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The offshore wise guys have spoken and here's what they said to start the week:
Dartmouth is favored over Brown by 16.5 points at Fenway Park.
Yale is favored by 1.5 points at Princeton.
Harvard is favored by 3 points at home against Penn
Columbia is favored by 4 points at Cornell
If those games go that way, Yale will clinch at least a share of the title and enter the final week of the season alone in first place in the standings with Dartmouth, Harvard and Columbia still in the mix. Princeton, Penn and Cornell would be eliminated.
Harvard would then be able to earn a share with a win at Yale on the final Saturday. If that happens, Dartmouth could grab a piece with a win over Princeton in Hanover and Columbia could join the party with a win over Brown in New York City.
Elsewhere among Dartmouth opponents, the wise guys have . . .
Holy Cross and Lehigh as a pick 'em in Bethlehem
Jacksonville as a 13.5 point favorite at Stetson
St. Francis as an 11 point favorite over Sacred Heart in Loretto
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GoLocalProv has a few notes on the Dartmouth-Brown game at Fenway Park Friday night. Included is this quote about the Big Green from Brown coach Phil Estes:"They are a good football team, they are very good defensively, they are the second-best defense in the league, Yale is number one and they are a close second. Offensively, they have a very good back, their skill is very good, they have very good wide receivers. They can throw the ball around and also move it with the run game."
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Northeast teams in the latest STATS poll:12. Stony Brook
18. New Hampshire
27. Monmouth
31. Yale
33. Villanova
38. Dartmouth
40. Columbia
Green Alert Take: After years of getting the benefit of the doubt from the voters it is interesting that Harvard, which actually beat Dartmouth and Columbia, doesn't appear in the poll.
Coaches Poll:
15. Stony Brook
16. New Hampshire
22. Monmouth
30. Villanova
T-33. Dartmouth, Yale
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WEEI Radio has an interview with Matthew Slater, the six-time NFL Pro Bowl special teams player now in his 10th year with the New England Patriots. CLICK HERE to listen to the report titled, Matthew Slater on the Patriots upcoming road trip and a odd story on how he chose his college. (Good luck trying to make sense of the computer generated transcript accompanying the sound file.)Slater, many of you might remember, originally was headed to Hanover. Asked during the WEEI interview about his college choice (he ended up at UCLA) he says "I actually committed to Dartmouth out of high school." He goes on to say:
"The thing that really jumped out to us was the opportunity to receive one of the best educations that this country has to offer."Ultimately, he tells the interviewers, Hanover was just too far from his Anaheim home.
Slater's story is told in Chris Lincoln's groundbreaking book, Playing the Game: Inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League. (LINK)
Here's the ironic thing for Dartmouth football fans: Slater's wife, Dr. Shahrzad Ehdaivand, earned her medical degree from Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. (She's also a Brown graduate.)
