Wednesday, September 17, 2025

A New Name As Things Heat Up

Not at all surprisingly, things are getting busy around BGA land. We start today with news of a new commitment. Thanks to a loyal reader and friend for this tip.

Intending to join the Big Green next year is Roman Sosnovyy, a 6-foot-3, 245-pound lineman from Lyons Township High School and La Grange, Ill. Also a weight man on the track team, the Lyons captain chose Dartmouth over offers from avy, Toledo, Kent State, Cornell and Colgate.

BGA now has come across at least 17 high school seniors who have announced for Dartmouth, some as far back as spring.

What's going on with such early commitments? A reader asked about that for the Questions For Coach column on BGA Overtime. Here's the question and coach Sammy McCorkle's response:

Q: Dartmouth appears to be getting a larger number of commitments from recruits before their senior season in high school. I assume you and your staff encourage this. Does NIL and the increased churning due to the transfer portal play a role in this development? And how do NIL and the portal impact the overall recruiting process in the Ivy League?

A: I wouldn't say NIL has made a difference in that, but definitely the transfer portal has. It has really nerved up high school recruits. The fact is, high school recruiting has been cut in half because a lot of colleges, especially your power fours, are not taking nearly as many high school kids anymore. It's not about development at a lot of schools. Instead, they're taking transfers. So I think a lot of high school kids know they need to be ready to go early somewhere, because those offers aren't going to be there at the end. Everybody's going sooner, and the Ivy League is no different than the rest of the country. We've done a really good job here of getting in front of that.

Find that question and answer in the BGA Overtime posting HERE. 

Editor's Note: BGA Overtime will have its preseason look at the Dartmouth team, a preview of Saturday's opener against New Hampshire, and picks for games featuring Big Green opponents later this week. Added to the site in the past few days have been previews of Ivy League teams, a look at Dartmouth's nonconference opponents, the Questions for Coach column, and a detailed review of the final scrimmage of the camp. If you appreciate the work that goes into the Overtime site – which removed the paywall last year to help spread the word about Dartmouth football – or just enjoy visiting this page each day, please consider helping me keep the work coming by clicking on Griff the Wonder Dog over there on the right. Huge thanks to those who have already helped out. If PayPal isn't your cup of tea, the BGA Overtime page has an address where you can send something along the old-fashioned way if you would like. Thank you, and now back to your regular programming . . . 

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Craig Haley, a former Ivy League beat writer who knows the conference better than any national writer, has his Ivy preview up on The Analyst site. Here's how he sees the league finishing:

Harvard 

Dartmouth 

Yale 

Columbia 

Penn 

Princeton 

Cornell 

Brown 

In his Dartmouth capsule, Haley writes:

 Dartmouth (8-2, 5-2) – Make it two years, two Ivy titles for coach Sammy McCorkle. The Big Green (along with Yale) are one of six programs to have a pair of first-team selections on the Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America Team: OL Delby Lemieux and TE Chris Corbo. Quarterback Grayson Saunier impressed in a midseason stretch, accounting for five TDs in a rally past Yale, and he also will target WR Daniel Haughton. The defense loses four All-Ivy first-teamers, but cornerback Sean Williams (129 tackles, seven interceptions) will be a fourth-year starter. Owen Zalc has delivered clutch kicks while making 30 of 38 field goal attempts.

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In another piece headlined FCS Football Week 4 Preview & Predictions: Villanova Seeks to Slow Monmouth, Robertson; Ivy League Joins the Fun, Haley has this to say (LINK): 

The late-starting Ivy League kicks off its 10-game schedule with intrigue, from having an automatic FCS playoff bid for the first time to a 2026 NFL Draft quarterback prospect leading the preseason favorite (Harvard’s Jaden Craig) to having two straight three-way shares of the title determined on the final day of the regular season. Their teams are at home for perhaps the biggest openers: Dartmouth against No. 25 New Hampshire in the Granite (State) Bowl, Princeton against Pioneer Football League preseason favorite San Diego, and Yale versus a snake-bitten Holy Cross team (0-3) that’s has won a share of six consecutive Patriot League titles.

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Speaking of the FCS playoffs, the Ivy League has added a Football AQ Tiebreaker link to its football webpage. Here's the process for the two more likely scenarios (LINK):

Two-Team Tie

  1. In the case of a two-team tie, the following procedure will be used:
    1. The AQ will be determined based on head-to-head competition. 

Three-Team Tie

  1. In the case of a three-team tie, the following procedure will be used:
    1. The AQ will be determined based on cumulative record against all other teams tied at that spot.
      1. If all three teams have the same cumulative record, move to 2b
    2. The AQ will be determined based on the average ranking of metrics (KPI, ESPN SOR, ESPN FPI, Massey).
      1. If two teams have the same average rankings of metrics, revert to step 1 (two team tie procedure)
      2. If all three teams have the same average rankings of metrics, move to 2c.
    3. The AQ will be determined by a draw conducted by the Executive Director with the AQ awarded to the first team drawn.

Green Alert Take: Granted, it's important to consider every possibility, but it does bring a smile that the Ivy League has even worked up tiebreakers in case six or seven teams tie for the title.

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For what it's worth, the Ivy League football record book has been updated for 2025. Find it HERE.

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The latest from Dartmouth athletic communications:


As usual, BGA is providing a lightly edited transcript for those of us who prefer the written word:
Coach Kevin Bracken
I think the guys are taking this and they're treating it like a pro. That's a lot of things that we talk about in the room – being able to stack days but treat everything like a pro. Not just practice, not just pre-practice, not just in the meeting room, but how intentional are you off the field?

Safety Sean Williams
Day by day we're taking steps to be the best that we can be, raising the standard. I think we're really taking it process driven. We make sure we're focusing on the process day in and day out.

Bracken
I think it all starts with Sean Williams, our captain. It's great to have such a great football player who's an even better human being. Aa guy that exemplifies the core values of this program. So all goes through him. The next guy is Tyson Grimm. He’s a throwback kind of player. He loves being in the trenches. He loves being physical on the perimeter. So he's definitely tenacious out there. Jamal Cooper is a guy that's really the soul of our room. He brings a ton of wisdom and fuels the fire that way. We are excited about Coop.

We have some underclassmen that stepped up in a really big way. Harrison Keith is extremely bright. He's very cerebral in how he plays. Cameron Best-Alston and No’Koi Maddox are two great athletes that are getting better each and every day they take the field. And then finally, Sam Washington and Lou Lamar exemplify what effort means from a defensive perspective.

I’m really excited about those core guys when it comes to Saturdays. And then we have some younger guys that are getting better each and every day in Colter (Vela) and Ethan (Couvertiere ). Overall, very pleased with where the group is headed.

Williams
Supreme confidence, brotherhood, and just attention to detail in everything we do. We make sure we want to be technical assassins and make sure we have everything straight.

Bracken
You know, the corner safeties and nickels, myself and (corners coach Mike) Johnson, they really set that identity, and it starts with the brotherhood. This is an extremely tight-knit group. They play very well together. They're very close on and off the field, and it's really one mind back there. 
The next thing that we talk about is having supreme confidence. First and foremost in ourselves when we take the field, but then in each other. Building that trust is super important. And then the final thing is dominate. We want to dominate every rep. And every rep is a new rep, you know? So, every time we take that snap, it's a new rep and it's a new opportunity to dominate.
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EXTRA POINT

I got home from my hike at about 6:15 last evening and was astonished by the number of contrails crisscrossing the sky over our Vermont hillside home. We are definitely under a flight path that sees a lot of air traffic but this was ridiculous. It was so unusual I took a bunch of photos and, of course, none quite tell the story. It was so unusual, actually, that I went inside and did a news search on my laptop to see if there was something happening that would have sent that many planes overhead in such a short amount of time.


Here's my mildly successful effort at capturing some of what I saw over the BGA World Headquarters. And yes the contrails were crisscrossing each other.



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