Pencil Bucknell in for Sept. 18

Heading out to yesterday's postponed football practice, this was the sight in our driveway here on the shoulder of Moose Mountain.

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The end zone of Bucknell's Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium

Word finally broke yesterday afternoon about Dartmouth opening the season at Bucknell instead of Colgate. Here's one of the quotes from coach Buddy Teevens in last night's Big Green Alert:

“It's a nice opportunity for us to see a different team in a different environment. We just announced it to our team and the guys are excited about it.

"Now we have to do a little bit of preparation. We don't know much about them and they have a new coach down there. So we have to kind of go to school on what, when, and how they are doing things. But we do crossover with Bucknell occasionally with recruiting, so they will know some of our guys, and we will know some of theirs.”

Still nothing up on the Bucknell website as of 9:30 this morning. The official Dartmouth release on the change can be found here.

Colgate has a short release on its site here. From that release:

The Colgate University football team will face a Division I Football Bowl Subdivision opponent for the first time since 2003, when it travels north to the Carrier Dome on Saturday, September 25 to face Syracuse.

From the Syracuse website:

“We are pleased to play Colgate, a program with which we have a long-standing tradition,” said Syracuse head coach Doug Marrone. “In completing the schedule we exhausted all of our options to schedule a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent without adversely affecting our future schedules, but the options did not present that opportunity. Colgate is an in-state school with a solid program that played for the FCS National Championship in 2003.”

From a Syracuse blog:

(Colgate coach Dick) Biddle, who was a Colgate assistant in the early 1980s when the Raiders visited the Dome twice, said he remembers how excited players were to face a team like Syracuse.

“It’s quite an opportunity for us,” he said Wednesday. “Obviously, we’ll have our hands full.”

Teevens said Dartmouth spoke with seven potential opponents about a game. He did not name them. The Patriot League composite schedule shows Bucknell was the only school from the Ivy League's sister conference with an opening on Sept. 18. Interestingly, the schedule shows Bucknell with no scheduled games before Dartmouth. That would mean – barring another schedule change – that the Big Green has the chance to open with a team also playing its opener for the first time in years.

A little more about Bucknell in a Daily Item look at the start of spring football in Lewisburg, Pa.:

The Bison return 13 starters, including six on offense who will have to learn the new pro-style system the Bison will employ ...

Find Bucknell's spring recap here and its 2010 roster here.

And in case you were wondering, we drove directly from Bucknell to Hanover Sunday and with no traffic, just a little drizzle and a slow driver a good part of the way – me – we made the trip in about 7 hours, 15 minutes. That's a little more than two hours longer than the trip to Colgate meaning next fall's already arduous travel schedule (no games in New England) just got a little longer.

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The concussion discussion is growing louder. From a CBSsports.com story culled from wire reports:

An NCAA panel is recommending that all schools come up with a detailed plan on how to handle an athlete with a concussion, including exactly who has the authority to clear that person to play again.

In December, the NCAA committee responsible for safety recommended sidelining an athlete with concussion-related symptoms until cleared by a health care provider -- and for at least the rest of the day if he or she shows particularly worrisome symptoms.

Now, the panel wants schools to write up specific plans for how that evaluation process will work.

New Hampshire tight end Scott Sicko has done an about-face. The subject of numerous stories and news reports after his decision not to sign a free agent contract and pursue his education, Sicko has instead decided to sign with the Dallas Cowboys. The Manchester Union Leader has a story.

Sad news out of Boston where Hoong Wei Speicher, mother of former Dartmouth longsnapper Josh Speicher '09 has died. Click here for a notice and to sign a guest book.

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Finally, and I do mean finally, That Certain Hanover High senior had to turn in the paperwork today citing her college choice in order to be eligible for local scholarship help. After an agonizing few days she's thrilled with her decision, although the irony given the news of Dartmouth's schedule change is hard to ignore. (She's still on the waitlist at Dartmouth.) Her decision: