Memorial Field, The Ivy Race And A Piece Of History

The Dartmouth has a story (LINK) about campus construction projects that includes a mention of the upcoming demolition and rebuilding of the home stands at Memorial Field. The piece includes this quote from Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens:

“It won’t affect my football team in terms of on-the-field stuff, but it will present a much more attractive and current stadium then what we’ve had in the past. I think every school in the league has updated theirs except Dartmouth, and I think it’s absolutely essential — otherwise it’s going to fall down and be condemned.”

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The Sports Network (LINK) breaks conference races this fall into three categories: Ho-Hum, Maybe, Just Maybe, and The Best Races. Want to guess where the Ivy League's race is placed?

Ho-Hum, largely because Harvard's schedule features games against Columbia and Penn teams that are a combined 1-13 before the finale at home against Yale.

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Speaking of TSN, it picks Dartmouth to win at Cornell Saturday. In other Ivy League games it has:

Yale over Brown
Princeton over Penn
Harvard over Columbia

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A Harvard Crimson columnist points out that a decade removed from its last perfect season the Ivy League leaders could be looking at another one. From the pice (LINK):

Now, Harvard is 7-0 for the first time since Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05 led the school on an undefeated 2004 campaign.

To get to 7-0 that year, the Crimson won two one-point games. In 2001, Murphy’s only other unblemished season, Harvard squeaked by Princeton, 28-26, and came back against Brown, 27-20.

There has been no such drama this season.

Harvard has not trailed in a game since September, and its defense has not even allowed anyone to think about a comeback. It’s given up a meager 10.7 points per game, second in the FCS to North Dakota St., the three-time defending national champion that has won its last six games against FBS competition.

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Click graphic to enlarge. 

The Rauner Special Collections Library blog (LINK) had a posting about Dartmouth's Grid-Graph, a 15-foot by 12-foot commercial replica of a football field that was used to recreate football games at Alumni Gym for those who could not make it to away games. The board debuted with the Dartmouth-Brown game on Nov., 10, 1923. Plays were reconstructed from telegraph reports until 1941.

From an Alumni Magazine story:

The number of the down, the number of yards to go, the type of play attempted, whether a rush, forward pass or kick, a fumble, an intercepted pass, and all the other phases of the game are shown on the board by electric bulbs.

The machine weighs nearly a half-ton, and two men are required to operate, one operating the light behind the glass playing field which shows the position of the ball while the other tends the switchboard.

For a 1923  photo of a Grid-Graph at the University of Michigan, CLICK HERE.

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The Rauner Special Collections Library, by the way, is located in the former Webster Hall. The building was transformed thanks to a $5 million lead gift from Bruce Rauner '78 and his family.

Rauner made news Tuesday when he was elected governor of Illinois. Find his bio HERE.