European Adventure

Former Dartmouth captain Peter Pidermann '10 has had an eventful season playing for the undefeated undefeated Mönchengaldbach Mavericks of the German Football League. Pete reports the Mavericks are the first team to move up from the fourth and bottom league in
in GFL history to the first league in three years.

Pidermann with his "import" teammates on the Mavericks. From left they are John McCardle (10), a running back who began at Kansas State and then transferred to Nebraska-Omaha; quarterback Colin Clancy (2) of Colorado State University-Pueblo, corner Tyler Smith (3) of the University of Waterloo, receiver/safety Erik Galas (21) of McGill, corner Alexander Hoad (44) of the University of Ottawa, Oregon State linebacker Alan Darlin and Pidermann.

Pidermann had punt returns of 80 and 95 yards for touchdowns last week in a win over Lübeck. He's started at corner, safety and wide receiver and has even run some in the Wildcat.
A side trip to Amsterdam brought a visit to the Heineken Brewery.
During a July break Peter and his buddies ran with the bulls in Pamplona. Here a couple of before and after shots.
The guys watched and celebrated the World Cup final with Spaniards deep into the night. (click photos to enlarge)

Pidermann wraps up his season this week and thinks he'll probably head to law school in the fall, although he hasn't completely ruled out trying to play in the spring. If he doesn't, he won't be sitting on the couch. If football is over he'll play club rugby back home in Miami.

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Week Two opponent Sacred Heart opened up yesterday with a 28-25 win at Marist. Find a box score and capsule here. The Sacred Heart web story is here.

Keeping in mind that Marist was chosen sixth in the Pioneer Football League preseason poll, the strength of the Red Foxes was expected to be defense according to the Times Herald-Record.

That said, Sacred Heart racked up 456 yards of total offense including 229 on the ground. Record-setting quarterback Dale Fink looked like the All-NEC first-team selection of two years ago by completing 22-of-28 passes for 229 yards. Central Michigan transfer Marcel Archer ran for 104 yards and two touchdowns while a redshirt freshman named Greg Ibe went for 97 yards and two scores.

Find a video interview with the two running backs here.

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Jake Novak over at the Roar Lions Roar Columbia football blog has his Ivy League prediction and capsules posted. His forecast looks like this:

1. Harvard
2. Pennsylvania
3. Columbia
4. Brown
5. Dartmouth
6. Yale
7. Cornell
8. Princeton

Green Alert Take: I think Jake has undersold Yale and might be surprised by Princeton, particularly if Jordan Culbreath can help the run game. Do not doubt for a second that he's already bringing inspiration and leadership to the team, the value of which cannot be overstated. As for putting Dartmouth fifth, read on ...

Green Alert Take II: Putting Columbia third is a gamble because, frankly, you can question whether it is supported on paper. Clearly the pick is based on having watched the team closely for years, on things Jake feels almost intuitively, and on news and opinion he gleans being around the program. It may well be that he's got it figured correctly. The problem, of course, is regardless of how much study Jake does, he doesn't have those same advantages with regard to the other teams. That's why it is so incredibly difficult to make a realistic projection of where a team you have intimate knowledge about will finish. And why I avoid predicting where Dartmouth will finish. Cop out? Maybe, but it's how I feel.

The Roar Lions Roar piece says this about Dartmouth:

Teevens’ biggest challenge will be to make sure expectations aren’t so high that going 4-6 or even 5-5 are seen as a let down by the fans and players.

For a team that was 2-8 last year and 0-10 the year before, these will be good problems to have.

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Harvard's WHRB student radio sports blog offers up a preview of Dartmouth that starts this way:

The Big Green came in the polls this preseason as 7th in the Ancient Eight. Head coach Buddy Teevens respectfully disagreed with the ranking, stating that voters were clearly missing the bigger picture.

So what is in the big picture that everyone seems to be missing? There are a number of things, but the three most important are coaching, experience, and offense.

It ends this way:

As bad as Dartmouth has proven that it can be, Ivy League voters may be underestimating them, for once.

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Week One Dartmouth opponent Bucknell opens up today at Duquesne and Week Five foe Holy Cross plays host to Howard.

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Dartmouth will be scrimmaging this afternoon at 2 and full coverage will be on Big Green Alert Premium tonight.

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A blog called Dough Roller has a generally well-done posting under the headline, What Makes Ivy League Schools So Darn Attractive To Students? It includes some history of the formation of the league including this:

While football is where it started, today the Ivy League is globally recognized for its high standards of academic excellence, and attracts the brightest students, scholars and faculty. The Ivies have done a fantastic job of maintaining their high academic standards and refusing to compromise in such areas as athletics to advance their respective athletic agendas. At the same time, they Ivies have still been able to compete successfully in Division I athletics.