Oh Line

Colgate showed Saturday that even an offensive line stocked with first-year starters can be impressive as a powerful Raider front helped backup tailback Jordan McCord move the pile for 212 yards in a 34-15 victory. (Official Dartmouth game story)

This Saturday Dartmouth will face yet another rebuilt offensive line but the test will be even more severe as the Big Green hits the road to take on UNH.

While the New Hampshire line is relatively untested it's a veteran group of graybeards compared to Colgate's line, which had just two combined starts last fall. The Laconia Citizen notes that the UNH starters against Ball State, "had a combined 22 college starts entering the season, 13 by (Tom) Neill and nine by (Dan) Larkin, all in 2008."

Did we mention that UNH won at Ball State with that line? And that the 2-0 Wildcats are a Top-10 team?

It doesn't figure to get much easier another week down the road when the Big Green plays host to Penn in the Ivy League opener. Sure, the Quakers are 0-1 but the loss came to No. 2 Villanova by a 14-3 score. Penn didn't do much offensively, but the defense was stout. Consider this from the Daily Pennsylvanian:

Villanova needed just 14 seconds to score its first touchdown of the night (returning the opening kickoff). On the other, the Wildcats put up just seven points in the remaining 59:46.

Penn held the Wildcats to 29 yards rushing and 38 yards in the air the entire first half, and gave up just 187 yards overall.

Penn joined Harvard as one of the Ivy League preseason favorites and coach Al Bagnoli's Quakers made a believer of Villanova coach Andy Talley Saturday night:

"I told Al after the game that if they don't win the Ivy League title I'm gonna [tell] the alumni to get after him," Talley said.

Columbia's 40-28 win at Fordham was an upset in a lot of eyes, but apparently not Lion eyes as a quote from coach Norries Wilson in the Spectator makes clear:

“This is how much these gentlemen, these students, have grown up—my clothes are dry. There was no pouring Gatorade on the coach—they expected to win this football game.”

This Spectator column, by the way, refers to bullish quarterback Milli Olawale's two running touchdown, two passing touchdown performance as "Tebow-esque." So now the increasingly iconic Florida quarterback has become a figure of speech.

Harvard couldn't quite pull off the road win at Holy Cross, but a writer for the Crimson came away impressed by Collier Winters' play at quarterback, the biggest concern the preseason pundits seemed to have about a team bidding for a three-peat. From the story:

... Saturday’s game left Harvard with plenty of reason for optimism regarding its new quarterback. Winters proved that he could handle the starting role, and if he can replicate his final line every game, the Crimson will be in great shape as it seeks its third-straight Ivy title.

Speaking of opponents, the Sagarin Ratings are in after Week One and here's how Dartmouth's current (and three future) foes rank in Division I:

109 New Hampshire
156 Penn
161 Colgate
176 Princeton
179 Yale
186 Harvard
191 Columbia
193 Holy Cross
195 Brown
205 Cornell
220 Dartmouth
233 Georgetown
240 Butler
244 Sacred Heart

(245 teams are ranked with the mighty Campbell Camels last.)

Green Alert Take: I'll buy some of that, but 3-0 Holy Cross as the eighth-toughest Dartmouth opponent is somewhere south of ludicrous.

Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens is all about his quarterbacks not making mistakes so he'd absolutely love former teammate Harry Wilson's son Russell. As the AP reports, all the North Carolina State quarterback did Saturday was break the all-time NCAA record record for attempts without an interception. By going 26-for-36 for 345 yards and tossing four touchdowns (for the second week in a row) against overmatched Gardner-Webb, he ran his streak of passes without an interception to 329. The former record was 325 set by Kentucky's Andre Woodson in 2006-07.

Back to Dartmouth ... a blogger who took in the Dartmouth-Colgate game offers a few thoughts here.

Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim is the subject of a story (with video) in the Boston Globe. On the down side, the Globe trotted out a tired, unfortunate and I'll say it, lazy generalization about Dartmouth:

Faculty, students, and alumni have high hopes that Kim, who will be inaugurated as the college’s 17th president tomorrow, can usher in a new era for the 240-year-old university - an institution often viewed from the outside as a conservative bastion of white privilege dominated by raucous fraternities.

On the plus side if you believe athletics have a place in college, Kim's video remarks talk about the responsibility that college has to its students to "train them in teamwork and leadership." Sounds like those lessons learned on the field might be valuable.

Extra Point
A few years ago that certain Hanover High senior and her sophomore brother suffered paroxysms of laughter after hearing of a man called Bob. (Apologies to all you Bobs out there. I feel your pain. Signed, Bruce.) They simply couldn't believe anyone could have such a name.

Times have changed. The kids wouldn't have batted an eyelash if they heard Bob being called Robert. When I was a kid, the only time Bob or Rob, or Bobby was ever called Robert was when his mom yelled at him because he yanked his sister's pigtails.

Gone, for the most part, are Danny, replaced by Daniel. Tommy by Thomas. Jimmy by James.

All of which makes it twice as nice to have a Timmy on the Dartmouth football team this year. ;-)