The Class So Far

The Dartmouth recruiting Class of 2015 to date ...

Official Early Decision Recruits

• Cameron Crage, 6-3, 210, QB (St. Andrews School, Boca Raton, Fla. )
• Will Guinee, 6-4, 255, OL (Malden Catholic, Topsfield, Mass.)
• Patrick Hand, 6-4, 260 OL (Lawrenceville School, Far Hills, N.J.)
• Riley Lyons, 5-10 175, KsP (Blessed Trinity, Roswell, Ga.)
• Bennie Niles, 5-9, 170, DB (Clearwater, Fla.)
• Ben Spiritos, 6-2, 295, OL (Landon, Olney, Fla.)
• Charlie Storey, 6-2, 190, QB (Milton Academy, Essex, Mass.)
• Ben Ticknor, 6-2, 205, RB (Milton Academy, Concord, Mass.)
• Jeff Winthrop, 6-4, 285, DL (St. Paul's, Roxbury, Conn.)

Unofficial
Committed Regular Decision (per "reputable" recruiting sites and media reports)

• Zack Fowler, 6-2, 235, DL (Southwestern, Pulaski, Ky)
• Ryan McManus, 5-11, 170, QB/Ath (St. Thomas Academy, Minn.)
• Bo Patterson, 6-1, 185, WR (James Island, SC)
• Cody Patch, 5-10, 184, RB (Lebanon, N.H.)
• Marc Sasso, 6-0, 205, S/RB (Palos Verdes, Calif.)
• Kirby Schoenthaler , 6-0, 184, HB/QB (Bartlesville, Okla.)
  
• Corbin Stall, 6-3, 217, DE/LB (Union, Tulsa, Okla.)
• Scotty Whitmore, 6-5, 300 OL (Klein Collins, Spring, Texas)

Note: Heights, weights, positions vary according to the source and are subject to change. (Email me ;-) Does not include three high school seniors who were accepted early decision and have expressed an interest in joining the team, nor names of recruits that are floating around the Internet but haven't shown up yet as committed on national recruiting sites, newspaper web pages, etc.

*

With Eastern Washington's win over Delaware for the national championship, the College Sporting News has posted the final Gridiron Power Index for the past season. (Think BCS.) Here's how the conferences ranked. Note that the Ivy League snuck past the up-and-coming Northeast Conference after trailing the NEC by one spot heading into the final week of the season.):

1. Colonial Athletic Association (21.850)
2. Southern Conference (28.208)
3. Big Sky Conference (28.611)
4. Missouri Valley Football Conference (29.719)
5. Great West Conference (38.531)
6. Southland Conference (42.444)
7. Ohio Valley Conference (43.917)
8. Ivy League (55.516)
9. Northeast Conference (58.125)
10. Southwestern Athletic Conference (60.188)
11. Big South Conference (60.196)
12. Patriot League (61.036)
13. Independents (66.656)
14. Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (68.444)
15. Pioneer Football League (69.663)

Here's how the Ivy League schools finished in the field of 124 FCS teams:

20. Penn
49. Harvard
64. Brown
70. Yale
75. Dartmouth
92. Columbia
109. Cornell
111. Princeton

Dartmouth's non-league opponents:

79. Holy Cross
99. Sacred Heart
119. Bucknell

Past and future opponents:

8. New Hampshire
65. Colgate
103. Georgetown
110. Butler

The top three teams were Eastern Washington, Delaware and Villanova. The bottom three were Mississippi State, Howard and Valparaiso.

*

Stumbled across a nice effort called Uplifting Athletes whose literature says that ...

... (E)ach university chapter is run by current football student-athletes and adopts a rare disease that has personal meaning to their team. Players hold special events, fundraising campaigns or awareness drives to attract fans and media, making their rare disease more popular and generating new money for research.

Chapters have been started at Princeton, Colgate, Penn State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Boston College, Maryland, North Carolina State and Kent State. Princeton's cause is aplastic anemia, the disease that struck tailback Jordan Culbreath. Colgate is supporting the fight against neuroblastoma. Click here for a story about how the initiative began in 2003 at Penn State.