Weekend Recap

The Daily Dartmouth recaps the Dartmouth-Princeton game.

The Daily Princetonian also has a story and there's another in the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

From a column in the Daily Dartmouth:

It hasn’t yet been decided, but co-captain Nick Schwieger ’12 has to be the Ivy League Player of the Year. I have been touting Schwieger as the clear-cut MVP all season, but you never know how the voting turns out. Whatever happens, Schwieger certainly has my vote. With 1,310 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns this season, he has arguably outdone his 2011 co-Player of the Year performance.

Green Alert Take: Schwieger should absolutely be one of the finalists but he's going to be in a battle with Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews (Ivy League records for passing yards in a season and a game, 25 TDs, 11 ints, 67.9 percent completions overall). And if there's any justice, Harvard quarterback Collier Winters should be in the conversation. Winters came back from injury and in five Ivy League games completed 70.1 percent of his passes with 11 touchdowns and two interceptions while averaging 265.8 yards per game through the air. He also averaged 52.4 yards per game on the ground while helping the Crimson win the Ivy League title with an undefeated record.

One problem for Winters will be that he appeared in just five of seven games (71.4 percent) and doesn't show up in the official Ivy stats because they require a player to appear in 75 percent of games. In other words, you can only miss one Ivy game. Here's how he would fit in the stats if he were included:

Ivy League passing leaders (Ivy games only):
1. Jeff Matthews, Cornell 197-273 (72.2%), 18 TD, 6 int, 365.0 ypg
(Collier Winters, Harvard 104-147 [70.1%), 11 TD, 2 int, 265.8 ypg)
2. Pat Witt, Yale 146-219 (66.7%), 11 TD, 9 int, 242.6 ypg
3. K. Newhall-Caballero, Brn 162-265 (61.1%), 11 TD, 7 int, 233.1 ypg)
4. S. Brackett, Col. 107-213 (50.2%), 10 TD, 7 int, 207.5 ypg) 6 games
5. Billy Ragone, Penn 111-194 (57.2%), 10 TD, 7 int, 187.1 ypg)

Looking ahead to All-Ivy voting, Yale running back Alex Thomas is another victim of the 75 percent rule. Although he is third in the Ivy League in total rushing yards, he doesn't show up in the statistics because he appeared in just four games. Based on yards per game, here's where he would fit in.

Ivy League rushing leaders (Ivy games only):
1. Nick Schwieger, Dartmouth, 179-923, 131.9 yards per game
(Alex Thomas, Yale, 69-463, 115.8)
2. Chuck Dibilio, Princeton, 159-815, 116.4
3. Treavor Scales, Harvard, 120-627, 89.6
4. Mark Kachmer, Brown, 82-434, 72.3 (six games)
5. Mordecai Cargill, Yale, 95-424, 60.6

Clearly, the numbers for Thomas skew a little bit because he missed three league games, but it's hard to ignore his total yards in just four appearances.

All-Ivy voting is taking place today. Should be interesting when the team comes out.

Green Alert Take: The Ivy players of the year will be announced Dec. 5 at the The National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame dinner in New York City. Two offensive and two defensive finalists will be present. The guess here is that on the offensive side it will be Schwieger and Mathews. Defense is a crapshoot but Harvard's Josue Ortiz (league-leading 8 sacks with 30 tackles in Ivy play at defensive tackle) has been widely heralded and Princeton's Caraun Reid (6 sacks with 52 tackles in Ivy play) was impressive Saturday.

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The Columbia Spectator writes about the dismissal of head coach Norries Wilson.

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Your weekly Sagarin Ratings with last week's ratings in parentheses and Saturday's result:

122. Harvard (124) - beat Harvard
160. Brown (142) - lost Columbia
188. Yale (182) - lost Harvard
190. Cornell (197) - beat Penn
198. Dartmouth (195) - beat Princeton
204. Penn (199) - lost Cornell
231. Princeton ( 232) - lost Dartmouth
235. Columbia (241) - beat Penn

Non-League Opponents
163. Holy Cross (156) - beat Fordham
193. Colgate (202) - beat Bucknell
224. Sacred Heart (226) - lost Albany

246 teams rated

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And finally, I stumbled across pictures from the Lehigh-Lafayette game that drew 16,013 this year and couldn't help but feel badly that Dartmouth doesn't have a real end-of-year rivalry game. This will not be popular with a Certain Message Board Poster who pushes Dartmouth-Princeton, but that's based on his career in the early '90s. Unfortunately, unless one or the other is playing for the title, Dartmouth and Princeton will never be real rivals for one important reason. Princeton cares a lot more about playing Yale and Harvard.

Unfortunately for Princeton, the Tigers will always be on the outside looking in when it comes to a real rival for either Harvard or Yale because we all know why they care about.

Which brings me to an it-will-never-happen rivalry plan. Keeping in mind that Cornell-Penn has a little zing to it (but not much) here's how I'd rework the schedule for Week 10 of the Ivy League season:

Harvard-Yale
Princeton-Penn
Columbia-Cornell
Dartmouth-Brown

Harvard-Yale is a natural.
Princeton-Penn is a border war.
Columbia-Cornell is the New York state championship
Dartmouth-Brown, is uh, um, the Color War? (Brown-Green)

It's too bad that there's really no hook for Dartmouth-Brown, but maybe that's the hook. I think the other three work nicely.

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Tonight on BGA premium, the final Optimist-Pessimist. The final podcast of the year will be posted tomorrow and either later this week or early next week BGA will have compiled jayvee stats and a few observations. A look at the early decision recruiting class for Dartmouth will be posted when that information becomes available next month.