Weekend Notes

A few revealing tidbits from around the league showed up in the college media this morning. ...

A Daily Pennsylvanian story suggests Penn coach Al Bagnoli's hand may have been forced Saturday evening when he played both Keiffer Garton and Kyle Olson at quarterback in a 20-17 overtime loss at Lafayette.

In a story headlined, Bagnoli goes for 2 in the pocket; Olson 'slash' Garton split time in scheme that introduces new play, the DP wrote of Garton:

"... an arm injury allowed him to throw only three passes Saturday."

After being hurt by quarterback runs for the first two weeks of the season (UNH qbs ran for 114 yards Saturday and Colgate's Greg Sullivan ran for 51 a week before), news that Penn's running quarterback might have an arm issue will probably raise a few eyebrows in Dartmouth's Floren Varsity House as they gameplan for Penn this week. The Daily Pennsylvanian game story is here.

A week after the Penn game, Dartmouth will be at Yale, which lost a sloppy, 14-12, game to Cornell. As the Cornell Sun noted, the game marked the Big Red's first road win since 2005.

Triggering the victory was a trick play by Cornell on its first play from scrimmage. From The Sun:

... (Q)uarterback Ben Ganter threw a lateral to senior wide receiver Stephen Liuzza. Liuzza, a former quarterback, made the catch along the left sideline before hoisting an 81-yard bomb to classmate and wide receiver Bryan Walters.

Cornell only managed 85 yards of total offense for the rest of the game ...

The New Haven Register's Portal 31 web site writes:

There may be new coaching staff with just two holdovers and 14 new starters for Yale but when it comes to Cornell, it was a familiar script as the inability to run the ball consistently, costly turnovers and offensive futility led to another loss to the Big Red. Instead of having quarterbacks losing fumbles, it was Patrick Witt's three second-half interceptions which proved costly.

Portal 31 also notes that the Bulldogs lost returner/receiver Gio Christodoulou to "an apparent ankle injury."

Speaking of injuries, Princeton standout Jordan Culbreath, who ran for 276 yards against Dartmouth last year, left Saturday's 17-14 win over Lehigh in the first half with an undisclosed injury. The Daily Princetonian writes: "He did not play in the second half, and (coach Roger) Hughes said after the game he did not know the nature or extent of the injury."

Kicking game woes proved costly for both Columbia and Brown in Week Two.

The Bears dropped a 24-21 decision to Harvard after recovering an onsides kick and advancing to the 25. On the game's final play they threw into the end zone instead of trying a 42-yard field goal. Brown coach Phil Estes, whose kicker missed an end-of-game field goal that would have won the opener at Stony Brook, said in the Brown Daily Herald: “That’s a no decision for me. I don’t have a kicker that can kick the ball that far.”

The turning point in Columbia's 22-13 loss to Central Connecticut might well have been a blocked PAT returned for a Blue Devil two-pointer. From the Columbia Spectator:

The Lions would end up having an extra point attempt, a punt, and a field goal blocked.

“You don’t deserve to win. You get three kicks blocked? It’s hard enough to win when you get one kick blocked,” Lions head coach Norries Wilson said.

The Daily Dartmouth has a game story from UNH and there's a follow in Fosters Daily Democrat.

Missed this last week because it was hidden deep in a long story, but the CSN site had a prediction on the Dartmouth-UNH game that went this way:

A good policy when picking games is to never pick the team that wants to cancel a series because in their minds it has become uncompetitive. In this “Granite Bowl", go with the nationally-ranked home team.

The concept was good, the execution not so much. The CSN prediction: 56-0 UNH.

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Former Dartmouth captain Tom Reusser '00 is heading into the Orrville (Ohio) High School Sports Hall of Fame. The Daily Record has a story with a summary of a career that saw Reusser graduate with 230 tackles, 11 interceptions and 1,093 combined return yards. He was chosen to the All-Ivy League second team as a senior.

Extra Point
If I ever make up a list of my all-time favorite movie characters, I think the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz might be on top. Speaking of which, when I was in graduate school I went to see the Wizard of Oz on the big screen for the first time ever, which was interesting. But what was most interesting that night was seeing it with graduate students from Germany and Iran, who had never seen the movie. To watch it through their eyes was to see something you thought you knew by heart for the first time and to develop a new appreciation for a true classic.

I could while away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain

And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain.