Slim Pickings

Craig Haley at The Sports Network has his picks up and here's how he sees the Ivy League this week:

Penn over Dartmouth
Harvard over Lafayette
Princeton over Columbia
Rhode Island over Brown
Bucknell over Cornell
Yale over Albany

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Here are the picks in the Harvard Crimson:

Penn 24, Dartmouth 10
Princeton 28, Columbia 17
Yale 30, Albany 13
Bucknell 17, Cornell 7
Rhode Island 20, Brown 10
Harvard 14, Lafayette 10

Regarding Dartmouth, the Crimson writer says:

When I saw the Big Green’s record, I asked out loud, “When did Dartmouth get good?” But after a little research I found out they beat down (Bucknell) and barely survived (Sacred Heart). I'm not impressed.

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If I'm reading the Sagarin Ratings correctly, they have Penn as a 16-point favorite.

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The Philadelphia Daily News capsule on the weekend games in Philly includes this:

Big Green hasn't won here in 13 years . . . Dartmouth has beaten Bucknell (43-20) and Sacred Heart (21-19) . . . Averages more than 200 yards a game on the ground . . . Dartmouth has allowed one sack, lowest total in nation . . . Ranks next-to-last in Ivies in total defense.

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If you want to watch the Dartmouth-Penn game and you are not in the Comcast viewing area (mostly Southeast Pennsylvania) you can sign up and for $9.95 watch it online in HD here.

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I grew up with the venerable Dunkel Index and it's fun to check it from time to time. Here's how Dunkel has the Ivy League teams and Dartmouth opponents ranked among 126 FCS programs:

33. Penn
36. Brown
39. Harvard
60. Columbia
67. Yale
77. Princeton
100. Dartmouth
115. Cornell

19. New Hampshire
70. Holy Cross
72. Colgate
119. Bucknell
120. Sacred Heart

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Keith Groller of the Morning Call continues writing about the scholarship issue in the Patriot League. He notes that PL is just 7-14 in non-league games this fall with some of the losses by lopsided scores.

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Dartmouth hosted an official tailgate for students across the street from the field Saturday and Penn started the same kind of initiative this fall. A Daily Pennsylvanian story quotes an estimate of about 1,000 people at the first tailgate and says there would be twice that for the Dartmouth game. No idea how many students turned out for the Dartmouth t-gate.

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It happens all the time that coaches at the FCS level give up pretty secure jobs to chase the pot o' gold under the big-time rainbow. One who found it is former New Hampshire assistant Chip Kelly. Think about this: Kelly was an assistant at UNH in 2007 and this week he signed a $20.5 million extension to stay head coach at Oregon. The Daily Emerald has a story.

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And finally, one of the disadvantages for a high school golfer living in Hanover is that there are a lot of very talented players in town. A kid who might be No. 1 or 2 in a lot of schools around the Twin States can find himself on the junior varsity here. One of the advantages? The junior varsity is really, really good. That's the long way around to saying a Certain Hanover High JV Golf Captain helped his team to its second consecutive undefeated season and state championship yesterday afternoon.