Year Of The Quarterback???

With Dartmouth opening the Ivy League season Saturday night against Penn could there be a little quarterback controversy brewing in Philly? A columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian writes:

Though the Quakers are just two games into the season, junior quarterback Billy Ragone isn’t giving his team a chance to win, and it’s time to make a switch.

That doesn’t necessarily mean benching Ragone altogether, which the coaching staff would never dream of doing, anyway.

But it does mean incorporating sophomore quarterback Ryan Becker into the offense consistently, as he was last season.

Speaking of quarterbacks, the Harvard Crimson has a story about how backup QB Colton Chapple led the Crimson to a key win over Brown last Friday night in the rain.

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In case you are wondering, the Ivy League's alleged Year of the Quarterback hasn't exactly worked out that way so far. That's something we discussed last night when we were recording the latest Green Alert podcast, which will be posted laster today. That sent me scurrying to the NCAA statistics this morning.

Here's how the Ivy League QBs rank after two games in nine statistical categories. (For comparison I've included in italics the two Patriot League quarterbacks on Dartmouth's schedule and the top quarterback in the Patriot League.)

Completion percentage
1. Pat Witt, Yale - 73.4
-- Gavin McCarney, Colgate - 65.77
2. Jeff Mathews, Cornell - 64.1
-- Chris Lum, Lehigh - 63.41
-- Ryan Taggart, Holy Cross - 61.1
3. Collier Winters, Harvard - 61.0
4. Colton Chapple, Harvard - 57.7
5. Kyle Newhall-Caballero, Brown - 56.2
6. Tommy Wornham, Princeton - 51.4
7. Sean Brackett, Columbia - 47.9
8. Billy Ragone, Penn - 46.9
9. Conner Kempe, Dartmouth - 46.8

Completions Per Game
-- Lum, Lehigh - 26.00
1. Newhall-Caballero, Brown - 25.00
1. Winters, Harvard - 25.00
3. Witt, Yale - 23.50
4. Mathews, Cornell - 20.50
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 19.33
5. Wornham, Princeton - 19.00
-- McCarney, Colgate - 18.25
6. Brackett, Columbia - 17.50
7. Chapple, Harvard - 7.50
8. Ragone, Penn - 11.50
9. Kempe, Dartmouth - 11.00

Pass Efficiency
1. Witt, Yale - 165.13
-- Lum, Lehigh - 161.59
2. Mathews, Cornell - 149.30
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 144.71
3. Chapple, Harvard - 142.26
4. Winters, Harvard - 121.61
-- Gavin McCarney, Colgate - 118.32
5. Newhall-Caballero, Harvard - 117.22
6. Kempe, Dartmouth - 100.35
7. Brackett, Columbia - 98.30
8. Ragone, Penn - 95.80
9. Wornham, Princeton - 95.55

TD Passes
-- Lum, Lehigh - 16 (4 games)
1. Witt, Yale - 5
2. Newhall-Caballero - 4
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 4 (3 games)
3. Mathews, Cornell - 3
3. Brackett, Columbia - 3
-- McCarney, Colgate - 3 (4 games)
5. Kempe, Dartmouth - 2
5. Wornham, Princeton - 2
5. Winters, Harvard - 2
5. Chapple, Harvard - 2
9. Ragone, Penn - 1

Interceptions
1. Kempe, Dartmouth - 0
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 0 (3 games)
2. Chapple, Harvard - 1
2. Witt, Yale - 1
4. Winters, Harvard - 1
5. Newhall-Caballero, Brown - 3
5 . Mathews, Cornell, 3
-- McCarney, Colgate - 3 (4 games)
7. Brackett, Columbia - 4
7. Ragone, Penn - 4
7. Wornham, Princeton - 4
-- Lum, Lehigh - 6 (4 games)

Passing Yards Per Game
-- Lum, Lehigh - 357.8
1. Mathews, Cornell - 301.5
2. Newhall-Caballero, Brown - 280.5
3. Winters, Harvard - 265
4. Witt, Yale - 263
-- Ryan Taggart, Holy Cross - 0 (3 games)
5. Brackett, Columbia - 207.5
6. Chappel, Harvard - 207
7. Wornham, Princeton - 203
8. Ragone, Penn - 170.5
-- McCarney, Colgate - 3 (4 games)
9. Kempe, Dartmouth - 110.5

Yards Per Attempt
1. Mathews, Cornell - 9.42
-- Lum, Lehigh - 8.73
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 8.31
2. Witt, Yale - 8.22
3. Chapple, Harvard - 7.96
4. Ragone, Penn - 6.96
5. Winters, Harvard - 6.50
6. Newhall-Caballero, Brown - 6.30
-- McCarney, Colgate - 5.84
7. Brackett, Columbia - 5.68
8. Wornham, Princeton - 5.49
9. Kempe, Dartmouth - 4.70

Yards Per Completion
1. Ragone, Penn - 14.71
2. Mathews, Cornell - 14.71
3. Chapple, Harvard - 13.80
-- Lum, Lehigh - 13.76
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 13.60
4. Brackett, Columbia - 11.86
5. Newhall-Caballero - 11.22
6. Witt, Yale - 11.19
7. Wornham, Princeton - 10.68
8. Winters, Harvard - 10.60
9. Kempe, Dartmouth - 10.05
-- McCarney, Colgate - 8.88

Yards Rushing Per Game
-- McCarney, Colgate - 106.8
1. Ragone, Penn - 42.0
2. Brackett, Columbia - 22.5
-- Taggart, Holy Cross - 21.0
-- Lum, Lehigh - 12.75
3. Winters, Harvard - 11.0
4. Mathews, Cornell - 6.5
5. Chapple, Harvard - 6.0
6. Wornham, Princeton - 0.5
7. Kempe, Dartmouth - 1.0
8. Witt, Yale - (-)5.5
9. Newhall-Caballero, Brown - (-)6.5

A few notes: Harvard's Colton Chapple has appeared in two games but did not throw a pass in the first so his stats have been reworked to be representative of his quarterback play. Teammate Collier Winters, who was 25-for-41 for 265 yards against Holy Cross, does not show up at all in the NCAA's stats for Harvard, but Dartmouth's Andy Gay, who has thrown four passes and completed two, does appear in the NCAA stats. That's because the NCAA requires a player to participate in 75 percent of his team's games to be included. Because of that silliness I had to insert Winters into the stats and I chose to leave out Gay, whose attempts are too small a sampling to be representative.)

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Missed tackle after missed tackle let the Northeast Conference team win knock off the Ivy League team. Sacred Heart over Dartmouth? No, Albany over Columbia. A Columbia Spectator story has an eerily familiar ring.

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Princeton now has the third longest losing streak in the country. Here's the top five:

1. Valparaiso 23
2. Mississippi Valley 15
3. Princeton 10
4. VMI 8
5. Three tied 5

And a little further down:
11. Colgate 3
11. Columbia 3

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Not sure what to make of this from the Harvard Crimson but it certainly was bizarre:

The artistic folk aren’t normally the kind to make a big splash at a football game.

But at Friday night’s football game, a pair of on-field performances caught the attention of the 18,565 in attendance.

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From Science Daily (a source not usually reported on this blog ;-)

A new study reports that running backs and quarterbacks suffer the hardest hits to the head, while linemen and linebackers are hit on the head most often. The researchers measured head blows during games and practices over three seasons at Brown University, Dartmouth College, and Virginia Tech.

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Teams of interest receiving votes in The Sports Network/Fathead.com FCS Top-25 College Football Poll:
No. 32 Holy Cross
No. 39. Yale
No. 60 Harvard

In the FCS Coaches Poll:
No. 30 Holy Cross
No. 43. Harvard
No. 45 (tie) Penn

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Penn week coverage begins tonight on Green Alert Premium with a few reflections on Saturday's loss at Sacred Heart and a look at today's practice.