The Manchester Union Leader has a brief story HERE and UNH sports information has a story HERE.
Here are the Dartmouth schedules for the next four years and what is publicly available for the five ensuing years:
2019
Sept. 21 at Jacksonville
Sept. 28 vs. Colgate
Oct. 5 at Penn
Oct. 12 vs. Yale
Oct. 19 at Marist
Oct. 26 vs. Columbia
Nov. 2 at Harvard
Nov. 9 vs. Princeton
Nov. 16 vs. Cornell
Nov. 23 at Brown
2020
Sept. 19 vs. Jacksonville
Sept. 26 at Towson
Oct. 3 vs. Penn
Oct. 10 at Yale
Oct. 17 vs. Marist
Oct. 24 at Columbia
Oct. 31 vs. Harvard
Nov. 7 at Princeton
Nov. 14 at Cornell
Nov. 21 vs. Brown
2021
Sept. 18 at Valparaiso
Sept. 25 Sacred Heart
Oct. 2 at Penn
Oct. 9 vs. Yale
Oct. 16 at UNH
Oct. 23 vs. Columbia
Oct. 30 at Harvard
Nov. 6 vs. Princeton
Nov. 13 vs. Cornell
Nov. 20 at Brown
2022
Sept. 17 vs. Valparaiso
Sept. 24 at Army
Oct. 1 vs. Penn
Oct. 8 at Yale
Oct. 15 vs. UNH
Oct. 22 at Columbia
Oct. 29 vs. Harvard
Nov. 5 at Princeton
Nov. 12 at Cornell
Nov. 19 vs. Brown
2023
Sept. 16 at UNH
2024
Oct. 19 vs. Central Connecticut
2025
Sept. 20 vs. UNH
2027
Sept. 25 at UNH
Oct. 16 at Central Connecticut
2028
Sept. 23 vs. UNH
To get your juices flowing for the UNH series, here are the highlights from Dartmouth's historic 22-21 win against the Wildcats in 2016:
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With the improving fortunes of Ivy League football that played a part in Dartmouth renewing its series with UNH, the push to eliminate the unjustifiable NCAA playoff ban is gaining momentum. To that end, here's a reprise of something that appeared on this site a couple of years ago:Working on an essay for the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia some years back, I asked some very important people to please explain the ban on postseason play for Ivy League football teams. The answer I got most frequently was the telephone equivalent of a blank stare. In the end I got two unsatisfactory explanations. One was along the lines of, "That's the way it's always been." The other?
Ivy League rules prohibit it.
Let me see if I can simplify the second explanation for you. It's against the rules because the Ivy League rules prohibit it.
As silly as that is, it seems it might be wrong.
A good friend of BGA who has been doing some digging found a copy of the Ivy Manual online. Flip ahead to page 159 where the text of the Presidents Agreement of 1954 starts and read away. When you get to page 161 you'll find this:
The members of the Group shall not engage in post season games or any other contests designed to settle sectional or other championships. (NOTE: National Collegiate Athletic Association, Eastern College Athletic Conference, A.A.U. competitions and international competitions such as the games, meets and matches with Oxford and Cambridge Universities shall not be considered as post-season games or contests within the meaning of the above rule.)Here's what it says to me: Postseason bowl games to determine a "mythical national championship" (Rose Bowl, etc.) are prohibited.
Postseason games to determine an NCAA championship are not prohibited.
If that's the case, Ivy League teams should be allowed by rule to appear in the NCAA FCS football playoffs, and allowing every last Ivy League sport except football to go on is indefensible.
BGA Take: As a lawyer friend explained, there's enough ambiguity in the Presidents Agreement to allow the Presidents to weasel out of (prohibiting) football participation in NCAA playoffs. Of course, the rules in the Agreement are hardly written in stone. Here are several that have been rewritten, with my thoughts in italics:
Football schedules shall not be made more than two years in advance of the current calendar year. (Dartmouth's schedule through 2022 can be found HERE.)
No football practice shall take place at any time except during the fall season (What was it I covered for 12 practices in the spring?)
No student shall be eligible for a varsity team until he has completed satisfactorily an academic year’s work at the institution he is to represent. (There are now freshmen who play in a game before ever sitting in on a class.)
Football practice for all institutions in the Group shall start not earlier than a date to be agreed upon each year by the Administrative Committee, which may not be earlier than September 1 in any year. (Practice for all schools begins in August.)
The coaches and players of institutions in the Group shall not participate in clinics for secondary school coaches or players (Football camps are held on campus.)Thoughts?
Here's mine: In summers when I was a kid we had to sit on the beach for an hour after eating lunch, watching the clock and begging to go back in the water. The belief in those days was if we went right back in the water after eating we might get a cramp and drown. That, of course, ended up being hogwash. I've thought ever since that my mother actually owed me about a year worth of swimming. Well, I think the Ivy League owes every football player who won a championship since the start of the NCAA playoffs in 1978 a chance they'll never get and that's too bad. The time has come to let Ivy League football teams test the water just like every other Ivy League team.
End soapbox (for today).
