“I could have taken a fifth year at Dartmouth, which was a high possibility for me, because we did have a very good team (coming back). But I just decided that we had a good senior year, and the ultimate goal is to make it to the NFL, and I think playing FBS and playing at a Power Five school will give me better film.”
And this:
Flores is already strong enough to thrive in FBS, (Virginia offensive line coach Garett ) Tujague said. “I think first and foremost the biggest thing he’s going to have to overcome is the speed of the game. The size part is not so much an issue as the speed. But just watching him run and do change of direction, he’ll be fine by the time we get out of fall camp. I think for him the most important thing is to know the playbook inside and out. He’s gone through four years of a word meaning this, and we may have the same word and it means something totally different. So re-training his lingo to our system is important.”
How hard did Virginia recruit the second-team All-Ivy League lineman with two years of FBS eligibility remaining? The story notes that in addition to Tujague, UVa head coach Tony Elliott and offensive coordinator Des Kitchings all flew up from Charlottesville to court Flores over dinner at Molly’s restaurant, a Hanover staple.
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Flores, of course, is just one of the Dartmouth players from the 2021 Ivy League championship team continuing his career at the FBS level. Corner Isaiah Johnson will play at Syracuse, offensive lineman Jake Guidone at Connecticut, linebacker Jalen Mackie at UMass, tight end Robbie Mangas at Buffalo, tight end JJ Jones at New Mexico State and quarterback Derek Kyler at Pitt.
Green Alert Take: There are a lot of FCS fans who look down on the Ivy League because it doesn't compete in the NCAA playoffs. Having seven players from last year's team going on to the FBS really should open their eyes just a little bit.
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Per the NCAA, Dartmouth this fall will be facing one of The top 5 returning FCS running backs in 2022. That would be Sacred Heart's Malik Grant. From the NCAA story (LINK):
Sacred Heart's Malik Grant entered 2021 in a backup role to one of the FCS's premier running backs and Walter Payton Award finalist, Julius Chestnut. Then Chestnut got hurt in the first game of the season, thrusting Grant into a starting role.
There wasn't a drop-off in the slightest. Grant finished the season with 1,347 rushing yards, the fourth-most in the nation, and finished 20th in Walter Payton Award voting. Grant helped lead Sacred Heart to back-to-back NEC championships.
Grant now enters 2022 in a lead-back role, with a full offseason as a starter. He should build off his breakout season.
The 5-foot-9, 200-pound Grant carried 24 times for 92 yards and a 3.8-yard average in Sacred Heart's 41-3 loss in Hanover last fall.
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Signup for Big Green Alert begins officially tomorrow. As has been the case since BGA went online prior to the start of the 2005 season, every full practice as well as every game is covered in person. There will be at least one story posted each night – seven nights a week – from the start of the opponent preview series prior to the start of camp through the finale against Brown on Nov. 19.
For more information or to sign up, visit BGA Premium here.
While you're here, I've made BGA's "oral history" of last year's Ivy League championship-clinching win over Brown that was posted on the night of the game available to everyone. To revisit that game or read about it for the first time, click HERE.
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EXTRA POINT
Late last summer I was parked at our local lake working in our '84 VW Westfalia camper, AKA the BGA Mobile Headquarters, when a couple walking past me stopped and pointed into a towering pine near the water's edge. It turned out there were two bald eagles perched in the top of the tree.
I quickly dug into my computer backpack to pull out my binoculars and camera. Argh! I'd left them home.
Several days ago I returned to the little lake, just about two miles as the crow (or bald eagle) flies. Alas, no bald eagles.
Sitting here in our Vermont hillside home Tuesday morning working on BGA Daily I glanced out the window, typed a few more words and it suddenly hit me what I just saw. It was a bald eagle riding a thermal no more than 25 yards outside my window.
I immediately started frantically looking for my camera. It doesn't have much of a zoom lens, but it's certainly better than my iPod for getting a picture at a distance. While the thermal gently carried the eagle up and slightly away from me I searched all around the BGA home office for my camera, to no avail.
The eagle had drifted off a good distance by the time I finally gave up and shot the picture below with the iPod.
A minute later, with the eagle just a dot in the sky something came to me, and the irony is rich.
Where was the camera? In my computer bag where I'd put it to make sure it was available if the eagles were at the lake when I was working there last week.
