Season's Greetings From The Great Pumpkin

Linus van Pelt would love it.

If you click the photo you'll see the blazing red of the burning bush alongside our deck contrasts with the late-October snow that fell Thursday. It's 26 degrees this morning.

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Two-star defensive tackle Cody Fullerton of O'Dea High School in Seattle chose Dartmouth on Oct. 5 according to Scout.com. Fullerton is 6-foot-3 and 265 pounds.

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Upstate New York high school senior Dominick DeLucia, 5-9, 195-pound running back who has carried 229 times for 1,855 yards and 21 touchdowns has Dartmouth, Cornell, Princeton and Harvard on his short list according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He attends Pittsford Mendon HS.

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The head coach at Plant High School in Tampa has taken Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens' words to heart when choosing a motto for this year's team. Tampabay.com has a story.

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One of the advantages of playing a nationally ranked team is media attention. The Sports Network's weekend preview has a capsule on Dartmouth-Harvard that includes this:

Dartmouth picked up its first Ivy League win of the season last week in a blowout, 37-0 of Columbia. Limiting Columbia to 148 total yards, the Big Green could use the easy victory to turn around a slow start to the season.

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Harvard's WHRB radio blog has a short preview that predicts Harvard 31, Dartmouth 21.

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A few excerpts from a Harvard Crimson story about whether Collier Winters or Colton Chapple will be at quarterback when the Crimson faces Dartmouth:

In the post-game press conference (last week), Crimson coach Tim Murphy said that Winters was the starter for the rest of the year, and he said it without any reservation.

Should we believe Murphy? I’m not sure. After a season of unsuccessfully trying to predict his next move, I’m thinking about going with tarot cards, though I’m open to basically any kind of divination at this point.

We’ll assume for the sake of argument that Winters is starting tomorrow’s night game against Dartmouth. But I wouldn’t bet the rent on that one.

And . . .

Here’s a week-by-week rundown of the number of points the Crimson has surrendered this year, starting from the first game: 30, 7, 3, 31, 3, 39.

So which defense will show up in tomorrow night’s game? It remains to be seen.

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Roar Lions Roar's Jake Novak cites the pointspread in his preview:

Dartmouth +24 at Harvard

I don't like big spreads in bad weather games. The height of the storm could be blowing at gametime. The Crimson will probably grab this win by 11 to 14 points.

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The Daily Dartmouth has a story under the headline, Big Green has history of success. While the story isn't exclusively about football, it does include this:

One of the most striking transformations to Dartmouth’s athletic makeup has been the changing success of its football team. Although it has won 17 League titles, the most in the League, it has failed to win a championship in nearly 15 years.

The team maintained over two decades of dominance, winning 14 League titles between 1958-1982. Former head coach Bob Blackman, who led the team from 1955-1970, revolutionized the football program by putting a new emphasis on the physical development of players.

Teevens, who led Dartmouth to the 1978 League title as a player, said Blackman “pioneered a training protocol year round.” In addition to a new focus on improving the team’s natural abilities, Blackman also introduced the concept of national recruiting to the League. East Coast student-athletes previously populated the majority of conference rosters, but Blackman’s national mailing campaign attracted recruits from across the country.

DeGange said this expanded recruiting effort is “what really jumpstarted Dartmouth in the ’60s.”

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When surprising 6-2 Georgetown faces a Holy Cross team that has become a Patriot League power the game will pit former Dartmouth assistants Kevin Kelly of the Hoyas against Tom Gilmore of the Crusaders. Kelly mentions their common past in Hanover briefly in a preview story.

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Heading off to Massachusetts shortly to cover the Dartmouth junior varsity game against Harvard. Look for that tonight on Green Alert premium. The Fearful Forecast will be posted in a bit and a Dartmouth-Harvard preview will go up tonight.

Tomorrow morning's blog will include excerpts from Coach Buddy Teevens' answer to Five Questions, the submissions BGA readers made during this week.