While there are five schools playing FCS level football that go by the abbreviation BU, only two of them begin with the letters Bu – and Dartmouth is playing both.
Enough silliness.
Butler and Bucknell have more in common than the first two letters of their school name. Although Butler is one of the favorites to win the Pioneer Football League, not everyone thinks the Bulldogs or the Patriot League's Bison will put up much of a challenge. That's always dangerous thinking and here's something the doubters might want to consider:No school in the Pioneer Football League had more players chosen to the coaches preseason PFL team than Butler, which had six. (link)
Here's more of a surprise. Although Bucknell has been widely picked to finish in the nether regions of the Patriot League standings, four Bison players were chosen to the All-Patriot first team defense. No other team had more than two.
Overall, Bucknell had five players chosen to the Patriot preseason first team, second in the league. (Ironically, Dartmouth opponent Holy Cross led the PL with six selections.)
Back to the silliness. You were wondering about the three other schools playing FCS football that usual the abbreviation BU weren't you? Dartmouth is playing still another of them – Brown University. The other two? Bryant and Bethune-Cookman.
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Speaking of the Pioneer Football League, The Sports Network has a column about the conference champion receiving an NCAA playoff bid for the first time this fall. From the column:The automatic bid is music to the ears of several programs like San Diego, Jacksonville, Butler and Dayton, who have all had standout seasons in the last four years and received no love from the selection committee.
Now there is something more to work toward, and coaches have noticed a buzz about the campuses and communities because of it.TSN lists "five key games" in the Pioneer League season. It's not a league game so Butler-Dartmouth isn't listed but make no mistake. Should Butler end up representing the Pioneer League in the NCAA's, the result against Dartmouth will be huge because it will be a chance for the committee to assess the Bulldogs against team from an established league. (Even bigger for Butler will be that difficult opener at South Dakota State, which pounded Eastern Illinois in the playoffs last year, 58-10.)
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Still a little more from the Pioneer Football League. These excerpts from the Daytona Beach News-Journal ought to stick in the craw of every advocate for an Ivy League appearance in the playoffs:“Luckily, I'm in a league right now where we have a chance to go to (the playoffs), or at least someone (from the PFL) has a chance to represent us at the national level,” said Stetson coach Roger Hughes, who previously was at Princeton and Dartmouth for nearly two decades. “It's a great addition to the league.
“My experience has been in the Ivy League, where we were the only sport that couldn't go to the playoffs, and I argued quite strongly that we should revisit that policy.”Ouch.
And this . . .
The PFL coaches are more than happy to bring up the league's new automatic bid to the 24-team playoffs when talking to recruits.
“We also have something that we can throw out there that a lot of people we recruit against can't,” said Davidson coach Paul Nichols.
“We find ourselves often in recruiting battles with some of the schools in the Ivy League.”
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A note from a new and (hopefully regular) reader passes along this link reporting that former Princeton linebacker Andrew Starks has signed a three-year contract with the Chicago Bears.
