Tick, Tick, Tick

First it was the New England Small College Athletic Conferece, aka the Little Ivies, announcing that they were canceling conference athletic competition this winter. (LINK) Now it is Bethune-Cookman announcing it is canceling all sports for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. From HBCU Game Day (LINK):

The school announced on Monday that it is forgoing all spring athletic competition, including football as well as men’s and women’s basketball.

A letter from the office of President, Dr. E. LeBrent Chrite, cited COVID-19 concerns as his reason for shutting down athletics through the spring.

“The recent spike in COVID-19 positivity rates in the state, across Volusia County and on our campus provides clear and unambiguous evidence, in our view, that now is simply not the time to resume athletic competition,” he wrote in a statement.

The Ivy League has said no winter sports will begin before Jan. 1, but it hasn't yet made public a decision on if  there will be winter sports. (LINK) 

Green Alert Take: The Ivy League and its athletes are in no-win positions. Although the pandemic trend is troubling at best, the conference clearly does not want to make a rash decision about the winter season (or spring football for that matter). At the same time, there are a lot of Ivy athletes (particularly seniors) who are weighing their options regarding graduation and/or the transfer portal without any idea which way the Ivy League is leaning. The only thing we know for sure is there are no easy answers.

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The Colgate football team will be playing at Stanford in 2022 per the Future Schedules website. (LINK)

While the Raiders are looking forward to playing in Palo Alto in two years, the FCS Schedules site (which is not complete) has Ivy League teams eagerly awaiting out-of-conference contests against noted college football powerhouses Bryant, Central Connecticut, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, Marist, Mercer, Rhode Island, Stetson and VMI. Dartmouth is slated to face New Hampshire, Sacred Heart and Valparaiso.

Colgate, meanwhile, will be playing Stanford, Army, Furman and Maine in 2022. In other Patriot League FBS games in 2022, Fordham will play Ohio, Holy Cross will play Buffalo and Lafayette will visit Temple.

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Yup, another slow day so more Dartmouth records. Today, the school's top-15 single-season rushing performances:

Rank	Name	Year	Yards	Att	Avg	TD	Record
1	Al Rosier ‘91	1991	1432	258	5.6	12	7-2-1
2	Nick Schwieger ‘12	2011	1310	241	5.4	10	5-5
3	Nick Schwieger ‘12	2010	1133	242	4.7	14	6-4
4	Shon Page ‘90	1990	1087	217	5.0	11	7-2-1
5	Dominick Pierre ‘14	2013	1064	214	5.0	13	6-4
6	David Clark ‘90	1989	1063	219	4.9	4	5-5
7	Michael Gratch ‘02	2001	916	194	4.7	6	1-8
8	Greg Smith ‘97	1996	885	224	4.0	10	10-0
9	Dominick Pierre ‘14	2012	830	166	5.0	9	6-4
10	Greg Smith ‘97	1995	826	178	4.6	3	7-2-1
11	John Short ‘71	1970	787	165	4.8	11	9-0
12	Sam Coffey ‘78	1976	764	154	5.0	2	6-3
13	Rick Klupchak ‘74	1972	750	113	6.6	5	7-2-1
14	Jeff Dufresne ‘81	1978	730	190	3.8	8	6-3
15	Alan Rozycki ‘61	1960	725	169	4.3	4	5-4

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EXTRA POINT

As is the case most days, after walking Griff the Wonder Dog at 6 a.m., I turned on the TV to catch the headlines. It was as depressing as ever on both the health and political fronts.

After enduring a few minutes of that I escaped to SportsCenter.

During an ESPN commercial I checked the "guide" and on a whim clicked through to Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. It is a sad, sad state of affairs that while eating my breakfast for the next 15 minutes or so I chose to watch Carol Burnett flirting with Ol' Gomer over switching back to the talking heads.

If it were a little warmer around here I'd be tempted to grab a backpack and head out onto the trail for the next week (or two), as far from TV, radio, internet and newspapers as I could be.