season. After going through an 0-10 campaign last year, he said all the focus is on turning things around.

“I want to prove more, first off, to myself, then to the team and then to anybody that pays attention,” Shipley said. “We’re not a winless program. There was nothing really fun about last season.”

Find Shipley's bio here.

The New Haven Register has a story with new Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris and reading between the lines (or simply reading the lines) that begin the column, it doesn't appear she's eager to jump into the Ivy League football playoff debate any more than predecessor Jeff Orleans was. (The New York Times story mentioned on yesterday's blog said as much.) Dave Solomon's story starts this way:

After about the third time I rephrased the same question, Robin Harris couldn’t mistake the direction of the conversation Friday.

Harris, the new executive director/commissioner of the Ivy League, who replaced Jeffrey Orleans on July 1, gently rebuked my attempts to discern whether she arrives with a predilection toward allowing the Ivy League to compete in the postseason in football.

Also from the story:

Asked if she had any strong feelings for or against (the football playoffs), she said, “It’s too early for me to have a good sense of that issue. I know that the Ivy League was founded on and still believes in the concept of intraleague competition. So winning the Ivy League is a big deal, particularly in football, which is a such a historic sport for us.”

Green Alert Take: When I first worked in the athletic department at Dartmouth I would often hear that the most important goal in the season was to win the Ivy League. But to listen to the newer breed of coaches in recent years, I'd argue that has changed in at least three sports where the Ivy League has a relatively high national profile. The Ivy League title is nice, but what drives these coaches is seeing what they can do nationally. If Harris is really listening on her "listening tour," she'll hear that, and with it another of the supposed reasons why football isn't allowed to go on to the playoffs will be debunked.

State College Area High School, in a town better known for being the home of a former Brown quarterback named Joe Paterno, had five student-athletes playing football at Ivy League schools last fall and is adding another this year. Several private schools (Belen Jesuit in Florida and Brophy Prep in Arizona come immediately to mind) have a serious Ivy presence, but can any public school match that? The Centre Daily Times has a story.

Depending on how things break, former Little Lions (yes, that's the nickname) could account for two of the eight starting quarterbacks in the Ivies. Yale junior Brook Hart and Cornell senior Ben Ganter are both products of State College High.

Dominic Randolph, who will quarterback Holy Cross against Dartmouth on Oct. 17, has been named to the 2009 Payton Award watch list by The Sports Network. The Payton Award is given to the top offensive player in the FCS. Randolph has passed for 9,689 yards and 83 touchdowns in three years. (For comparison, Jay Fielder passed for 6,684 yards and 43 touchdowns in his three years with the Dartmouth varsity, although the game has changed even since then.) The Holy Cross release on Randolph, who will be a fifth-year senior this fall, can be found here.

In three games against Dartmouth, Randolph has completed 77-of-112 passes (68.8 percent) for 948 yards and five touchdowns with two interceptions. Last fall he was 33-45 for 391 yards with two TDs and two INTs as the Crusaders took a 44-26 win at Memorial Field.

Speaking of Patriot League fixtures, the Utica Observer-Dispatch has a story about Bob Cornell, who has retired after 33 years as sports information director at Colgate. I've known Bob for a long time and have tremendous respect for him. I've made no secret of the fact that I am one of those people who enjoyed the Colgate series and working with Bob was surely one of the reasons why. That the series is ending after next year is fitting because, from my point of view at least, it just won't be the same without Bob's calming presence in the Andy Kerr Stadium press box.

The College Sporting News has an updated version of its Consolidated Rankings for FCS football posted. The CSN takes rankings from Lindy's, Sporting News, Athlon, Phil Steele, Sports Network and USA Today along with the Any Given Saturday poll and averages them out. The top three are Applachian State, Richmond and Villanova. Dartmouth opponents (with their highest ranking by any of the publications and polls in parentheses):

No. 9. New Hampshire (highest: No. 6 by USA Today)
No. 26 Holy Cross (No. 13 by Phil Steele)
No. 30 Harvard (No. 21 by USA Today)
No. 31 (T) Colgate (No. 20 by USA Today)

Something I read yesterday that I did not know. (OK, there are a lot of things, but work with me here). Mike Trombley, who pitched in the big leagues for about a decade, nearly played football (and baseball) at Dartmouth. From a MassLive.com story:

"I really wanted to go to Dartmouth," he said. "I visited Dartmouth one weekend, and there was a snowstorm, and then a couple weeks later I went with my parents to see Wake Forest and Duke. I think it was 75 degrees, and Duke had just won the ACC championship (in men's basketball). Everyone was in shorts, and the girls were recognizable, so I looked at my dad and said, 'I think this would be a good place to go to school'."

Here's Trombley's bio.

And finally, live football. The Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl game that pitted graduated seniors from New Hampshire against those from Vermont was another walkover yesterday. The game, usually played at Dartmouth's Memorial Field but moved this year to Windsor, Vt., because of anticipated construction at Memorial Field, went to New Hampshire, 40-6. The Granite Staters won last year, 42-0, and now lead the 56-year-old series, 41-13-2.