Tuesday, May 05, 2026

Challenging Schedule? Yup

Three Dartmouth opponents show up in a StatsPerform story headlined It’s Not Early Anymore: Craig Haley’s 2026 FCS Football Preseason Top 25 Rankings. Here are those rankings, with info Haley has dug up on Big Green opponents Lehigh, Yale and Monmouth included (LINK):
1. Montana State (14-2, 8-0 Big Sky)
2. Montana (13-2, 7-1 Big Sky)
3.South Dakota State (9-5, 4-4 MVFC)
4. Illinois State (12-5, 5-3 MVFC)
5. UC Davis (9-4, 6-2 Big Sky)
6. Rhode Island (11-3, 8-0 CAA)
7. Villanova (12-3, 7-1 CAA)
8. Tarleton State (12-2, 7-1 UAC)
9. North Dakota (8-6, 5-3 MVFC)
10. Youngstown State (8-5, 5-3 MVFC) 
11. Lehigh (12-1, 7-0 Patriot)
    •  Key Players: QB Hayden Johnson, RB Luke Yoder, S Nick Peltekian
    • 2 Pivotal Games: at Holy Cross (Aug. 29), at Villanova (Oct. 24)
    • 1 Number to Know: The Mountain Hawks ranked No. 1 in the FCS in rushing yards  allowed, surrendering just 70.1 yards per game. 
12. Southern Illinois (7-5, 4-4 MVFC)
13. South Dakota (10-5, 6-2 MVFC)
14. Austin Peay (7-5, 4-4 UAC)
15. Lamar (8-5, 5-3 Southland)
16. Stephen F. Austin (11-3, 8-0 Southland)
17. Tennessee Tech (11-2, 8-0 OVC-Big South) 
18. Yale (9-3, 6-1 Ivy)
    • 3 Key Players: QB Dante Reno, WR Jaxton Santiago, FS Abu Kamara
    • 2 Pivotal Games: Rhode Island (Oct. 17), Harvard (Nov. 21)
    • 1 Number to Know: The Bulldogs have posted four straight wins over archrival Harvard, with the last three preventing the Crimson from collecting an outright Ivy League title. 
19. Southeastern Louisiana (9-4, 7-1 Southland)
20. Abilene Christian (9-5, 7-1 UAC)
21. UT Martin (6-6, 6-2 OBV-Big South)
22. Western Carolina (7-5, 6-2 SoCon)
23. Jackson State (9-3, 7-1 SWAC) 
24. Monmouth (9-3, 6-2 CAA)
• 3 Key Players: QB Frankie Weaver, LB Charlie Sasso, DB Jaeden Jones
• 2 Pivotal Games: at Tennessee Tech (Aug. 29), at New Hampshire (Oct. 17)
• 1 Number to Know: The Hawks’ FCS-leading 498.7 offensive yards per game marked their second consecutive season with a program high. 
25. Idaho State (6-6, 5-3 Big Sky)
Green Alert Take: Ivy League nonconference scheduling is widely criticized for not being challenging, but don't blame Dartmouth this fall, with two of the three nonconference opponents in this top-25 compiled by the leading writer about FCS football. 

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Is there something you've been wondering about Dartmouth football? This is your chance to have Dartmouth head coach Sammy McCorkle answer your questions, not mine.

The BGA Overtime plan is to build Thursday's practice report around a Q&A with your questions, but that can only happen if the questions come in. To submit yours, click HERE. That will create a blank email to me with the subject line Questions for Coach. Then just ask away. I'll pose the questions to McCorkle anonymously, and post them on the Overtime page the same way.

Green Alert Take: A few questions have come in already. If you are curious about the 2026 Dartmouth team, the new coaching staff, recruiting, scheduling, opponents, how you can help, you name it, click that link above and I'll ask coach McCorkle a selection of your questions.

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Speaking of asking questions, you may recognize the hand recording a few thoughts last Saturday using his daughter's old iPhone – sans a SIM card of course.  ;-)

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Dartmouth's game at Princeton on Nov. 7 will kick off at noon. We know this because Princeton has "released" its 2026 schedule. (LINK) 

Green Alert Take: I had no idea the schedule was being held captive. Apparently, others are as well because that's the only Dartmouth game time I've seen yet. ;-)

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How big a challenge is it getting Ivy League students to attend athletic events at their school? It's a huge challenge, as the Brown Daily Herald found out. Check out the attendance figures in a deeply reported story headlined A snapshot of sports game attendance at Brown; The Herald’s Data Desk analyzed average game attendance data from fall 2021 to spring 2025 across 13 varsity sports HERE.

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From a website titled Game Day Chatter comes a nugget reminding us of the splash Dartmouth alum Ben Rice is making with the Yankees. The piece notes that Rice and Aaron Judge became the first Yankees teammates in 70 years to both reach double digits in home runs in fewer than 30 games.

The last to do it?

Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra in 1956. Find the story HERE.

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EXTRA POINT
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but yesterday I cleared off a pile of papers that has been cluttering a corner of my desk here at the BGA World headquarters for too long. But I'll admit it because a lot of what I found were notes from you, the BGA readers, and I kept them because they mean a lot to me and help me keep at it.

Maybe my favorite was from someone who took me to task for not living up to something I posted a couple of years ago, when I took the paywall down on BGA. The note the fellow wrote read:
"For a guy who is not doing it anymore, you are still kind of doing it. Just sayin' . . ."

I guess he has a point. ;-) 

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