Elvis Is Alive?

Lists like these are like those tabloid headlines shouting at you while you wait to pay for your Twinkies and Snapple in the 10 items or less lane at the neighborhood Piggly Wiggly. You know you really shouldn't spend much time looking at them or give them any credence but they are hard to ignore. The unfortunately named College Sports Madness website has a list of what it considers the top 185 FCS recruits for the coming season. How CSM arrived at that number and who belongs in the top 185 isn't detailed, but the list is as hard to ignore as Elvis is Alive and Pretending to be an Elvis Impersonator in Henderson, Nevada! Here then, the incoming Ivy Leaguers on the list along with their rankings:

2 Penn, WR, Cameron Countryman
11 Harvard, LB, Dayne Davis
17 Columbia, LB, Alec Davison
21 Brown, QB, Seth Rosenbauer
23 Yale, DB, Cole Champion
24 Yale, OL, Braden Meador
33 Cornell, TE, Matt Doneth
36 Columbia OL, Austin Stock
39 Harvard, TE, Jameson McShea
47 Columbia, DT, Nikolas Padilla
53 Penn, OL, Jack York
54 Dartmouth, TE Jack Sheehy
57 Columbia, QB, Trevor McDonagh
60 Penn, LB, Tyler Drake   
64 Yale, OL, Ben Killion
73 Dartmouth, QB Dalyn Williams
86 Columbia, DT, Daren Napier
90 Dartmouth, LB, Zachary Slafsky
92 Yale, QB, Eric Williams
106 Dartmouth, DB, Frankie Hernandez
108 Dartmouth, RB, Brian Grove
117 Yale, OL, Dustin Ross
122 Yale, OL, Derrek Ross
125 Penn, QB, Alex Matthews
127 Cornell, OL, Jamie Bradshaw
129 Harvard, OL, Dan Moody
136 Dartmouth, QB, Jonathan DiBiaso
141 Brown, RB, Andrew Coke
142 Dartmouth, WR, K.J. Booze
148 Harvard, QB, Tanner Wrisley
151 Dartmouth, QB, Thomas Militello
157 Penn, QB, Andrew Lisa
160 Princeton, QB, Kedric Bostic
163 Princeton, OL, Joe Graen   
164 Cornell, RB, Luke Hagy
170 Cornell, RB, Conner Armstrong
172 Harvard, WR, Jordan Becerra
175 Princeton, DE, Grayson Fisher

At the risk of giving the list too much credibility – understand that no one, not even the coaches, can be completely sure even about their own recruits until they've had them in camp for a while – what's interesting is that the two new coaches would seem to have enjoyed surprising success on the recruiting trail. Columbia's Pete Mangurian has five of the top 17 Ivy League recruits in this survey and Yale has six of the top 23. If the list is to be believed, Brown and Princeton did not fare particularly well. Dartmouth leads the pack with eight players listed.

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Watching yesterday's Dartmouth practice I saw the perfect play for a coach. Quarterback Alex Park dropped back and was "whistled" for a sack by John Golio just as he let the ball fly down the right sideline. Perhaps 40 yards down the field Robbie Anthony caught the ball for a "touchdown" despite being tightly covered. Why was it a perfect play? Because both the offense and the defense did a terrific job on the same play. Golio got to the quarterback. Park stood in and delivered a strike. The defender didn't quite get the breakup but he was right where he should have been. And Anthony made a nice catch.

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Contrast that Dartmouth play with this from Columbia's Mangurian in his latest blog:

The one thing to keep in mind as you read my comments are, as a head coach it’s never great when one side does well it means the other side did something poorly.

Mangurian's writing, by the way, offers a really terrific insight not just into the Columbia program, but also into the mindset of a football coach, in this case one who has a reputation for being very demanding. This is absolute gold from a coach:

. . . (O)ur goals as a staff, may not be what yours are as a fan. There are seemingly successful plays that are a series of bad technique and execution. This game has so many moving parts that once in a while, ” a blind squirrel does find an acorn”, as fans we cheer, as coaches we realize it’s not good enough for sustained success.

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If you've been following the writings of Yale softball player Chelsea Janes in the Yale Daily about the problems with the Yale athletic program, you might want to catch her on the Varney & Co. show on FOX Business next Tuesday. Earlier this week Janes wrote about an in depth piece about "the arguments upon which the calculated destruction of the Yale athletic tradition have been based." The show runs from 9:20-11 a.m.

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No one, repeat, no one is having a better spring practice at Dartmouth than corner Chase Womack. After missing most of last year with a foot injury, he has been a dominant presence. Still, he's in the shadow of a real star. That would be his sister, Joy. Don't believe it? Check out this report on her from MSNBC.

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It's an off day for the Big Green football team. BGA Premium will have another full practice report after tomorrow's practice.