OK, we all know that Saturday's Dartmouth-Brown football game isn't a season-ending rivalry along the lines of Penn-Princeton (in basketball and geography at least), or Columbia-Cornell (the Empire State Bowl), or Harvard-Yale (just because). No matter how the Ivy League tried to portray it (LINK), Dartmouth and Brown ended up being the red headed stepchildren of the schedule change. (Apologies to all you gingers out there.)
Truth be told, though, Dartmouth and Brown have a pretty fair series going. As a friend pointed out yesterday, the teams have split the last 30 games down the middle with 15 wins apiece. While the Big Green won last year's game handily, there have been some barn burners in the past few years:
2009 - Brown 14, Dartmouth 7 (overtime)
2010 - Brown 35, Dartmouth 28
2011 - Dartmouth 21, Brown 16
2012 - Brown 28, Dartmouth 24
2013 - Dartmouth 24, Brown 20
2014 - Dartmouth 44, Brown 21
2015 - Dartmouth 34, Brown 18
2016 - Brown 24, Dartmouth 21
2017 - Dartmouth 33, Brown 10
While most message board posters and emailers understandably lament the end of the Week 10 series with Princeton (particularly this year) it's not going to come back. From now on it's going to be Brown so deal with it.
I've brought up this idea before but it's worth repeating. At least I think so.
To drum up a little excitement let's give the game a nickname. You know, like the Red River Shootout (Texas-Oklahoma), The Backyard Brawl (Pitt-West Virginia), The Civil War (Oregon-Oregon State), The Rivalry (Lehigh-Lafayette) and my favorite, The Brawl of the Wild (Montana-Montana State).
Here's a suggestion for the game that honors a man important to the programs of both schools as well as the sport of college football: The Tussle.
Why? Because College Football Hall of Famer Tuss McLaughry served as head coach at Brown from 1926-1940 and then moved on to Dartmouth from 1941-1954.And because the man called they called Tuss was much more than just a coach.
In recognition of his service as the longtime secretary-treasurer of the American Football Coaches Association, the AFCA each year presents the Tuss McLaughry Award, which is "given to a distinguished American (or Americans) for the highest distinction in service to others."
Among the winners since the award was instituted in 1964 have been Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Bob Hope, Lyndon B. Johnson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Reverend Billy Graham, Pete Rozelle, Gen. Chuck Yeager, Rudy Giuliani and Tom Osborne. The 2019 award will go to Hall of Fame broadcaster Verne Lundquist. (LINK)
So goodby Princeton, hello Brown, and get ready for The Tussle.
