Monday, September 15, 2025

Welcome To Game Week

Ivy League previews went up on BGA Overtime last night. On tap tonight: a look at the Big Green's out-of-league opponents.

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Looks like good weather is in store for Saturday's opening game against New Hampshire. From the National Weather Service office in Burlington:

"Seven straight days have passed without measurable rainfall. This streak without rainfall is likely to extend for another week . . .  "

Green Alert Take: Not good for my lawn or well. Great for sitting in the stands at Memorial Field.

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Dartmouth athletic communications continues its positional overview video series with a look at the kicking/punting game and special teams. As per usual, a gently edited BGA transcription of remarks by coach special teams coach Braxton Chapman and kicker Owen Zalc follows the video.

Coach Braxton Chapman

(They are doing) a great job, just working hard. Everything we do is going to be what our players do best, so we're going to make sure we're putting them in the right position to be successful from a technique and fundamental standpoint. Guys have really been locked onto the details, making sure that we build this thing the way that we want to build it. Special teams here – we spent a lot of time on. It's something that from our young guys to older guys everybody wants to be a part of. When you have that type of culture in your special teams and it's important, and the players are bought into our culture, it makes it really easy for me getting the buy-in from the whole team.


Kicker Owen Zalc

There is a sense of urgency, just the desire to be on special teams. I mean we've kind of shaped up to be a program where the benefits of being on special teams are really shown. People fight to be on special teams.


Chapman

Getting to work with Owen, I've seen his mindset and his mentality every single day, and the way that he goes about preparing himself. He’s truly a pro. He has a process. He comes out and he's super competitive. Matisse (Weaver) and Julian (Coviello) also in that room have done a good job of also pushing him. The benefit of the three kickers is they all want to be great, and they all push each other to be great. I think that allows them to have the success that they've had in the past, and will allow them to continue to have success.


Punter Luke Armistead has been doing a great job going into the second year in our program. He’s been working hard. Even last year, when he had to sit behind Davis Golic for a year. He’s done a phenomenal job perfecting his craft.


Zalc

The (goals are) same as last year. Win the ivy championship and move on. Win a playoff game, go as far as we can. I think from a personal standpoint it's similar to last season. I'll just do everything I can. Trust Woods (Ray), my holder, trust the line, trust Andy (Belles) the long snapper. Matisse and Julian are incredible kickers and Luke is an incredible punter.


And then Andy as well. I think we got super duper lucky. I mean, he's an incredible long snapper. He could have gone wherever he wanted, but we're super fortunate that he chose here.  

And like I said we're really deep. We're really experienced. It's really nice having two other juniors kicking with me. I can learn from them. They can learn from me. It's like a mutually beneficial relationship, and I think we all kind of help each other get better.


With Luke being a year (behind) us it's really nice to have some fresh perspective. He’s a great punter. I think I'm still learning stuff from him. We all just kind of help each other out. We watch each other's film, give each other tips, and it's a great relationship we all have.


Coach Chapman has done a great job of making sure everybody's got that sense of urgency. We stay flying around. We keep making special teams a priority and I really think it's gonna shape up well this season.

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The Wise Guys will post odds on Ivy League openers later this week. In the meantime, here's what the computer-driven Sagarin Rating has to say (keeping in mind that Sagarin can be notoriously off base until midway through the season):

• Dartmouth is favored by 1 point at home against New Hampshire 

• Columbia is a 5.5--point underdog at Lafayette

• Brown is favored by 1 point at home against Georgetown

• Yale is a 2-point favorite at home against Holy Cross

• Princeton is favored at home by 7.5 points over San Diego

• Penn is a 5.5-point favorite at Stonehill

• Harvard  is a 17-point favorite at Stetson

• Cornell is a 6.5-point underdog at Albany

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Can you name this grad transfer?


If you guessed Michael Flores '23, you get a gold star. Flores, today a 6-foot-3, 315-pound grad student, arrived in Dartmouth in 2019, but did not play because of injury. He then missed the 2020 season when it was canceled because of COVID-19. He finally got on the field in 2021 and '22 at Dartmouth, before taking a redshirt season at Old Dominion in 2023. He started all 12 games at ODU last fall, and then grad transferred to Louisville, where he has played in each of the first two games, getting 27 snaps in the opening win against Eastern Kentucky.

Flores' older brother John Paul '22, played at Dartmouth and after graduation played at Virginia, Louisville and finally Liberty, where he used his final season of eligibility last fall.

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EXTRA POINT

I had occasion yesterday to remember back when I worked at Dartmouth sports information between newspaper jobs. One of my responsibilities was to take team photos. Getting the Big Green women's cross country team to line up one year was like herding cats. Seeing my frustration, one member of the team stepped up and firmly ordered the runners to stop wasting my time. They promptly fell into line.


The runner who was so helpful to me? Moira Teevens '87, whose older brother you may have heard of. 

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