The Best Is Yet To Come?

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has a story about Dartmouth-bound Danny McManus and a teammate at St. Thomas Academy heading off to play college football this month. McManus, of course, is the younger brother of former All-Ivy League receiver Timmy '11, a three-time Dartmouth captain, and All-Ivy receiver Ryan, who will be a junior with the Big Green this fall.

From the story:

Growing up with two older brothers as wideouts, Danny found himself defending them quite a bit in the front yard. 

“It was humbling,” said Danny, who also played varsity hockey at St. Thomas Academy his junior and senior seasons. 

Great quote. Here's an even better one from St. Thomas coach Dave Ziebarth that might give some around the Ancient Eight pause:

“Danny has had two older brothers play at Dartmouth also, and I believe Dartmouth is getting the best of the three in Danny — and the other two are awfully good.”

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Chuck Burton, the majordomo of Lehigh Football Nation, takes an exhaustive look at the Ivy League's decision not to let its football teams go to the NCAA playoffs in his role as publisher and managing editor of College Sports Journal in a story headlined, Plain and Simple, The Ivy Playoff Ban Is Discrimination.

Burton shares a smorgasbord of reasons why the Ivy League ban on playoff participation is wrong. The word he keeps returning to is discrimination.

He might just as well have said indefensible because that's exactly what the ban is.

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Ho hum. The first football game of 2013 on Dartmouth's Memorial Field ended the same way so many of them have ended since the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl began 60 years ago.

Despite completing just one pass, the graduated seniors from New Hampshire ran all over their counterparts from Vermont, 43-0. New Hampshire now has won 13 consecutive games in the series and 23 of the last 25.

Over the past six games the Granite Staters have outscored the Green Mountain boys, 266-66.

Find a story about the first night game in the series here.

A little background . . .

New Hampshire has 56 high schools playing varsity football to 34 in Vermont, classified as the most rural state in the nation until Maine assumed that mantle with the 2010 census.

In an effort to level the playing field, organizers limited New Hampshire to six players from the large school division and required that the same number be chosen from each of the six divisions. Vermont, which has three divisions, could take 18 from Division I, 12 from DII and six from DIII.

New Hampshire could take just two players from any one school while Vermont could take four.

And nothing changed.