If this video from the Dartmouth football office teaches us anything it's that there were a lot of Big Green fans at Jacksonville who enjoyed the tailgate, and that having a stands on just one side of the field can make a crowd of 2,077 actually look pretty good as long as the camera is facing the right way. If it's not (click photos to enlarge) . . .
But hey, at least there was some pretty comfortable end zone seating . . .
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The Ivy League conference season kicks off this week with the Harvard-Brown and Yale-Cornell games . . . and for those who are regular visitors to this electronic precinct, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. Not sure what that references? CLICK HERE and scroll down.
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Old friend Craig Haley at STATS has his Takeaways from FCS Week 4 HERE. One of those takeaways:
The Ivy League kicked off its season with a 6-2 start. Most impressive was defending champ Princeton scoring 42 first-half points en route to a 49-7 rout of Butler. Quarterback Kevin Davidson was 18 of 21 for 341 yards and three touchdowns, picking up where two-time Ivy offensive player of the year John Lovett left off last November. In contrast to the Tigers' offense, Ivy preseason favorite Yale and Dartmouth, whose only loss was to Princeton last season, impressed defensively in opening wins.•
The Sagarin Ratings continue to change with the Ivy League shaping up this way in all of Division I (last week in parentheses):
110 Princeton (116)
141 Dartmouth (134)
143 Yale (150)
179 Harvard (157)
185 Penn (188)
166 Columbia (196)
215 Cornell (215)
230 Brown (237)
189 Colgate (182)
251 Marist (250)
252 Jacksonville (251)
A total of 256 teams are rated, with Valparaiso last. (Apparently Butler's loss to No. 1 North Dakota State benefited Princeton's ranking after the Tiger win over the Bulldogs and Dartmouth's win over equally toothless Jacksonville wasn't exactly a help. How Columbia jumped so many spots is a mystery, but then so is the whole Sagarin thing ;-)
Sagarin has Dartmouth as a 14-point favorite over Colgate with an 80 percent chance of winning.
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In the FCS, Massey ranks 126 teams and sees Dartmouth and its opponents this way:
8. Princeton
14. Dartmouth
21. Yale
33. Columbia
45. Harvard
48. Penn
68. Cornell
86. Brown
76. Colgate
113. Marist
117. Jacksonville
Hapless Valpo comes in at 126.
Massey has Dartmouth beating Colgate, 28-7, with 92 percent confidence. In case you are wondering, Massey had the Big Green defeating Jacksonville, 45-7. The final, of course, was 35-6.
Elsewhere, Massey sees:
Harvard 34, Brown 10 (94 percent confidence)
Yale 27, Cornell 17 (76 percent)
Columbia 31, Georgetown 10 (91 percent)
Penn 30, Lafayette 10 (90 percent)
Princeton 45, Bucknell 7 (100 percent)
Drake 24, Marist 14 (76 percent)
Jacksonville 35, Ave Maria (88 percent)
Happy fall!
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A reminder that while Dartmouth does not have an official practice today there will be content on BGA Premium as there is every day in the season. Check in tonight for the first The Optimist-The Pessimist of the 2019 season. For those of you who have been with BGA for a while, you've been forewarned. For those of you new to the program, you are in for something different ;-)Happy fall!
