Check it Out

Check out a highlight video from former captain Pete Pidermann's '10 season with the Mönchengladbach Mavericks of the German Football League. The best clips show the defensive back returning kicks.

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For a give-and-take discussion of merit/athletic scholarships in the Ivy League, visit this thread on the Any Given Saturday messageboard. As is so often the case, a lot of people are convinced the Ivies give merit-based aid to talented athletes. A lot of others think the financial aid packages given by Ivy League schools makes the lack of athletic scholarships a moot point.

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This space has posted a number of stories about former UNH (and Columbia) assistant Chip Kelly's meteoric rise to prominence as head coach at Oregon, but this story from the Register-Guard is not to be missed. Beyond insights into the man – as much as there apparently can be any – it offers a look at a football coach who doesn't sleep in his office, doesn't think his assistants should either, and who has little patience for traditional meetings. From the story:

And fast doesn’t just describe the pace at which Kelly’s team practices and plays. The UO staff holds meetings each afternoon at 4:30. Kelly might be there at 4:28, in which case anybody who arrives at the scheduled start time risks entering an empty room.

“We’ve gotten into staff meetings and spent less than a minute,” running backs coach Gary Campbell said. “A 15-minute meeting? That would be a marathon.”

“If we ever met for 15 minutes,” (defensive coordinator Nick) Aliotti said, “I think we’d all faint.”

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From a story about the Eastern Washington-Villanova semifinal in the FCS playoffs:

The makers of the electric red field installed earlier this year in Cheney, WA, had to be giddy as they watched the host Eagles close out an undefeated home campaign and advance to the FCS championship game in the process.

Given the achievements of Boise State on its blue turf and now the success of the Inferno, can there be other versions far behind?

Could UMass go maroon? How about purple turf at Furman? Could Hofstra have saved football by going yellow?

What about the Dartmouth Big Green going green? Oh, yeah ...

And for the record, when Eastern Washington plays Delaware Friday for the national championship, two-time defending Ivy League champion Penn will still be idle.

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Today's tentative 2011 schedule:

Yale
Sept. 17 Georgetown
Sept. 24 Cornell
Oct. 1 at Lehigh
Oct. 8 Dartmouth
Oct. 15 at Lafayette
Oct. 22 at Penn
Oct. 29 Brown
Nov. 5 at Princeton
Nov. 12 Harvard