On The Defens(ive)

Welcome to July when we can finally say . . . Dartmouth preseason begins next month ;-)

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At the recent Friends of Football meeting Don Dobes, Dartmouth's linebackers coach and defensive coordinator, offered a brief overview on his side of the football. A full transcript of Dobes' comments can be found on Big Green Alert premium. (Editor's note: If for some reason that front page isn't showing the latest stories, click on the archives and you'll find them there.)

A few excerpts ...

I have been blessed with some guys out there that understand football. And so my whole coaching staff believes in teaching (defense) from the standpoint, “Understand what your opponent's trying to do.”

From a name standpoint, we have nine out of our 11 coming back and we are excited about it.

Up front, we have Eddie Smith returning. He is 6-4, 285. He really dedicated himself in the weight room and we think he has a chance to be one of the top defensive tackles in the league. Next to him is a young man by the name of Royce Egeolu (who) has just gotten better and better.

At the boundary are Connor Phillips and Mick Davis. A great complement there.

Now our question for the fall is who’s going to be our field guy? We call him our rush end. That’s where Charles Bay was last year.

At linebacker we are thin, but blessed. Luke Hussey ... is the epitome of what I look for in linebackers.

Shawn Abuhoff has a chance to be as good a lock down corner as there is in the league.

We have 12 starters (returning) in our mind. Our 4-2-5 package played 330 snaps for us last year.

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There's an interesting thread or two with football predictions growing like weeks on the the Ivy League sports board. Find those threads here and here. It's safe to say there are some anonymous Dartmouth backers doing a lot more crowing than they have in recent years.

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If you thought the installation of FieldTurf mean no more mowing ... you are right. But that doesn't mean there's no field maintenance. Here's a worker earlier this week driving back and forth on the Memorial Field turf, "brushing, aerating, raking and sweeping" if I got it right. In case you are curious, here's a primer on FieldTurf maintenance.