A story on the WTOP radio web page out of Washington, D.C., includes this:
At Dartmouth, head coach Buddy Teevans (sic) has eliminated player tackling entirely from practice, leading the way in the Ivy League. The league as a whole changed kickoff rules to help curb brain injuries to notable effect, but Teevans’ (sic) system has yet to catch on across the college ranks, despite success on the field (the Big Green were 9-1 last year).Green Alert Take: The story could have noted that Dartmouth has gone 17-3 over the last two years or 38-12 over the last five.
The story, which references Terry O'Neill's Practice Like Pros philosophy, includes this anecdote regarding a meeting with New Jersey high school coaches who had been pushing to tackle more than the recently mandated 15 minutes a week:
. . . Drew Gibbs, head coach at (New Jersey's) Ramapo High School — who had just navigated a perfect 13-0, state title-winning season — told those assembled that his team hadn’t had any tackling in-season during that campaign.
“All the air sucked out of that room for a second and everybody said, ‘I guess 15 is plenty,’” said O’Neil.
•
FootballScoop predicts the ESPN Saturday morning staple GameDay will have Lee Corso donning the head from an Ivy League mascot in a broadcast from an Ancient Eight campus once this fall. Wanna guess which one? CLICK HERE to find out. Hint: It's not the same venue as the last time GameDay visited the Ivies.
•
Harvard has posted its recruiting class HERE.
•
With Merrimack College in Andover, Mass., joining the FCS and Northeast Conference football ranks this fall, is it only a matter of time until Ivy League teams join the ranks of the Warriors' opponents like North Dakota's Mayville State, Virginia-Lynchburg and New Hampshire's own Franklin Pierce? Merrimack has posted its first DI schedule HERE.
•
A reminder that Dartmouth's (no-tackling) Green-White scrimmage is set for tomorrow at 10 a.m. on Memorial Field. BGA Premium had a few thoughts about the scrimmage last night and will have full coverage tomorrow evening.
•
Following up on yesterday's note about Dartmouth and the Academic Progress Report (APR) rankings, the Big Green would have had even more than it's nation's best 18 teams recognized but for the fact that nine of the school's 35 teams were not counted because they are not NCAA championship sports.
•
And finally, rushing out a BGA Daily post before hurrying out to a meeting and making a dumb mistake yesterday (circling the wrong football field) provided a reminder that there are actually people out there visiting this electronic precinct. Thanks to all of you – including Mrs. BGA – who pointed out my mess-up.Green Alert Take: One of the nice things about working online compared to my old newspaper gig is when I do something really dumb like that I can go back in and fix it. When I was still an "ink-stained wretch of the Fourth Estate" my mistakes taunted me until they ended up wrapped around a fish somewhere. All these years after my stint as sports editor at a central Pennsylvania daily I shudder at the memory of the headline I wrote about "Fernando Venezuela." Argh!
