Thursday's This And That

It's hard to argue with the success the Penn football program has enjoyed under Al Bagnoli and here are two more examples of that success:

• A story about the incoming recruiting class in the Daily Pennsylvanian notes that 16 of the 18 classes who landed in West Philly prior to the Class of 2015 will have graduated with at least one Ivy League championship ring.

• Penn has won the Football Championship Subdivision Athletics Directors Association (FCS ADA) Academic Progress Award for the highest APR score in the Ivy League.

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Speaking of the APR, Cornell has been recognized by the FCS ADA for the most improvement in the Ivy League.

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Here are the most recent Ivy League football APR scores:

Penn 995
Brown 992
Yale 991
Dartmouth 989
Columbia 986
Princeton 986
Cornell 983
Harvard 983

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Dartmouth's recent APR scores:
2004-05 - 981
2005-06 - 982
2006-07 - 987
2007-08 - 992
2008-09 - 991
2009-10 - 989

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Georgetown was the top Patriot League school in the APR at 979. Fordham was recognized as the most improved.

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The University of New Hampshire, which you keep reading here does things the right way, topped the Colonial Athletic Association with a 982 score. (story)

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Cornell's recruiting class has been announced.

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Brown has "released" a 2011 schedule that shows the first three games of the year will be under the lights: at Stony Brook, at Harvard and home against Rhode Island. Brown's lone night game last year drew an "overflow" crowd of 17,350. The Nov. 12 game against Dartmouth is slated for 12:30 p.m.

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From a Harvard Crimson look back at the school's 2010 football season:

For the fourth year in a row, the Crimson defeated Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth—the first time in program history that any senior class has gone 12-0 against these three schools.

The story also includes this telling quote from Crimson coach Tim Murphy:

“It’s only really in the last decade that anybody has really stepped up and challenged (Penn). They do a lot of things well, but the thing they do better than anyone in the league consistently is play great defense. They’ve won more scoring defense titles than any team in our league in the past 25 years.”

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More from the Harvard Crimson, which in a story about tailback Gino Gordon being named the school's male athlete of the year writes:

Along with Dartmouth junior running back Nick Schweiger, Gordon capped his season by winning the Asa S. Bushnell Cup, given to the Ivy League’s Player of the Year.

“It was great that I was able to win,” Gordon said. “I shared it with another really great running back. I was just grateful for the opportunity to play football here and be successful.”

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Fast Company has named Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim No. 9 in the list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business 2011. President Kim gets bragging rights over good friend Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, who is No. 31.

Interestingly, Dartmouth graduation speaker Conan OBrien comes in at No. 8, one spot ahead of President Kim. Find the entire list here.

Oregon football coach (and former UNH assistant) Chip Kelly comes in at No. 30.

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And finally, some interesting numbers in the quarterback poll over there to the left. (To make it easier to read the results, "drag" over the poll to highlight it.) Voting ends Monday morning.