I hope that moms of players on the Dartmouth and Princeton football teams staged an intervention last night, commandeering the remote and and making their sons sit through a Hallmark Christmas movie instead of letting them tune in to the Maine-Weber State NCAA playoff game on ESPN2.
Because if the players on what might well be two of the best Ivy League teams in almost a half century – and clearly two of the best defenses in the nation – saw the game they could be in a funk until at least the start of spring football. We all knew it before but watching the smashmouth game Maine won, 23-18, it was abundantly clear the Tigers and Big Green, who deserved to be in the mix, belong in the mix.Maine held Weber State to minus-one rushing yard, had 13 tackles for loss and with the game on the line ended three fourth-quarter possessions in a row with interceptions. That's the same Maine team, you should know, that lost at Yale in September, 35-14. The same Maine team that now is headed to the national semifinals while Dartmouth and Princeton, which both handily defeated Yale in New Haven, are stuck watching The Mistletoe Promise because the Ivy League presidents deny football players the same opportunity every other Ivy League athlete is entitled to.
Colgate's football team will be on the national stage at noon today. The Raiders figure to have their hands full against North Dakota State on ESPN but at least they have a chance to live out their dream by playing the six-time national champions in the frenzied Fargodome.
It sure beats watching a rerun of Christmas in Evergreen.
•
The Sun Chronicle out of Attleboro, Mass., has a lengthy look at all-time Dartmouth rusher Nick Schwieger's career and what he's doing these days after his induction into the college's Wearers of the Green. (LINK)
