Friday, April 28, 2017

Welcome To The New Frontier


In last night's Ask the Coach post on BGA Premium, Dartmouth's Buddy Teevens offered a few thoughts on out-of-conference scheduling in light of this fall's visit to Stetson and the 2022 game at Army. Clearly, Ivy League scheduling is taking a turn with no fewer than five four games this year against schools from the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League, including Dartmouth's Sept. 16 game in Florida.

The Ivy League-Pioneer Football League schedule for this fall:
Image result for pioneer football league
Sept. 16
Dartmouth at Stetson
San Diego at Princeton
Jacksonville at Penn
Oct. 7
Brown at Stetson
Marist at Columbia

On the Ivy docket for 2018 to date are games featuring Harvard hosting San Diego, Princeton visiting Butler and Columbia heading to Marist.

Dartmouth's trip to Jacksonville is one of four Ivy-PFL games in 2019 with Harvard visiting San Diego, Princeton playing host to Butler and Cornell traveling to Marist.

Dartmouth is scheduled to bring Jacksonville to town in 2020, to visit Valparaiso in 2021, and to entertain Valpo in 2022.

With TBA's dotting schedules from 2018 onward, it's probably a safe bet that there will be even more Ivy-PFL games showing up when the schedules are finalized.
Oops, did that say "non-scholarship" Patriot Football League? Check out this curious quote in a Stetson spring football release from old friend Roger Hughes, the longtime Dartmouth offensive coordinator who landed as head coach with the Hatters after being let go at Princeton (italics are mine):
"It is very frustrating," Hughes said of the constant turnover in the offensive line. "There are three guys who are playing at scholarship schools who should be playing here for us. The reason is that the cost of going to school here is prohibitive. Once we go to scholarships, it will be much easier."
Interesting . . .

Dartmouth football graphic
The Big Green will have a typical Friday walk-through this afternoon in anticipation of tomorrow's Green-White contest. As always, check BGA Premium for coverage.