Good Reading

Princeton Alumni Weekly talks with Tiger tailback Jordan Culbreath, who was in a fight for his life during the last football season and has made a miraculous return to the team this preseason.

From the piece:

In practice, Culbreath already is turning heads. According to (new head coach Bob) Surace, he dodged one starting linebacker on an open-field run and knocked another starting defender on his behind while pass blocking. Late in the Sept. 1 morning session, Culbreath ran plays with the first-string offense.

While Culbreath is happy to be back, he’s not happy just to be back. He wants to excel on the field, as he did in 2008 when he led the Ivy League in rushing, and he's ready to work toward that goal.

“I'm just like any other guy out here," he said. "There’s no excuses now that I’m back in the pads. Other teams aren’t going to care where I was last year.”

There's another story about Culbreath – who ran for 276 yards against Dartmouth two years ago – in The Trentonian. From that story:

Culbreath still has to take medication and undergo tests on a regular basis for precautionary measures. He said he is ready to play at the same level he was at in 2008 when he rushed for 1,206 yards and was named to the All-Ivy First Team, but he has still to play it safe.

“This is unchartered territory,” said Culbreath, “so nobody really knows how I’m gonna react to my medication or after I get my blood drawn. So pretty much we’re just taking it one step at a time.”

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Week One opponent Bucknell won't be the same team that finished last year 4-7. There are some significant new faces including coach Joe Susan, whose only previous season as a head coach saw him go 10-0 at Davidson in 2000.

There's a 265-pound, first-team All-Patriot League defensive end named Josh Eden who returns to Lewisburg after a two-year Mormon Mission.

And the Harrisburg Patriot-News writes about Bucknell having the all-time leading rusher in Pennsylvania history, who redshirted last season because of a torn ACL.

Jeremiah Young ran for a mind-boggling 9,027 yards during his career at Steelton-Highspire High School. The Parade All-American was no stranger to his new coach, who recruited him at Rutgers. Susan told the Patriot-News:

"It's unfortunate he had that injury, because he is very talented.

"He reminded me a lot of Ray Rice (former Rutgers star, now with the Baltimore Ravens), who is also a great kid. Jeremiah is a 209-pound kid who worked hard in the weight room in the offseason. The one thing about a player at his position coming off an injury like that is all mental. He has the mindset of he's not running free because of the brace, but at some point during the season, it's coming off."

Bucknell kicks off at Duquesne on Sept. 4.

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Still no game notes or preview on the web page of Week Two opponent Sacred Heart, but at least there is a video interview with head coach Paul Gorham on the right side of the home page. The Pioneers open this week with Marist.

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Merrimack head coach and former Dartmouth offensive coordinator John Perry talks about his standout quarterback in a Boston Globe story.

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Big Ten coaches talk in this story about the possibility of an outside scrimmage or a preseason game. Could it be that the Ivy League is actually ahead of curve?

There is a slight difference, of course, between Dartmouth playing a preseason game at Harvard on Sept. 10 in front of a few dozen family members and a handful of assorted others and Michigan or Ohio State having Iowa pop in for a "friendly."

From the story:

(Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez suggested limiting access so a preseason game doesn't turn into "a big event."

But there's the problem.

As Ohio State coach Jim Tressel put it, "If we were to play a preseason game, there would be 100,000-some people here."

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Dartmouth won't get its first look at Colgate star running back Nate Eachus until next fall, his final season. Eachus was still a linebacker when the Big Green played the Raiders in his freshman year. He missed the game last year with an injury, and the teams called off this year's game. Read about a running back his Pennsylvania neighbors think should have been playing for Joe Paterno here.

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Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens is quoted in a Daily Orange story about Nathaniel Hackett, the Syracuse quarterbacks coach who he helped get started as an intern at Stanford.

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Former Dartmouth quarterback Alex Jenny's 3-4 website has a college football montage that will get the juices flowing. I could watch those Boise State plays at the end over, and over and over.

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Dartmouth will be practicing at 3 this afternoon and as always there will be a full report on Big Green Alert Premium tonight. Although Weather.com is calling for 91 degrees at 3 ("feels like 93"), the weather science suggests a little earlier in the day is actually better. Either way, it is going to be h-o-t for this part of the country. Fortunately, the weather appears to be breaking. After a high of 85 tomorrow, it's supposed to reach just 74 degrees Saturday when the Big Green is slated to run its first scrimmage of the camp.

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And finally, for those of you who have asked about it, and a good number of you have, That Certain Hanover High grad's bio has been posted on the Dartmouth cross country website. She's off to the mountains with her DOC trip this morning.