On Dartmouth-UNH

If you kept your ears open over the past few months, you heard a lot of whispers about the Dartmouth-New Hampshire football series. They are whispers no more.

Speaking at Wednesday's Rotary meeting, outgoing Dartmouth Athletic Director Josie Harper told the group that there are three games left on the contract between Dartmouth and UNH. One will be played this fall. The other two? They will be played, but not necessarily in 2010 and 2011 as orginally scheduled. Instead, they will be played at dates still to be determined.

UNH, by the way, is the latest football program to head up a bone marrow testing drive. Find a release here.

Curious which FCS players are headed to NFL camps? The College Sporting News has an exhaustive list here.

Harvard defensive back Andrew Berry is one of two recipients of the Division I Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association (FCS ADA) Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards. Along with South Dakota State quarterback Ryan Berry (no relation), he will receive a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship.

Want to be impressed? Check out this from the NACDA release, keeping in mind that Harvard's Berry was a three-time member of the All-Ivy League first team:

Andrew Berry is set to do something that is unprecedented at Harvard for a student-athlete - graduate in four years with both a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in computer science.

Wow.

Red Rolfe Division champion Dartmouth will be playing host to Cornell Saturday in an Ivy League Championship Series baseball doubleheader. The Big Red won a Gehrig Division playoff against Princeton yesterday, 9-0. The games will be preceded by the Green-White scrimmage on Memorial Field at 10 a.m. (Dartmouth softball will also be playing the Big Red for the Ivy title, at Cornell.)

And finally, they probably won't be making these with Dartmouth colors and logo, which can only be described as a crying shame. From CNBC:

If you go to the big sports schools like Michigan, North Carolina and Texas, you’ll be able to buy a Snuggie with your school’s logo on it this Fall. The price will be $19.95 and will be sold on television, in drug stores and, in some cases, campus stores, according to Crystal Sims, director in non-apparel marketing of the Collegiate Licensing Company, the IMG firm that represents nearly 200 schools on licensing endeavors.

Dartmouth Angle On Nebraska QB

Did Nebraska QB Patrick Witt consider Dartmouth before choosing Yale? First I've heard of it, but Lincoln Journal Star suggests he did. From the paper's Husker Extra:

Witt chose Yale after considering options such as Duke, Dartmouth, Virginia and UCLA, according to the source.

New Haven Register On Nebraska Transfer QB

The New Haven Register story on Nebraska quarterback Patrick Witt transferring to Yale can be found here.

Green Loses Expected Recruit

Knoxville's News Sentinel is reporting that Tennessee all-state Sam Thompson, who had been accepted at Dartmouth and thought to be part of the next recruiting class, will instead be attending Carnegie Mellon. From the story:

"It's one of the top engineering schools in the country," said Thompson, who'll graduate sixth in his class. "They haven't had a losing season in 30 years. They're pretty consistent winners."

and ...

Thompson won four Class 2A state championships at Alcoa. He was first-team PrepXtra and all-state this past season. He made 87 tackles and broke up 16 passes. He also caught 31 passes for 668 yards and nine touchdowns.

Keep in mind that Dartmouth and the Ivy League do not use the National Letter of Intent. So until a recruit has sent in his final paperwork, there is no assurance that he will be coming. Even then, as a recruit in another sport demonstrated some years ago when a late scholarship offer came, there's no guarantee they will be on campus in the fall until, well, until they are on campus in the fall.

Nice News For A Recruit

Incoming Dartmouth recruit Garrett Waggoner (YouTube '07 highlights) of Sarasota, Fla., has been awarded a Coach Bud Carson Memorial Scholarship as one of three defensive football players from his county, "who have shown outstanding leadership and dedication and are also standouts in the classroom, but won't get a football scholarship to a major college." Find a short story and head shot on mysuncoast.com.

It's official. A 6-foot-4, 225-pound quarterback expected to vie for the starting job at Nebraska this year will instead be headed to Yale. Patrick Witt's decision was reported on the New Haven Register's Portal 31 blog. Witt offered a statement to the Omaha World-Herald about his decision to transfer here. For a December story in the Omaha paper where Witt is projected as the likely starter this fall, click here.

Witt graduated from high school in January of 2007 in order to go through spring football with the Huskers and then redshirted that fall. He saw action in five games in 2008, completing 6-of-8 passes for 98 yards and running four times for 21 yards. Find his Nebraska bio here.

Easy to miss at the end of the Portal 31 entry about Witt was a throw-away line by the writer:

"I'm hoping to hear about another transfer from a BCS school soon."

It appears new Yale coach Tom Williams might be getting the same kind of housewarming gifts that former coach Jack Siedlecki received back when he took over for Carm Cozza in the late '90s. After a 1-9 debut season, Siedlecki welcomed Stanford transfer Than Merrill and Air Force transfer Rashad Bartholomew.

The bruising Bartholomew ended up rushing for a then school-record 3,015 yards in three years (Dartmouth's career record is 2,252) before going to camp with the Tennessee Titans. Merrill ended up being a two-time, All-Ivy League safety and played in the NFL before becoming a house-flipping real estate celebrity.

Oh, and while they were at it, Merrill and Bartholomew helped Yale go 6-4 in their first season and go 9-1 while winning the Ivy League championship the next fall.

Dartmouth's early season schedule has been daunting for the past decade or so. Should Witt be the real deal and another impact BCS transfer be in the cards, that schedule just got a little more daunting.

Speaking of transfer quarterbacks, the million dollar question in the Ivy League has been whether Andrew Hatch, he of the Harvard-to-LSU-to-Harvard itinerary (with a Mormon mission mixed in) would be eligible for the Crimson next fall. A Harvard Crimson column somewhat buried this curious comment from Harvard coach Tim Murphy:

"There’s usually a small chance that when you transfer and then come back to the same school, I’m sure someone’s been made eligible for it, but most times it never happens.”

The columnist followed with this thought:

In all likelihood, Winters and Simpson will get one year to prove themselves, as NCAA transfer rules will likely prevent any immediate return by Hatch. That would set up an entertaining battle for the starting spot in 2010, when Hatch, Winters, and Simpson could all be in the mix for the starting job as seniors.

Hatch is apparently back at Harvard despite a moratorium on transfers this year.

In the aftermath of the draft, the Harvard Crimson has a story about the Ivy League impact in the NFL.

The Colonial Athletic Association has been putting blog posts on its site from CAA football players and with New Hampshire finally in action, speedy tailback Chad Kackert has joined the conversation here. Among other thoughts, he offers these:

I have been impressed with the way the defense has been flying around. They are making plays on the ball with more speed than I have seen in my four years. The defensive front is showing tenacity in each snap, giving our young offensive line a good chance to get some real experience.

In the midst of its spring practice sessions, UNH took time out to do a community service project cleaning up debris from a December ice storm. Find a story here.

For a follow on the Ivy League championship run of a Dartmouth rugby team that features a number of former football players, check out a story in the Daily Dartmouth.

Tuesday Notes

Dartmouth has a new release up on the hiring of offensive line coach Keith Clark, formerly of Yale and Columbia. Find the release here.

Today's practice has been rescheduled to Thursday. The Big Green will now conclude spring drills with three sessions in a row: Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Green-White scrimmage at 10 a.m.).

Free Agent Signings

As part of the Penn State Blue-White game festivities in State College, Pa., over the weekend there was a charity dunking booth that featured, among others, star Nittany Lion tailback Evan Royster. Here that certain Hanover High School junior takes a shot at soaking the PSU standout.

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While no Ivy Leaguers were taken in the NFL draft, at least four have signed with teams as free agents. Harvard quarterback Chris Pizzotti has signed with the New York Jets and teammate Desmond Bryant, a defensive end, signed with the Oakland Raiders. The Indianapolis Colts signed Brown tight end Colin Cloherty while the Kansas City Chiefs signed Yale linebacker Bobby Abare.

Patriot Leaguers Dartmouth faced who inked contracts included Colgate offensive linemen Nick Hennessey with the Buffalo Bills and Steve Jonas with the Detroit Lions, and Holy Cross wide receiver Brett McDermott with the Colts.

Former Dartmouth football players Andrew Dete, Phil Galligan, Erik Estabrook, Anthony Arch and Charlie Grant helped the Dartmouth Rugby "A" side take the Ivy League title in a walkover. On the first day of the competition, the Big Green outscored its two opponent 213-0. (112-0 vs. Cornell, 101-0 vs. Princeton). From an eRugby news release:

As one eRugbyNews wag noted, the competition could have been re-titled: “Big Green and the seven doormats.”

Over the two days Dartmouth outscored its opposition, 275-13. The Big Green now has won the Ivy League title in nine of the past 12 years, often with help from former football players. Coach Alex Magleby:

"There’s a long tradition of rugby attracting crossover athletes from other sports and we get a lot of those guys. They come to rugby because it presents an opportunity for them to remain competitive at the collegiate level."

Earlier this month Dartmouth went 1-1 at the Collegiate National Championships Round of 16 in Atlanta, falling to top-seeded BYU, 26-5, before beating Navy, 53-26.

Pop quiz: What two schools in the same city are tied for fielding the most NCAA sports in the country, and how many sports do they field? If you answered Harvard and MIT with 41, you were right.

And now you are wrong.

The New York Times reports that financial concerns have led MIT to drop eight sports: alpine skiing, competitive pistol, golf, wrestling, and men and women’s ice hockey and men's and women's gymnastics. A Letter to the MIT Community on Sport Reduction can be found here. It reports the cut from 41 to 33 varsity sports will save $485,000. (MIT athletic director Julie Soriero is the former women's basketball coach at Penn.)

And finally, for those of you who pay attention to these things, the debate over the Fighting Sioux nickname at the University of North Dakota has taken an interesting turn with the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe voting in favor of allowing the school to keep the name.

Draft Dodgers

Thanks to the New Haven Register's Portal 31 blog for saving me the headache of looking up this information on the NFL draft and the Ivy League:

For the second year in a row and just the third time since 1997, no Ivy Leaguers were taken in the NFL draft.

Dartmouth freshman Austen Fletcher's brother Alex, a center at Stanford, also was passed over in the draft.

The Harvard Crimson has a look at the Crimson-White scrimmage that includes coach Tim Murphy's interesting spin on spring games after his finished with a 42-14 score:

“We weren’t going one versus one. If it was one versus one, it could have been a pretty boring spring game. This was for recruits, this was for the scoreboard, this was for whatever fans we had up there.”

Another interesting comment from the Harvard mentor on his quarterback situation:

"It’s not going to be like it was the last two years, with such veteran quarterbacks, with Chris Pizzotti. On the other hand, both kids are more Liam-like in that they’re very athletic guys, they’re guys that can beat you with their feet.”

That would be Liam as in Liam O'Hagan. Gotta like that. "Liam-like."

Brown's Brown-White game ended 7-0 with the only score on an interception return, but before you opine that the other defending co-champion's offense is toast, consider what Brown sports info wrote: Last year's Brown-White game had the same final score on the same kind of touchdown.

Cornell's Red-White game is recapped by the Cornell Sun.

Kudos to Dartmouth baseball and softball for winning their divisions. While softball will travel to Ithaca to face a 40-win Cornell Juggernaut (the Big Green split with the Red earlier), the baseball team will be home to take on the winner of the Princeton-Cornell playoff. Find the baseball story from the Daily Dartmouth here.

The alcohol policy among individual Dartmouth teams is the subject of this Daily D story.

And finally, it was the '84 pop-top VW camper with the Penn State helmet perched above the windshield that got the photographer's attention at the annual Blue-White scrimmage at PSU Saturday. After she snapped a few pictures, she came back and asked if she could shoot a little video. If you check out the short clip at the end of this story, that's your trusty blogger sharing a quick thought about making the 1,000-mile, round trip to PSU for the fourth year in a row. (And yes, it took us 11 hours down, counting a stop for lunch, visits to every uphill, slow-vehicle lane we saw, and a loop down to visit Bucknell.)

Tonight on BGA premium, a full look at last Friday's first scrimmaging of the spring by the Big Green.

Catching Up

Just back from Penn State. Left at 7:30 this morning and got back to Etna at 4:35. That's pretty good time, but a long, hard drive in an '84 VW bus. ...

Several quick posts. First, congratulations to the Dartmouth baseball team for clinching the Red Rolfe Division title with a win over Harvard in the opener of Sunday's twinbill. The Big Green will host the Ivy League championship series this weekend.

Harvard held it's Crimson and White scrimmage Saturday night with Cheng Ho exploding for 113 yards and two touchdowns in one half of action. Elusive quarterback Collier Winters completed 21 of 40 pass for 201 yards and ran for another 32 yards on seven carries. Find the Harvard football website recap here.

The New Haven Register's Portal 31 blog has a recap of Yale's spring day with three bullet points:

1. Yale's defense is stifling and aggressive
2. Yale can not run the ball
3. Gio Christodoulou is a threat to break it every time he fields a punt or kickoff.

In case you were wondering, there were 76,500 at Penn State's Blue-White Game yesterday. We'd like to correct that to 76,503. ;-)

The quote of the day was from Jay Paterno regarding efforts to make sure starting quarterback Darryl Clark – the only real experienced QB on the roster – did not get hurt. Said Paterno on his Twitter site:

Clark will play in a red jersey-if we could borrow the Vatican's Popemobile he'd play in that.

Check in tomorrow for a full recap on Dartmouth's first scrimmage of the spring.

Colorful Contests On Tap

While the Green-White Game is still a week away, three other Ivy League schools will be having their "colorful contests" today.

Cornell will broadcast its Red-White game live on the internet with live stats. Find a story about the goings-on at Ithaca here. Defending champion Brown got its championship rings before its final practice and will hold the Brown-White game today. And Yale will end Tom Williams' first spring practice with the Blue-White game.

UNH will hold its version of the Blue-White game on May 9 according to this story.

Speaking of UNH, they do things the right way over in Durham. For all the success the Wildcats have had on the field, they pay attention to what goes on off it as well. Kudos to UNH for being one of only 23 football teams in both the FBS and FCS for receiving a NCAA Public Recognition Award in the classroom. Find a story here.

And belated kudos to Dartmouth for finishing tied for second in the nation with Brown for most teams recognized by the NCAA APR. Find a story here.

Dartmouth dedicated the new Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park yesterday and hopes to put the exclamation mark on the celebration by clinching the Rolfe Division championship this weekend. With a two-game lead over Brown, the Big Green's magic number is three. With each team having four games remaining, any combination of Dartmouth wins and Brown losses that add up to three will bring the Ivy League Championship Series to the new park in Hanover. Dartmouth plays a pair of doubleheaders against Harvard while Brown has a pair against Yale.

And finally, we'll be headed over to Beaver Stadium at Penn State shortly. The parking lots open at 8 a.m., for the 2 p.m., game if you can believe it. With the forecast in the mid-80s, there could possibly be 80,000 people turn up. Amazing.

Fun Friday

Greetings from Bellefonte, Pa., about a 12-mile straightaway from Penn State's Beaver Stadium. Two things of note:

1. The internet at our KOA campground is a world faster than the internet we have up on Moose Mountain. Pretty sad.
2. Sadder yet. I'm blogging to you from a campground. That campgrounds have wi-fi and that I'd be taking time to do this? Ugh.

First order of business, today's scrimmaging schedule has changed a few times. As of 9:45 this a.m., the team will be on the field at 4:15 with the scrimmaging set to begin sometime thereafter. The timing is dependent on the dedication of the new baseball stadium, also taking place this afternoon.

The Dartmouth sports information website has a thorough look at spring football so far here. It includes this thought:

Coach Teevens is adamant not only about making a commitment to running the ball much more in 2009, but also in defending the run much better.

Senior linebacker Andrew Dete and senior punter Brian Scullin have been honored by the National Football Foundation as scholar-athletes. Find a story here. From the release:

The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) announced today the members of the 2009 NFF Hampshire Honor Society, which is comprised of college football players from all divisions of play who each maintained a 3.2 GPA or better.

Former Dartmouth tight end Casey Cramer of the Tennessee Titans joined a couple of teammates visiting wounded soldiers at Fort Campbell army post in Kentucky. A short blurb is here.

Harvard's spring football game will be played tomorrow night, the third year in a row it is being played under the lights. The Crimson has a story. An aside: Wouldn't it be fun if Dartmouth could do the same thing? Hmmm, how about over at Scully-Fahey now that it is FieldTurf?

Maine is dropping men's soccer and volleyball "to preserve the overall integrity and competitiveness of University of Maine athletics during these difficult economic times." The Bangor Daily News has the story. Although the first reaction is a shudder when you hear about dropping sports, I'm here to tell you I've had a number of people suggest Dartmouth needs to think along the same lines. Don't shoot the messenger; I'm only sharing what some of the readers of the blog have written.

Princeton sports information often pioneers new ground and it seems TigerTown is up to its old (new?) tricks by purchasing an inexpensive FlipCamera and turning it over to folks for quick and dirty (not that kind of dirty) video reports. Find a TigerCam report on spring football here.

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the closing of two Hanover restaurants in the same building; Carpaccio and Quiznos. Location is cited as an issue by both managers and I can understand why. I never even saw the first restaurant and while the second has been closed for a month, I didn't even know it because it was hidden away on the second floor of a building. Whoever heard of a fast-food restaurant on a second floor in a town the size of Hanover?

The story notes that the nearest sandwich shop is now an 8-mile drive away. I'd love to see Hanover land a Jimmy Johns, where we will have lunch today. Great college-town business. Cheap and fast, fast, fast, exactly the way a sandwich shop should be.

And finally, for some reason Athlon Sports has reprised a preview of one of Buddy Teevens' Stanford teams. It's interesting reading because it shows whether he's wearing Cardinal or Green, the man is true to his color.

OK, one more thing. The drive out to Penn State in the '84 VW bus went off without a hitch. We stopped for about an hour at Bucknell, which we had visited about a month ago and confirmed the earlier impression of that certain Hanover High junior. It's a pretty neat place.

Will He Or Won't He?

A sportswriter in Austin, Texas offers up "the best games that I have seen in my two years at the American-Statesman" in this column. One of the 10 best games he's seen features quarterback Nyk Mckissic, who commited to Dartmouth, then de-commited but could still end up in Hanover.

The Portal 31 Yale football blog of the New Haven Register has a story about the "crowded backfield" in New Haven.

From a Dartmouth release: "This year 21 of Dartmouth College's varsity teams will receive public recognition from the NCAA for having Academic Progress Rate scores among the top 10 percent nationally in their respective sport." Find the full story here.

Now we're off to State College for Penn State's Blue-White Weekend.

Draft Dreams

You'll have to excuse Dartmouth freshman center Austen Fletcher if he seems a little preoccupied this weekend. His older brother Alex, a fifth-year senior last year at Stanford – where he was a Buddy Teevens recruit – is an NFL draft prospect who is hoping his phone rings Saturday or Sunday. Scott Wright's well-regarded Draft Countdown has the 6-foot-2 1/4, 297-pound Alex Fletcher rated as the ninth-best center available and a possible late-round choice. Wright's site even mentions Austen here. FoxSports has him as a "likely second-day pick."

The ESPN draft site has an in-depth look at Fletcher that notes his "brother, Austen, is an offensive lineman at Dartmouth University." Where is the person who wrote that from? Kazakhstan?

Find Alex Fletcher's Stanford bio here.

Dartmouth gets a mention in a Rivals.com story about a 6-foot-4, 205-pound receiver from Montana. Matt Miller (who had 932 yards receiving and 15 touchdown catches along with 663 rushing yards and six TDs on the ground) "has scholarship offers from Stanford, Boise State, Oregon State, Arizona State, Wyoming, Colorado State, Washington State, Oregon, Montana, Montana State, Harvard and Dartmouth."

No wonder Harvard's been so good the last few years. Scholarships! Glad to see Dartmouth is catching on ;-)

There's a heartwarming story out of New Haven where the Register writes about the Yale football team joining the growing bone marrow donation effort. From the story:

Thursday, the Yale football players will discover there are some things more important than beating Harvard, something more precious than a game-winning touchdown catch. They will be given a crash course in the game of life.

Leading the game plan will be a soft-spoken, eternally optimistic member of the women’s hockey program, who is in the midst of the battle that has captured the hearts of the Yale athletics community.

Mandi Schwartz will not be at the Yale Commons between 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Thursday as countless volunteers show up to take part in the marrow donor donation drive. She will be nearly 2,000 miles away in a hospital bed near her Wilcox, Saskatchewan, home undergoing her fifth and final round of chemotherapy as she continues her fight against leukemia.

However, as each willing participant allows his or her cheek to be swapped with the hope it will be a match for Schwartz and others like her in need of a stem-cell transplant, her presence will be hard to miss.

And finally, the blog and Big Green Alert premium will be on semi-hiatus (is there such a word?) from tomorrow morning through Sunday as those two certain Hanover High School kids and I head out to Penn State for the Blue-White Weekend festivities. Working every single football Saturday since well before they were born, I've never been able to share what a regular season game at Beaver Stadium is like with the kids, who seem to have inherited some blue blood (not that kind of blue). So for the fourth year in a row, we'll get up at "0-dark-30" tomorrow morning and make the long drive out to Centre County, Pa., (with a stop for a second look at Bucknell mixed in).

We'll camp at the exact same site at the same Bellefonte KOA we've camped at each year, shop at the same Weiss Market we've shopped at each year, hit all the same souvenir shops we hit each year and once again have stickies at The Diner. Traditions, you understand.

We'll catch a PSU baseball game against Illinois Friday night and then walk through the midway on the adjoining Beaver Stadium parking lot. On Saturday we'll tailgate for a few hours and then join perhaps 70,000-plus others at the Blue-White game. If the line isn't too long after the game we'll get some Peachy Paterno at the Creamery and then make the long drive home on Sunday.

Mom, meanwhile, will have four days of peace and quiet sans her, ahem, three kids.

In case you are wondering how they do it in the big-time, find the schedule of events for the Blue-White Weekend here.

Hopefully, some of my "spies" will share a few observations about Friday's first real scrimmaging of the spring that I will be able to post from the campground Saturday morning – if the wi-fi is working. I'll revisit the scrimmage with Monday's BGA, and have full coverage of the final week of spring football next week.

Scenes From A Practice

A quick clip from Monday afternoon is a reminder why watching football practice is like trying to catch all the action at a three-ring circus.

Jake Novak at Roar Lions Roar continues his series of looks at 2009 Ivy League teams with his analysis of Harvard as a possible title contender and his look at Brown as a team that might have lost a little too much to repeat.

News & Notes

With the planned reconstruction of the stands at Memorial Field on hold, the concrete structure is being powerwashed, patched and otherwise made ready for next fall. The college is going ahead with the new $45 million Visual Arts Center according to this story in the local Valley News. That project was originally budgeted at $52 million.

Speaking of the impact of the economic downturn college sports, the Brown Daily Herald has a story headlined, "Hiring freeze may hit athletics hard." The story begins: "The Department of Athletics expects to lose about 30 coaches and staff this summer." That doesn't sound quite right, but the story makes it clear there will be a lot of belt-tightening going on in the Brown athletic department, as there surely will be everywhere.

Freshman tailback Chris Hardy is pictured in a Valley News story about how more running backs (and receivers) may be involved in the Dartmouth offense next fall. Hardy says:

“We're going to run the ball more than we did last year. That's one of the main things – you look at our (stats), we didn't run much. Any carries are obviously going to go to the number-one guys, which was Milan (Williams). This year, though, we've got a new O-line coach and new system, so it’s going to be real nice for the run game.”

Also mentioned in the story is junior Matt Dornak, a converted corner who is proving to be a load at running back this spring. He was just elected social chair at Gamma Delta Chi. Teammate and classmate James O'Brien, a former corner whose soft hands are now being employed at wide receiver, was elected GDX president while former teammate Alex Stonehouse is the new vice president.

Chris Hardy, by the way, won't be the only college athlete in his family next year. A College of Charleston web posting reports the school has signed his younger sister Cathryn Hardy, a 5-foot-11 forward who scored 1,303 points and grabbed 810 rebounds as a high schooler. Charleston head coach Nancy Wilson says, "She is a player that goes hard all of the time – She knows no other way." Sounds like it runs in the family.

There are school newspaper stories today about a couple of Ivy League spring games and both point out that making judgments based on what you see on the field can be a little tricky when the contests aren't full contact. The Columbia Spectator writes that quarterback Millie Olawale couldn't really show his strength and elusiveness because the defense was forced to play two-hand touch with him.

A little to the south, the Daily Princetonian wrote that star tailback Jordan "Culbreath received the LaDainian Tomlinson treatment and was not used at all. Because defensive players were not allowed to tackle the quarterback in the backfield, many plays ended prematurely when a defensive lineman grazed the opposing quarterback."

At Holy Cross quarterback Dominic Randolph wasn't tackled or even touch in the spring game because he didn't play in it. While he wasn't on the field he wasn't exactly forgotten, being selected a Holy Cross captain for the third year in a row. From a school release:

Fifth-year senior quarterback Dominic Randolph (Amelia, Ohio) will serve as the captain of the 2009 Holy Cross football team, it was announced by head coach Tom Gilmore. Randolph, who was one of three captains during the 2007 campaign and one of two captains in 2008, becomes the first player in school history to serve as a team captain for three seasons.

Linebacker From Texas To Hanover

Add linebacker Miles Gay of Clear Book High School in Friendswood, Texas, to the list of incoming football players. According to MaxPeps, Gay had 40 tackles and 20 assists last fall for the Wolverines, including nine individual stops and six assists against Clear Lake, and 10 individual stops and five assists against Alvin.

The Clear Brook standout was named to the all-district first team, was the school's linebacker of the year, a team captain, winner of the program's academic award, and first-team academic all-state.

Scout.com calls him, "a 6-0, 205-pound headhunter with 4.6 speed." (As always, your mileage may vary with regard to size and speed.) Find a head shot here.

In the spring Gay throws the shot put and discus for Clear Brook.

Today's Daily Dartmouth has a story spun out of the first week of spring football practice. While the occasional story in any student media will have you scratching your head, this one summarizes one problem the Big Green endured last fall with clarity:

Statistically, the most glaring problem with the 2008 Dartmouth team was the lack of an effective running game, as the team’s 27.1 rushing yards per game and 1.2 yards per attempt were by far the lowest in the Ivy League. The second-worst rushing team averaged well over two times the Big Green’s total yards, and bettered Dartmouth’s per-attempt output by one yard.

The offense’s inability to rush the ball helped the Big Green’s opponents average roughly ten more minutes of possession per game (again, the Big Green was last in the Ivy League in this statistic), which in turn tired out the defense, and put an inordinate amount of pressure on the success of the passing game.

3 Foes Celebrate End Of Spring Drills

While Dartmouth is just one week into spring practice and still two weeks away from its Green-White game, three opponents held their end-of-spring intrasquad scrimmages yesterday.

At Columbia, junior quarterback Millie Olawale engineered an 80-yard, two-minute drive that lifted the White team to a 28-20 win over the Blue. Olawale completed 16-of-30 throws for 228 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. An interesting spin on the Columbia game as reported on the school website:

Special teams was dictated by the luck of the draw, literally, as the public address announcer selected various scenarios blindly out of an envelope, giving the offense and defense different situations to maneuver. Each scoring drive in the first half was aided or affected by one of these situations.

That's interesting on two accounts. First, with kickoff and punt returns seldom live in intrasquad scrimmages because of the potential for injury, a random drawing adds a little fun mystery to the game. And second ... they had a PA announcer? Maybe I'm forgetting, but I can't ever remember Dartmouth having someone call the action. Music, yes. But not an announcer. Nice touch.

Columbia also named a whopping six captains, including Olawale and standout receiver Austin Knowlin among others. Six???

At Princeton, the Tigers held their White-Black game with White taking a 17-2 victory. Silly me, but I would have thought it would be the Orange-Black game. (Help me here. Does anyone have a name for its spring game that is more original than two colors?) Not a whole lot of detail on the Princeton website. Princeton announced four captains including standout tailback Jordan Culbreath. It's the first time the Tigers have had four captains.

In Worcester, Mass., Holy Cross had just 155 yards of total offense – the Crusaders usually do that in a little more than a quarter – but a look at the game statistics gives a hint why. All-American quarterback Dominic Randolph did not play. Or if he did, he didn't have any stats. It's not completely clear from the report, but it looks as if it was just the offense against the defense with no official score kept. Holy Cross, of course, trumped Columbia and its PA announcer by having its spring festivities broadcast on the internet.

No word yet on whether anything special is planned when Dartmouth's spring game is played on May 2. Last year former coaches Jake Crouthamel and Joe Yukica were welcomed back to coach the Green and White teams. For a look back at last year's Green-White game, check out the Big Green Alert story.

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The Dartmouth men's lacrosse team had a 6-5 lead over No. 2 Virginia early in the fourth quarter yesterday before the Cavaliers used a big final period to take a 13-6 win. Interestingly, the Big Green made it a difficult afternoon for Chad Gaudet, the former Dartmouth tailback who, as a graduate student at UVa, has been one of the best faceoff men in the nation. Gaudet won just a so-so 8-of-19 on the faceoff X against his old teammates. A picture of Gaudet defending a former teammate can be found along with the Daily Progress game story.

The Numbers Game

Different college sports information departments have sometimes wildly different ways of counting who is considered a "returning starter," in their spring prospectuses. Some schools list anyone who started a game, which I suppose could lead to more starters than there are positions. Some list only those who started a certain number of games, perhaps half of those played. Clearly, comparisons can be apples and oranges.

Thinking about it during the first week of Dartmouth spring practice, I decided to toss out my own idea about how to count starters and here it is: If the player who started the most games at a particular position is back, he's a returning starter. Pretty simple.

Given that way of counting, here's how Dartmouth breaks down:

OFFENSE
Starters returning: 7 (left guard, center, right guard, right tackle, tight end, quarterback, running back)
Starters lost: 4 (wide receiver, wide receiver, left tackle, running back)

DEFENSE
Starters returning: 5 (defensive end, nose guard, corner, corner, free safety)
Starters lost: 6 (defensive tackle, defensive end, outside linebacker, outside linebacker, middle linebacker, strong safety)

SPECIAL TEAMS
Starters returning: 6 (placekicker, kickoff specialist, holder, kickoff return, kickoff return, punt return)
Starters lost: 4 (punt snapper, placement snapper, punter, punt return)

No system is perfect of course. For example, Royce Egeolu gets the nod as a returning starter at nose guard after being credited with five starts last fall, and he's slated to play linebacker this fall. But he does have starting experience and that should, um, count for something, even if it happened to be at another position.

Now I know you probably want the numbers from other schools. I started to try to pull them together before my head started to spin and I punted.

If you've got a little time this weekend, by all means check out an Esquire story about Todd Marinovich shared by a fellow sportswriter. It's a lengthy but tremendously riveting look at the former boy wonder quarterback. It is introduced this way:

Twenty years ago, he was guaranteed to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game of football. Engineered to be. He was drafted ahead of Brett Favre. Today he's a recovering junkie. This month he was arrested again. Scenes from the chaotic life of a boy never designed to be a man.

Enjoy the weekend.

Another Name

Add to the list of incoming recruits Greg Patton, a 5-foot-11, 185-pound quarterback/defensive back from Woodward Academy in College Park, Ga.

A Woodward tri-captain, Patton was the first-team, All-Region 4-AAA quarterback and team MVP for the the War Eagles, who finished 8-4. He also plays on the Woodward baseball team.

There's getting to be a familiar refrain as Jake Novak at Roar Lions Roar looks at next fall's Ivy League race. Writing about Yale, he says (italics are mine):

Like Princeton, I think the Bulldogs will be able to beat Cornell and Dartmouth, (those are both home games), but besting Penn, Harvard and Brown seems like a big stretch.

Speaking of Columbia, the Lions will culminate spring drills with a morning scrimmage tomorrow. From a Columbia Spectator story:

Since the Lions only have two quarterbacks, hitting the quarterbacks has been “verboten” during spring practice, according to head coach Norries Wilson’s online updates, and may continue to be forbidden during the Blue and White game.

If the quarterback is not "live," it will defuse some of the explosiveness of Millie Olawale, who was Ivy League player of the week after coming off the bench to lead the Lions to a win over Dartmouth in a monsoon. He is, as they say, a "load."

My memory is a little hazy, but I seem to recall that the Ivy League once had a chance at a contract to broadcast a weekly primetime game (on ESPN?), but refused to play on anything but Saturday afternoons. Times (and game days, apparently) have changed. Princeton, which pioneered Friday night TV game the past few years, has now pushed the envelope a further for its October game against Colgate. From a Princeton release:

For the first time in three seasons, Princeton won't play a Friday night football game. For the first time in 140 seasons, the Tigers will play a Thursday night game. In front of a national ESPNU audience, Princeton will host Colgate on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m.; the last two Princeton-Colgate games have been decided on the final play.

When former Dartmouth tailback-turned-lacrosse player Chad Gaudet lines up as a graduate student for Virginia in tomorrow afternoon's nationally televised game against the Big Green, he'll surely have mixed feelings. He'll have no such problem when the Cavaliers, ranked No. 1 until losing to Duke the last time out, head into the NCAA playoffs in search of a national championship. If he gets it, he'll be able to compare notes with younger brother Ross, a member of the national championship Boston University ice hockey team. By the way, I still remember watching Chad skate in a pickup hockey game with a group of kids on Occom Pond during a recruiting weekend and thinking he'd played the game before ;-)

A Dartmouth release popped up on my screen yesterday with a note about one of the more serious baseball fans on campus. An excerpt:

Dartmouth College President James Wright will throw out the first pitch at Boston’s Fenway Park to kick off a Red Sox vs. Texas Rangers baseball game at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 6, 2009.

And finally, that certain Hanover High junior was one of the top vote-getters in being re-elected to the school council this week. Ask her and she'll proudly tell you that the Hanover council is more powerful than most such organizations in the country. Other schools even send representatives to council meetings to see exactly what it does. All I know is there there are community members and teachers who also run for spots on council, and that you shouldn't refer to it as "student" council.

That certain HHS freshman played his first game with the junior varsity baseball team yesterday afternoon in Laconia. A catcher, he returned home last night proudly showing off an imprint on his arm from the stitches of a baseball that apparently nailed him pretty good behind the plate. The other catcher in the family won't have her first game until after next week's spring vacation.

D-A-R-T-M-O-U-T-H

The regular chant between stretching and the official start of practice Tuesday afternoon...

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Spring practice No. 3 for the Big Green today. With shoulder pads on the action should pick up a bit. Check in tonight for a recap on BGA.

Princeton is the latest team to come under the Roar Lions Roar scrutiny as blogger Jake Novak continues his look at the Ivy League prospects for 2009. He has Princeton pegged as a possible 4-3 Ivy finisher, depending on the outcome of games against Yale and Columbia. That's because, as he writes, "I think Princeton can beat Cornell and Dartmouth, but will have a very rough time edging Harvard, Penn, and Brown."

Just stumbled across the Princeton Athletics Channel on YouTube. While all of the Ivy League schools have some version of subscription (and free) video sites on their home pages, putting together a YouTube site offers the opportunity to pull in an entirely new audience that wouldn't normally visit the individual school sites. While exploring the Princeton Athletics Channel site I clicked on a recent video with Princeton receiver Adam Berry. He seems to be everything an Ivy League student-athlete should be. Very impressive.

Visting one of my usual haunts this morning I found an ad for a football coach at Greenville College, a Division III school. The qualifications for candidates to be considered for the linebacker and defensive line coach caught my eye:

Computer skills and a working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Power-point, and Access software are needed. Some experience with DVS digital editing system is a plus.

Wow.

Two thoughts:

• Coaching has changed.
• Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, most BCS head coaches and a good many FCS coaches need not apply because they wouldn't make the first cut.

Out of curiosity, I zoomed off to learn a little more about the football program at Greenville, which, fittingly, is in Greenville, Ill. I eventually ended up at a link for a page about the Foundations of Biblical Football.

This And That

Freshman Foley Schmidt kicks out of junior Alex Jenny's hold during Tuesday's practice.

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If you think Dartmouth took a hit in the Roar Lions Roar blog yesterday, Jake Novak doesn't hold out much hope for Cornell either. He wrote:

I thought Cornell would come in last place in 2008, and after that nice (3-0) start they played like a last place team and just barely avoided the cellar. Now the team that looked like the weakest in the league in '08 seems a whole lot weaker coming in to 2009.

Two more Dartmouth opponents are joining the bone marrow testing effort. Yale will lead the way one week from tomorrow and Holy Cross will help out the next day.

Speaking of Holy Cross, the school will once again have longtime voice of Crusaders' football Bob Fouracre doing an internet broadcast of the spring football game Saturday, with interviews and highlights to follow. Nice touch.

A Facebook site started by a North Carolina State freshman to encourage the top-ranked basketball player in the country to play for the Wolfpack has come under scrutiny. From a story on the ecampus news:

...(T)he NCAA says such sites, and dozens more like them wooing Wall and other top recruits, violate its rules. More than just cheerleading boards, the NCAA says the sites are an attempt to influence the college choice of a recruit.

The story says the owner of the Facebook page, "got a cease-and-desist letter from N.C. State's compliance director, Michelle Lee, warning of 'further action' if he failed to comply."

Taking the other side, also from the story ...

Adam Kissel, director of the Individual Rights Defense Program at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the NCAA can impose rules on its member colleges. But universities--especially public ones--can't enforce them if it means punishing students in any way for expressing an opinion.

"A student doesn't lose First Amendment rights because of a contract the university signs with (the NCAA)," he said.

That, my friends, is a slippery slope.

Now for some fun. If you don't know who Penn's "Coach Lake," is you will soon. First, read this Penn sports information release on Dan “Lake” Staffieri being "honored at the USMC Scholarship Foundation Philadelphia Ball on Friday night with the Sportsman’s Award." Then treat yourself by reading a 34th Street Magazine story about Coach Lake that will make you smile.

From the story:

He wears a bright red sports coat, red plaid pants, a matching hat, blue bowtie, heavy-set glasses, two hearing aids and 11 championship rings on his fingers. On his forehead he has stuck a piece of athletic tape with "wack" written across.

When you get to the part about Lake assisting the Penn freshman team headed up by "Coach Lines," substitute Lyons for Lines because they are talking about former Dartmouth head coach John Lyons.

More from the story:

In 2002, when he had a heart attack around midnight in his Blue Bell home, the cardiology department at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital picked him up in an emergency helicopter and flew him down to University City. As Stafierri regained consciousness and a bit of energy, the helicopter passed over Franklin Field. Before the doctors knew what was going on, he was sitting up and yelling down to the field, "Get it up down there!"

And finally, this is kind of offbeat but worth noting. William Dartmouth, the 10th Earl of Dartmouth is in town to give a speech and visit with college president Jim Wright. Find a story in the Daily Dartmouth.

The Waiting Is Over ... Almost

Dartmouth players queue up as they await the end of track practice and the chance to take the field for the first session of the spring Monday afternoon.

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Buddy Teevens promised after last fall's 0-10 disaster – a rough word, but the right word – that every aspect of the program would be reviewed and changes would be forthcoming. If the first day of spring practice is any indication, the Big Green coach has followed through on his promise.

While there was only one new coach on the field (former Yale assistant Keith Clark, hired to replace Cyril Brockmeier, who is getting married) most of the other coaches had new responsibilities. Foremost among them, Sammy McCorkle, who takes over as defensive coordinator after distinguishing himself heading up Dartmouth's special teams that past few years. There will be a new offensive coordinator as well with Teevens holding off for the time being on making that announcement. Don't rule out the possibility that he'll eventually wear the title himself.

Teevens made it clear after practice that he is rededicating himself to his on-field responsibilities after spending a good deal of time in the past few years overseeing different off-field facets of the program. "I got splattered in a lot of different areas," he admitted.
“Really, the most important thing right now is to do a better job coaching football and so I've tried to push off, delegate, and say we're not doing certain things in the future. I'm going to concentrate on the football squad.”

Between the lines there have been a significant number of positional changes with one of the most interesting being the shift of freshman Royce Egeolu from defensive line to linebacker. Though outsized on the D-line, Egeolu showed himself to be a promising playmaker in the second half of the season. Junior defensive end Marlon Alebiosu and freshman safety Tyler Melancon have moved back to linebacker as well.

Notable on the offensive side: sophomore receiver/quarterback Timmy McManus was wearing green yesterday, not quarterback red. He and elusive deep threat Niles Murphy, a junior returning to the program after a year away, could give Dartmouth a very potent one-two touch at receiver. Defensive backs Matt Dornak and Michael Dearwester are getting a look in the offensive backfield and, in one of the position switches that seems to happen about as often as any, freshman Brendan Murray has moved over from linebacker to fullback.

Why those changes and more? Check out the analysis of the Big Green by Jake Novak over at the Roar Lions Roar blog. Accurately, if a little harshly headlined, View from the Bottom, the piece gives a good look at what the rest of the league might see when it looks at Dartmouth. Jake writes:

...(T)his is not about what going 0-10 feels like. It's about whether Dartmouth was really that much worse than all of its opponents in 2008.

The rough answer is: yes.

The numbers don't lie. Dartmouth's points allowed total was almost three times as much as the Big Green scored all season. That's something very reminiscent of the losing streak years at Columbia when the Lions' opponents tripled, or almost tripled the Columbia output in '85, '86, and '87 -- those were all 0-10 seasons. Compare that to the last 0-10 team in Ivy history, the 1992 Brown Bears, who were "only" outscored by a little more than double their offensive output that year. In other words, this was just a very overmatched Big Green team week in and week out.

Ouch.

Jake's bottom line: "I just don't see how 2009 can be anything but another rebuilding year in Hanover."

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At practice yesterday I was asked whether I thought any Ivy League players would be drafted this year. I first said I didn't think so, but then waffled a bit on Harvard quarterback Chris Pizzotti. Big, strong and smart, he'll definitely end up in someone's camp and could very well make a team if it is the right camp. Will he be drafted? According to David Coulson of The Sports Network, he's the Ivy League's best hope.

In a column about potential FCS draft picks, Coulson has Pizzotti slotted as the No. 23 player overall and the third quarterback. He is behind No. 3 Rhett Bomar, the former Oklahoma QB who ended up at Sam Houston State, and No. 22 Nathan Brown of Central Arkansas. Coulson projects him as "7th round, or priority free agent."

Ivy players in Coulson's list of the "Best of the Rest" prospects are:

Harvard
Offensive tackle Ryan Pilconis (HM All-Ivy)
Defensive tackle Desmond Bryant (2nd All-Ivy)

Brown
Tight end Colin Cloherty (1st All-Ivy)
Defensive tackle Joe McPhee

Penn
Inside linebacker Jason Colabella (2nd All-Ivy)

Yale
Offensive guard Darius Dale (1st All-Ivy)

For a full recap of Day 2 of spring practice check out Big Green Alert tonight.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

While other schools have already finished or are winding down spring football practice, Dartmouth starts its three-week session this afternoon. Good timing.

Contrary to what a writer for the Daily Dartmouth suggested in today's paper ("The weather finally warmed up this weekend, and the Dartmouth baseball team continued to bring the heat ...") yesterday was cold. Brutally, feet-freezingly, hot-shower-when-you-get-home, miserably cold for the stalwarts who sat through a wind-blown doubleheader split with Brown. While the mercury hovered just above freezing, the same could not be said for anyone in the stands.

Ah, but the meteorologist on TV this morning had nothing but good news in store saying this would be "the best week of the year so far." Temperatures each day should be between 50 and 60 degrees with virtually no chance of rain and little chance for clouds. Yup, timing is everything.

Speaking of The D, there was another story headlined, "Empty stands at Dartmouth: Fan culture stagnates despite teams’ successes." Freshman defensive back Chad Hollis told the writer:

“Dartmouth fan culture is really strange because, at most of the games, the student section is pretty docile. At our games, more of the support comes from the town and alumni. We kind of lack that hostile environment that throws off other teams’ games on the field.”

Also from the story:

Alex Rahmann ‘12 noted that football games fail to bring in many Dartmouth students, which she said is most likely due to the team’s repeated losses.

“The stands are usually empty,” she said. “It’s never good when the away stands are louder than the home stands, but to put it delicately, the quality of play is not capable of attracting a large number of fans.”

The story in The D also says, "...(A)lthough the women’s basketball team won the Ivy League this year, making it to the NCAA tournament, the team usually had significantly fewer fans than did the men’s basketball team." That didn't sound quite right to me so I checked the stats and found that the women's team actually outdrew the men's team this year, averaging 892 fans per game to the men's 855.

This will be kind of fun. If you've been following the blog you know that former Dartmouth tailback-turned-lacrosse standout Chad Gaudet is playing lax this spring as a graduate student at Virginia, the No. 1 team in the nation for much of the year. Wanna guess who the Cavaliers play Saturday in a nationally televised game? That's right. It will be Virginia and Gaudet playing against Dartmouth at noon on CBS College Sports Network.

And for those of you who were counting down the days until the spring practice kicked off and are wondering what to count down now, there are 159 days until the 2009 season opens against Colgate on Sept. 19. ;-)

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Check Big Green Alert premium tonight for full coverage of the first day of spring football.

Countdown Is At One

Spring practice starts tomorrow afternoon and the AccuWeather forecast is calling for a high of 52 degrees, "mostly sunny, breezy and warmer." ... If you are planning to be at spring practice and watch from Memorial Field's home stands, forget about it. For now at least. ... Crews are removing the aluminum benches and cleaning/patching the concrete beneath them. Repair work is being done on the walkway at the bottom of the stands. Both stairs into the stands are blocked off. ... Remember, the stands had been slated for demolition and replacement before the project was deferred due to the economic downturn.

Check Green Alert premium tomorrow and for the next three weeks for continued in-depth coverage of spring football.

Stick the name of Heritage High quarterback Mitch Griebel of Littleton, Colo., in a file somewhere and see if the junior heads to Dartmouth or another of the Ivies in another year. From PrepColorado.com: "Along with the Mountain West and Big 12 looks, Ivy League schools Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard and Brown have shown interest in Griebel." Here's a Q&A with him from a year ago where he mentions Dartmouth and Princeton.

With about 3 1/2 minutes left in last night's NCAA hockey championship game, I wandered through our family room and found that certain mother of those certain Hanover High kids watching the end of the contest. She said something about Boston University being two goals down and I said something about how I couldn't believe they pulled the goalie with that much time left. Shows what I know. The Terriers scored twice in the final minute to tie the game and then won it in overtime. If you didn't see it, you wouldn't believe it. In fact, I did see it and still don't believe it. Find a Boston Globe story about what "simply had to be the greatest college hockey game ever played," here.

It's 29 degrees and windy with an occasional snowflake flying by the window up here on the mountain. It's supposed to warm up to 44 degrees by gametime today when Dartmouth faces Brown in another showdown of the Ivy League's top baseball teams so far this "spring." Should be fun.

Colorado Lineman Set For Green

It didn't take long to track down the name of the previously unnamed 6-foot-6, 290-pound lineman headed to Dartmouth. Actually an inch taller and slightly lighter than listed, he is Thomas Prewitt of Brighton, Colo. His commitment was mentioned here, and there's a photo of him from "signing day," in a PDF file here. The signing-day story mentions that he also plays basketball and does track.

Prewitt is listed at 6-foot-6 and 280 pounds in several places, although in this humorous blog entry about visiting Washington, D.C., for the inauguration he says he's 6-7 (and that he has a broken foot). Ram Nation says Colorado State and Northern Colorado were also in the running for his services.

Prewitt was a second-team, North Metro League pick as reported in the Rocky Mountain News. Find a photo of him towering over a Brighton High girl here.

Kudos to the University of Pennsylvania for an absolutely terrific video about the George A. Weiss Pavilion, a $25.7 million adaptive reuse of the north side of Franklin Field. From a release that accompanied the video:

Inside the archways that form the stadium’s outer core on that side, the Pavilion will feature an intercollegiate strength and conditioning center; the Robert A. Fox Fitness Center for general University use; a retail outlet; and more than 8,000 square feet that will be available for future athletic development.

Ultimately, the Pavilion project will reach all the way around the East end of the stadium, and include renovations to the current weight room as well as the Munger Complex (football locker room, training room, etc.).

Overall, the construction job will entail approximately 55,000 square feet.

A good quote from a Manchester Union Leader story on Chip Kelly, the former Manchester Central High School and UNH assistant coach who is the new head coach at Oregon:

"The big time is where you're at. If you don't consider it big-time, whether it's Central, New Hampshire or Oregon, you're not doing it justice."

A reader sent along a reminder that Colin Wilson, the Boston University sophomore skater who scored two goals – including the gamewinner – that knocked Vermont out of the Frozen Four, is the son of Cary Wilson '83. The elder Wilson, you may recall, left Dartmouth early to play professionally in Europe before returning to this side of the pond to play for the '84 Canadian Olympic team and star for the New York Rangers. Cary Wilson did return to earn his degree from Dartmouth.

Colin Wilson was the seventh pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft as noted in this Winnipeg Sun story.

Dartmouth baseball takes on Brown today in a showdown of the teams at the top of the Red Rolfe Division standings. The Big Green is 8-0 and the Bears are 7-1. Should be a fun time at the new "yard" this afternoon. Find a preview here.

Size Matters

Yesterday's note on a still-to-be-identified recruit was a reminder of the terrific size of the new group of offensive linemen headed this way in the fall.

Bearing in mind that one or two of the incoming freshmen might end up on the other side of the line, and that reported heights and weights are sometimes stretched a bit, Dartmouth could be adding O-linemen who are:

• 6-foot-8, 295 pounds
• 6-foot-6, 290 pounds
• 6-foot-5, 255 pounds
• 6-foot-4, 300 pounds
• 6-foot-4, 245 pounds
• 6-foot-3, 265 pounds

Foster's Daily Democrat reports that Game 2 opponent New Hampshire will be without its only experienced backup quarterback next fall with the transfer of Kevin Decker to Division III Trinity. Decker got his most playing time when he completed 5-of-7 throws for 52 yards in last year's 42-6 win at Dartmouth.

The Foster's story spun out of the first day of spring ball notes that backup quarterback won't be the only area of concern for UNH, which is losing 103 receptions between the graduated Mike Boyle and suspended Terrance Fox. Four starters also have to be replaced on the O-line.

Offensive line doesn't figure to be a worry for Game 5 opponent Holy Cross, according to a spring football report in the Worcester Telegram. From the story:

(Center Chris) Smith, who has made 33 straight starts, two-year starters and all-league selections (right guard Chris) Poole and Aaron Jones (left tackle), and left guard Rob Petrosino, who made nine starts last season, give the Crusaders a bundle of experience on the offensive line. Mike McCabe, who injured his knee in the second game of ’08, is the projected starting right tackle.

“This has the potential to be one of the best offensive lines Holy Cross has had in a long time,” coach Tom Gilmore said.

The beneficiary of the talent and experience up front will be fifth-year quarterback Dominic Randolph, who wasn't exactly shabby last fall. More from the Telegram:

During last year’s 7-4 season, the offensive line paved the way for Holy Cross to average 455.4 yards and 34.4 points. Randolph led the nation in completions, passing yards and total offense, and was sacked just 16 times in 523 pass attempts.

The Commercial Dispatch, which covers "Columbus, Mississippi & The Golden Triangle," has a story about new Mississippi State assistant coach Scott Sallach, a Dartmouth staff member from 1998-2002. The story begins this way: "Whether it’s coaching in the Ivy League or in the Southeastern Conference, football is played the same way."

Says Sallach:

“It’s still blocking, tackling, offense, defense, and special teams. They just play a little bit bigger and faster (in the SEC). There are some changes, but in a basic sense.”

'Dartmouth Football Eyes'

The above video is a Dartmouth Football 2009 promo spun off the Michael Jordan commercial. Enjoy.

One potential football recruit who is going elsewhere, one who could be coming here and a big one who the whispers say is coming headline today's news.

As reported here previously, the one going elsewhere is Mario Conte of Denver's Mullen High. The Boulder Daily Camera blog offers a little more about his decision to walk on with the Colorado Buffs as a wide receiver rather than come to Hanover as a defensive back. Of note in the post: Not all walk-ons are simple practice fodder. At Boulder, fully 31 of the 95 players on the roster this spring are walk-ons and some of the school's past walk-ons have actually gone on to the NFL. From the story:

"That actually did play a big factor," Conte said. "I didn't feel like, you know, everyone sees walk-ons as just extra bodies to fill out scout team, but they made it seem like that's not what I was getting into. That really helped."

The Star Beacon in Ashtabula, Ohio, has a story about a local graduate coaching high school football in Virginia. Dig into that story and Covenant Christian coach Mark Stanford has this to say about one of his seniors from last fall who could be coming:

"Andy Colberg, our flanker, is also a real good defensive back and led our conference in interceptions and kickoff returns. He's a 4.3 student and is trying to go to Dartmouth."

Whether that means he's applied, been accepted and will be playing football is unclear. What is clear is that Colberg had quite an impact on his small-school team. From the Charlottesville Daily Progress:

Colberg is listed as a wide receiver and defensive back on the roster, but fills myriad other roles. In fact, he has played some at running back, handles the kicking duties and even played a little bit at quarterback in the team’s previous meeting against STAB. But more important to the team are his leadership qualities.

“He’s an exceptional athlete. We could literally put him anywhere on the field, including the line and he would be the best player at his position,” Sanford said. “He’s just that good of an athlete."

Colberg had 23 catches for 409 yards and eight touchdowns and ran 26 times for 180 yards last fall.

One who apparently is coming is a 6-foot-6, 290-pound lineman from one of the mountain states. Sorry for the tease, but that's all I've got at this point.

Penn wrapped up its spring practice with an intrasquad scrimmage that featured a good number of younger players as more-establish players such as quarterback Keiffer Garton, tailback Mike DiMaggio and All-America defensive back Chris Wynn watched from the sidelines "for precautionary reasons." From the Daily Pennsylvanian:

With the mobile Garton slated to be the number one quarterback in the fall, the scrimmage emphasized passing plays out of the spread formation. (Coach Al) Bagnoli said that the team ran more passing plays than usual to get the younger players more comfortable with spreading the ball out.

The Yale Daily News has a column about the athletic traditions that make Yale special. One of them:

Unlike the large majority of other Division I schools, Yale has remained faithful to the election of a single captain per team.

Another Name

Three solid sources have provided the name of another addition to the Class of 2013, although an Internet search for news of his commitment came up empty so it can't be 100 percent confirmed. The recruit is Class 2A all-state receiver/defensive back Sam Thompson of Alcoa, Tenn., whose powerhouse high school team not only has captured a record five consecutive state titles but has won 69 of its last 75 games, including a 14-1 record last fall.

Rivals.com lists Thompson as 6-foot, 180, while Scout.com has him at 5-10 1/2 and 175. The bigger discrepancy is in his time for the 40. Rivals has him at 4.4 while Scout has him at 4.75.

Knoxnews offers these senior-year stats for Thompson on defense: 87 tackles (including eight for a loss), two sacks, a whopping 16 pass breakups and three interceptions. As a receiver he had 31 catches for 668 yards and nine touchdowns.

Thompson was also an all-state selection in soccer. In this video interview after he was chosen for Tennessee's Toyota East vs. West All-Star Classic, he says he'll likely play safety in college.

Knoxnews.com had a column on Thompson a year ago last fall that began this way:

Sam Thompson puts the "athlete" in mathlete.

For those who know the Alcoa High School junior three-sport athlete, they understand why Alcoa football coach Gary Rankin said he's never had a smarter football player.

"It's tough when the player is smarter than the coach," Rankin joked (I think). "That makes for a tough player-coach relationship."

From the same story ...

I definitely want a school that caters to my academic tastes. But I'm probably going to have to make a choice as to whether I want to play soccer or football. I would like to play one of them. … I've gotten a little bit of interest from Tennessee and Vanderbilt for football. And I've gotten a letter or two from UCLA for soccer.

Yale has started spring practice under new coach Tom Williams. I had to snicker at the lede of this New Haven Register story, which might not have made it past my editor back when I was at the newspaper (if he read that far):

There came a point, midway in Monday’s rain-soaked first spring football practice at Yale, that new head coach Tom Williams inhaled his surroundings.

He looked over at the offense, going through its paces at one part of the field; then turned the other way to check out the defense. His smile was so fleeting, it could have been mistaken for gas.

Across the state in Durham, N.H., the University of New Hampshire is slated to begin spring ball tomorrow with a session running from 7-9:30 a.m. The Wildcats will conclude their 15 practices on May 8. While Ivy League teams are limited to 12 practices, that's a lot more than the one spring session it was allowed back when I first began covering the team.

Spring Practice Schedule

Tracked down the schedule for spring football practice. Keep in mind that weekday times might be moved up when changes in track practice allow and weekend times are still to be decided. Should the worst happen – a late snow – a date may be shifted.

Week I
Monday, April 13 - 4:45 p.m.
Tuesday, April 14 - 4:45 p.m.
Thursday, April 16 - 4:45 p.m.
Friday, April 17 - 4:45 p.m.

Week II
Monday, April 20 - 4:45 p.m.
Wednesday, April 22 - 4:45 p.m.
Friday, April 24 - 4:45 p.m.
Saturday, April 25 - TBA

Week III
Monday, April 27 - 4:45 p.m.
Wednesday, April 29 - 4:45 p.m.
Friday, April May 1 - 4:45 p.m.
Saturday, April May 2 - TBA

Check the premium Big Green Alert site for coverage beginning Monday, April 20.

Thanks to a regular reader for a reminder that it is the time of year once again to consider the absurdity of using length of season as an excuse for keeping Ivy League football teams out of the playoffs.

Here are the numbers:
63 – days between first Dartmouth football game and last
90 – days between games if Dartmouth goes to the NCAA championship game
112 – days between first Dartmouth men's basketball game and last regular-season game
142 – days between games if Dartmouth goes to the NCAA championship game
162 – days between games if Dartmouth men's hockey goes to NCAA championship game

and for grins ...
182 – days between first NCAA hockey game and NCAA championship game

Let's hope the new Ivy League executive director can come up with a better explanation for the ban than length of season.

(And if you think I sat here with a calendar counting days, I'm not that crazy. Check out this handy website.)

Go figure, but the Columbia Spectator has a story about Dartmouth freshman pitcher Kyle Hendricks turning down a chance to sign with the Los Angeles Angels after being drafted in the 39th round and choosing instead to come to Hanover.

A pitcher who decided to take the money is Trevor Cahill, who might have been in the Big Green rotation last weekend but instead was prepping for his first big league start tonight with the Oakland Athletics. From a recent story:

By his own admission, (Cahill) was no big thing athletically until his senior year in high school. He chose the A's over Dartmouth after being picked in the second round of the 2006 draft. Forty-five minor league games later, he's penciled in to start the second game of the 2009 major league season.

Find Cahill's Oakland A's bio here.

Seattle-Area DE Headed To Hanover

Add Mick Davis, a 6-foot-3, 250-pound defensive end from Eastside Catholic High School and Renton, Wash., to the list of recruits in the Class of 2013. A three-year letterwinner on the gridiron, Davis was named Eastside's top lineman as a junior when he was chosen second-team All-Metro offensive tackle/honorable mention defensive end. As a senior he was picked for the All-Metro first team at offensive tackle and to the All-Metro second-team at defensive end.

Davis was an Eastside Catholic captain, the school's football scholar-athlete and a finalist for the King Country Scholar-Athlete award as a senior. The creator of the Eastside Catholic lifting program, he was scheduled to go to Tijuana, Mexico over the midwinter break to build houses for poverty stricken families. Find a head-and-shoulders picture of Mick Davis here.

What follows is the incoming class I've been able to pull together so far. I've gotten emails with several more names but haven't been able to confirm them. Because no official announcement about the class will be made until all the paperwork is in a few weeks from now, positions and heights/weights listed for the regular-decision class are generally per the recruits (or their families) or published reports. Several of the incoming players are officially recruits of other sports but have indicated that they will be playing football. (Corrections and additions aren't just welcomed, they are encouraged ;-)

OFFENSE
QUARTERBACK
Sam Clancy, 6-5, 200
Cascia Hall, Tulsa, Okla.
RUNNING BACK
Billy Bradshaw, 6-2, 203
Rancho Bernardo HS, Calif.
Jeremy Rick, 5-10
Bellingham HS, Bellingham, Wash.
FULLBACK
Jason Lawrence, 5-10 1/2, 232
Guilderland HS, Guilderland, N.Y.
WIDE RECEIVER
Brian Kosnik, 6-5, 185
Darien HS, Darien, Conn.
Anthony Fulham, 6-3, 190
Canisius HS, Buffalo, N.Y.
Steven McCormack, 5-10, 161
Seven Lakes HS, Katy, Texas
Corey Vann, 6-1, 160
Harvard-Westlake, North Hollywood, Calif.
TIGHT END
Mitch Aprahamian, 6-4, 220
Brookfield Central HS, Brookfield, Wis.
Jackson Floyd, 6-6, 223
Loyola HS, Willmette, Ill.
Justin Foley, 6-2, 211
Harrison HS, Harrison, Ohio
OFFENSIVE LINEMEN
Rob Bathe, 6-3, 265
Wayzata HS, Minnesota
John Golio, 6-4, 245
Bergen Catholic HS, N.J.
John Hanna, 6-4, 300
Torrey Pines HS, Torrey Pines, Calif.
Daniel Jamokha, 6-5, 255
Western HS, Anaheim, Calif.
John Scheve, 6-8, 295
Boys Latin, Baltimore, Md.

DEFENSE
DEFENSIVE LINEMEN
Elliot Kastner, 6-2, 250
Hawaii Prep, Kamuela, Hawaii
Mike Tree, 6-2, 225
Brophy Prep, Phoenix, Ariz.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
Mick Davis, 6-3, 250
Eastside Catholic, Renton, Wash.
Danny Husband, 6-3, 210
Cascia Hall, Tulsa, Okla.
Teddy Reed, 6-4, 256
Deerfield Academy, Boxford, Mass.
LINEBACKERS
Ryan Hrabak, 6-3, 210
Carmel Catholic HS, Mundelein, Ill.
Tom Patek, 6-3, 205
Carmel HS, Mundelein, Ill.
Alex Douglas, 6-2, 195
Bartram Trail HS, St. Johns, Fla.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
Swin Moore, 5-11, 160
Marietta HS, Marietta, Ga.
Cole Pembroke, 6-0, 190
Desert Vista HS, Phoenix, Ariz.
Garrett Waggoner, 6-2, 210
Riverview HS, Sarasota, Fla.
Chase Womack, 6-0, 190
Westlake HS, Austin, Texas

SPECIAL TEAMS
KICKER
RC Willenbrock, 5-11, 170
Cherry Creek HS, Englewood, Colo.

In case you are wondering, spring football is slated to begin one week from today.

A good number of football players were spotted over the weekend checking in on the baseball team, which swept back-to-back doubleheaders against Princeton and Cornell. Dartmouth is now 8-0 in the Ivy League, its best start ever in conference play. According to a Dartmouth release, the best previous start was a 7-0 mark by the 1937 team in the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League. Blistering start of not, Dartmouth can't relax with 7-1 Brown visiting Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park this weekend for a crucial pair of doubleheaders.

And finally, if you've been following this blog for a while, you know about those two Hanover High School student-athletes who call Moose Mountain home. With the HHS junior visiting some seriously expensive colleges – and the realization setting in that college bills will follow – I've tossed together a website to promote my freelancing work. (You didn't think the blog and Big Green Alert carried the day, did you?)

The site isn't really directed at readers of this blog, but if you've got some extra time and are curious, it has links to a few stories I've written about Dartmouth football over the years. You can find them at the obnoxiously named brucewoodwriting.com. There are five football stories behind the Writing link.

'Stronger Families'

Former Dartmouth and NFL quarterback Jeff Kemp will speak at the Community Prayer Breakfast in Billings, Mont., later this month. In anticipation of his visit, the Billings Gazette writes:

If he followed his father into football, Kemp also watched his father transition from football into Congress because Jack Kemp believed in public service to make the world a better place.

"I grew up with, 'You're a Kemp, be a leader, make a difference,' " Jeff Kemp said.

He wasn't certain if his public service would take him into politics, business or ministry. He decided on a mix of the three, forming a nonprofit organization to strengthen families.

Kemp's organization, Families Northwest, is being rebranded as Stronger Families. Find its website here. To hear a quick clip of Jeff Kemp talking about family life in football terms, click here.

Find Jeff's bio and clips of him on the football field and speaking here.

Yale starts spring football practice tomorrow. Dartmouth, remember, will be on the field one week from tomorrow.

The Dartmouth baseball team swept Princeton yesterday to improve to 6-0 in the Ivy League and despite the temperature hanging around 40 degrees and an occasional cold drizzle, it was a pleasure sitting behind home plate in one of the chairback seats watching the games. Fittingly, there was a moment of silence for Dick Dunham '53, the devoted follower of Big Green baseball (as well as football and basketball) who died last week. (link)