1996 Dartmouth Football
Sept. 21 – at Dartmouth 24, Penn 22
Sept. 28 – Dartmouth 21, at Lehigh 14
Oct. 5 – at Dartmouth 20, Fordham 7
Oct. 12 – at Dartmouth 35, Holy Cross 7
Oct. 19 – at Dartmouth 40, Yale 6
Oct. 26 – Dartmouth 38, at Cornell 21
Nov. 2 – Dartmouth 6, at Harvard 3
Nov. 9 – at Dartmouth 40, Columbia 0
Nov. 16 – Dartmouth 27, at Brown 24
Nov. 23 – Dartmouth 24, at Princeton 0
That Dartmouth team knew how to win, with four games decided by a touchdown or less and three of them by a field goal or less.
The closest call was in the Week 9 matchup at Brown when Dave Regula's 20-yard field goal with 1:30 left gave the Big Green the lead and the Bears' sure-handed – and future NFL special teams standout – Sean Morey couldn't hold onto a game winning pass in the end zone with nine seconds remaining. The game ended on Brown's 19-yard completion to the Dartmouth 10 on the final play after coach Mark Whipple deemed a 46-yard field goal try unwise.
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Playing for Dartmouth in the 1996 game were outside linebacker Zack Walz and safety Lloyd Lee, who would both make it to the NFL, the former with the Arizona Cardinals and the latter with the San Diego Chargers. Walz played four years and earned a starting role while Lee parlayed his stint with the Chargers into several NFL coaching positions.Graduating Dartmouth senior Niko Lalos, at 6-5, 270 a much larger version of the then 6-4, 210-pound Walz, did a phone interview yesterday on the Upper Valley's 94 ESPN's Brett Franklin Show. Here is a lightly edited version of his remarks while talking with Franklin and co-host Bill Murphy:
Niko Lalos on what it felt like when he got the call from the Giants:
It was great. They reached out to me a lot, pre-draft. We had a bunch of meetings on Zoom because of the coronavirus. Everything was done virtually. I knew it was going to be a good fit. . . . I knew if it came down to it ,that if I had to pick who I wanted to go to as an undrafted free agent, they were at the top of my list. So I was really ecstatic to hear the phone call from them.
On whether the Giants or anyone with the organization might have seen the Princeton game at Yankee Stadium when he had his Pick Six:
I have no idea if anyone was even watching the game. I have definitely had a lot of people from the city of New York reach out to me on social media, but I have no idea if any of them were at that game or not, or if they have any idea that I even played there. It will be pretty interesting to find out.
On whether it was hard getting his name on NFL radar given the pandemic eliminating Pro Days:
Oh, absolutely. Coming from a small school it’s already hard enough to try to make the league, even with a Pro Day, so with this weird pandemic situation I started reaching out to all of the NFL teams that were interested in me at the time. I just kind of got their feedback about what they thought would be beneficial. A lot of them said the drills – the bag drills, and seeing how I move and stuff like that. There’s no real way to cheat those. All the scouts knew that a lot of people are putting on these virtual Pro Days where they would film the 40 and have someone else time it. For whatever reason the class of 2020 had the most sub-4.3 40s ever. I don’t know if that’s just coincidence or people are just clicking the (stopwatch) quicker. They told me just to do bag drills and see how fluid my body moves. They said they got a better understanding from that anyway. That’s pretty much what I did.
How he went about that:
I went to a local field where I had one of my old high school coaches let me in. I used football bags and had a family friend film everything and get the right angles. He was also an undrafted free agent back in the early 2000’s for the Cleveland Browns. He kind of understood what the scouts were looking for and he helped me get the right camera angles so they could get a good understanding for how I move.
On how much he knew about a player's chances of making it to the NFL out of the Ivy League when deciding where to attend college:
Originally when I was picking schools I knew that there were a few Ivy League guys in the NFL, guys like Kyle Juszczyk from Harvard. He actually grew up like 30 minutes for my hometown back in Ohio. And when I got to Dartmouth I was told, Yeah, if you are good enough they will find you. I originally visited Ohio State and Notre Dame but they only gave me preferred walk-on offers. Obviously, they have a very rich history of having many NFL guys but when I talked to some family friends and old teammates who were at those schools, they said, You want to go somewhere where you are wanted, and Dartmouth really wanted me. So I took a visit out there and fell in love with it. I was kind of sold on that they want me. That’s one of the biggest piece of advice that I received; If I’m good enough they will find me. And here we are. Here I am getting a shot to prove it. That definitely rang true.
On the Giants' defensive scheme and how he fits in:
To keep it simple, they kind of see me as an outside linebacker/D-end, out on the edge. The cool part is I don’t always have to put my hand down. I can stay standing up in a two-point stance. The only difference is sometimes I have a pass drop responsibility. Sometimes it’s just like college where I just rush the passer and try to get after the quarterback. Overall, it’s not that different. Two of the coaches on the Giants actually were once players of my D-line coach at Dartmouth (Duane Brooks) way back in the day. There are a lot of similarities in coaching style. That’s one of the reasons why they were really high on my list. I really liked what they were doing from a coaching standpoint, and scheme-wise it wasn’t really much different from Dartmouth. I was like, this is a good fit for me overall.
On playing in cold weather in the long NFL season and how his background in Ohio and at Dartmouth will make that easier:
Oh yeah. I remember in high school when we would get in the playoffs we would pay a local company to come and plow the snow off the field. It wasn’t much different in college either. I remember my junior year there were snow piles at the end of the field for the Brown game. Cold-weather games is not a new thing for me. The funny part is, the defense had a rule that we weren’t allowed to ever wear sleeves no matter how cold it got. I don’t know if it could get any worse, playing in such cold weather and not being allowed to wear sleeves. Weatherwise I’m ready for anything.
On his favorite games at Dartmouth:
There’s so many. The Harvard game, the Brown game, the Princeton game. Even blowing Yale out. But I want to say my sophomore year we were playing Holy Cross and we went into overtime. I always remember that game. I thought that game was so fun because they were a really good team at the time and for us it gave us the confidence my sophomore year to really kind of explode out and have a really good season that year. I think that set a lot of things into motion for the program. It ended up an 8-2 season, then 9-1 and 9-1 again. I think that, right there, was the start, the foundation for an upward trend for the program as a whole. It was just a fun game. I had a lot of fun with those seniors and juniors at the time. That’s probably the one that sticks out that a lot of people don’t talk about anymore.
On bouncing back from the disappointment against Princeton in 2018 to beat the Tigers at Yankee Stadium in another battle of the undefeated, and whether listening to Franklin's call of his Pick Six brought goose bumps:
I can’t lie. It did give me goosebumps. It definitely was very satisfying. I think (in 2018) our team knew that we were a better team and we might’ve not showed that on the field. I think a lot of the guys who were juniors in my class remembered that, and had a really sour taste in our mouths coming into that game at Yankee Stadium. We were like, All right, there are no do overs, but this is one do over that we get, so we might as well make the most of it. I think we showed that. I think everyone on the team, as a whole and individually, played their best game, so it worked out. It was good to get that revenge on a team from a year before because Princeton is a really good team year in and year out.
On what the coming weeks of his NFL career hold:
Obviously, a lot of it has been pushed to remote learning, or virtual meetings and stuff like that. But for me, it is kind of being ready for whatever. Just trying to be in the best shape of my life because we don’t know when they’re going to call us and say, All right, OK, report to the facility. Whenever the NFL makes that decision I just know I need to be ready. Because in this weird situation I . . . just want to make sure I put myself in the best position to hopefully be on the right side when that decision-making is made and it's time to decide who is on the roster and who is not. I’m just trying to put myself in the best position and try to be ready at all times.
Editor's Note: The Brett Franklin Show is scheduled to have corner Isiah Swann on the program Thursday in the noon hour. Check back tomorrow for a link to listen to a streaming interview with the Cincinnati Bengal signee.
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Is this the beginning? Or the end?The 3 Down Nation site reports that the Canada West Conference has voted for a change in its 2020 college football season. The conference, which consists of six schools – the Universities of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Regina, Alberta, Calgary and British Columbia – usually plays an eight-game season that starts at the same time college football starts in the United States.
Per 3 Down Nation, the schedule this year will be reduced to five games starting on the final weekend of September or the first weekend in October.
And the kicker is at the end of this sentence: "The Canada West Conference has voted to approve an amended schedule for the 2020 football season amid the coronavirus pandemic — if it occurs." (LINK)
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Albert Poree, Dartmouth's offensive quality control coach in 2013 and then defensive quality control at Mississippi State, has been named head coach at John F. Kennedy High School in New Orleans. (LINK)
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Once again, you may well be home and have the time to read a lengthy but very interesting story. If so check out what The Ringer wrote about offensive linemen under the headline, It’s Totally an Unhealthy Relationship With Food. And do watch the video where the DIII lineman makes a smoothie. (LINK)EXTRA POINT
Speaking of food, the headlines are filled with news of the meat shortage with several networks grabbing the low-hanging burger (er, fruit) and playing a snippet of the old Wendy's commercial where Clara barks the question, Where's the beef?
That got me thinking about whether the shortage is going to mean big things for the Impossible Burger, which is made without meat.
True story. Several months ago Mrs. BGA and I made a rare fast food stop over in Littleton, N.H., and I took a shot at Burger King's version of the Impossible Burger. I thought it was really quite good and almost indistinguishable from a real burger.
Ah, but a week or two later I went to lunch at a Hanover restaurant with a friend and convinced him to join me in an Impossible Burger. Neither of us thought it was very good at all.
What was the difference? It might have been that Burger King cooked its fake on the same grill it uses for its regular burgers and it soaked up some of the fat and smell of the real thing.
But I rather think it was a matter of expectation. I wasn't expecting much at the fast food joint so I was pleasantly surprised. At a fancier restaurant I was expecting more and so I was disappointed.
Either way, we may all be doing the Impossible in the weeks to come.
