Close In On Friday’s Game

Columbia sports information has a story headlined Football Set for Friday Night Clash at Dartmouth HERE.

Columbia’s game notes are available  HERE.

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The Columbia Spectator has a game preview HERE under the headline Football seeks to upset Dartmouth in Friday matchup.

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The BGA Overtime preview will go up tonight and the Fearful Forecast will be posted tomorrow.

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Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle looks back at last week’s game and ahead to Columbia in this quick video:

Friday night lights. National stage. Coach McCorkle talks the challenge and opportunity ahead vs Columbia.#GoBigGreen | #TheWoods pic.twitter.com/IlOF7WVjtK

— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) October 22, 2025

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From an FCS Football Central On SI posting headlined FCS Football Playoff Picture: Oct. 21 (Week 9):

IVY LEAGUE

Locks: None

Should Be In: None

Work To Do: Harvard, Penn, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale

Harvard certainly appears to be in the driver's seat with a dominant 5-0 start to the season. The Crimson will be the favorite to win the auto bid, but with their weak strength of schedule, they would probably need to be 9-1 to garner at-large consideration. A potential 9-1 Harvard team on the bubble could create significant uncertainty for other bubble teams around the country. The teams most likely to steal that auto bid would be Penn or Princeton. They are both still undefeated in conference play, with Princeton playing Harvard this weekend. The other teams still hovering around this conversation are Yale and Dartmouth. Both teams have one conference loss, but still have the opportunity to play Harvard, which keeps them alive. Yale also plays Penn in an important Ivy League game this weekend.

Find the full FCS whip-around playoff picture posting HERE. 

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The Analyst’s Craig Haley from a column headlined FCS Football Week 9 Preview & Predictions: NDSU vs. SDSU and All the Panda-monium (LINK):

The Ivy League gaining two bids in its first season of participating in the FCS playoffs may be unlikely with its teams limited to 10-game resumes, or two fewer games than what’s allowed in other conferences. But the eight teams combined on a 16-8 nonconference record, and six of the eight have winning records halfway through their schedules. At least one of the three first-place teams will be knocked down on Saturday as No. 14 Harvard (5-0, 2-0) visits Princeton (3-2, 2-0), and Penn (4-1, 2-0) has the always tough assignment at Yale (3-2, 1-1), which has won nine of its last 10 home games since the visiting Quakers won there in 2023.

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HERO Sports has a piece headlined 2025 PFF Highest-Graded FCS Teams After Week 8 that uses Pro Football Focus analytics as a way to grade performance by various team units so far this season. Here are the Ivy League teams ranking in the top 10, starting with the lone Dartmouth appearance (LINK):

Tackling

1. Presbyterian – 92.4

2. Bryant – 91.1

3. Penn – 90.4

4. Harvard – 90.2

5. Texas Southern – 90.1

6. Rhode Island – 89.7

7. William & Mary – 86.6

8. Dartmouth – 86.1

9. Cal Poly – 86.0

10. Montana State – 85.9

Other Ivy League Ranks:

Coverage: 1. Harvard 

Passing: 3. Harvard 

Special Teams: T4. Yale

Defense: 5. Harvard 

Offense: 6. Harvard 

Pass Blocking: 6. Penn 

Run Blocking: 6. Yale 

Receiving: 7. Harvard 

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EXTRA POINT

Here’s a view of the White Mountains at sunrise from our Vermont hillside home this morning .

And yes, the colors are pretty accurate. ;-)

Another Look

For those of you who, like me, prefer highlights from above that show the full play, here are some clips from Dartmouth’s win over Fordham on Saturday afternoon:

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This week’s game, as The Optimist had to remind The Pessimist last night, will be on Friday night, teeing off at 6. It’s Dartmouth’s only appearance in the ESPNU Friday night Ivy League football series. Dartmouth football created this graphic to remind you to tune in:

Can’t make it to The Woods? We’re bringing Hanover to you. Big Green on the National Stage.

📺ESPNU | Friday | 6 PM EST #GoBigGreen | #TheWoods pic.twitter.com/SOAWuRyC0D

— Dartmouth Football (@DartmouthFTBL) October 21, 2025

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The weekly Sagarin Ratings are out and Dartmouth, Yale and Princeton all made significant moves upward, while Brown plummeted. The number in (parentheses) is last week’s ranking.

101 Harvard (98)

141 Yale (158)

157 Dartmouth (170)

162 Penn (168)

178 Princeton (197)

204 Brown (182)

229 Columbia (225)

233 Cornell (233)

169 New Hampshire (185)

214 Central Connecticut (211)

244 Fordham (242)

Sagarin has Dartmouth as a 14-point favorite over Columbia this week. The service had the Big Green winning by nine points last week at Fordham, and the difference was 17.

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Here’s how the Massey ratings see the Ivies in the FCS:

8 Harvard (9)

26 Dartmouth (32)

31 Yale (38)

37 Penn (52)

52 Princeton (65)

58 Brown (43)

85 Columbia (81)

93 Cornell (105)

32 New Hampshire (40)

80 Central Connecticut (84)

97 Fordham (93)

Massey has Dartmouth winning, 28-14, with 88 percent confidence. 

Here’s how Massey sees the rest of the season playing out:

• Harvard 34, Dartmouth  20 with 81 percent confidence

• Dartmouth 30, Princeton 23 with 68 percent confidence

• Dartmouth 31, Cornell 17 with 86 percent confidence

• Dartmouth 29, Brown  24 with 65 percent confidence

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Jake Novak’s power ranking at his Roar Lions site:

1 Harvard

2 Dartmouth

3 Yale

4 Penn

5 Princeton

6 Brown

7 Cornell

8 Columbia

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This is kind of fun.

Thunder Keck (his real name, by the way) played linebacker at Stanford. His father, Eric, was a 245-pound member of the U.S. Ski Team before turning to football, first at Saddleback Junior College and then at Columbia, where he was a 27-year-old defensive tackle. (The New York Daily News had a story about Eric Keck when he was playing HERE).

So why bring all that up? Because today Thunder Keck is a professional wrestler who goes by the name Shiloh Hill, and a story in the Rutland Herald tips us off that Dartmouth football once had a shot at him. The story begins this way:

To WWE fans he’s Shiloh Hill, the “Hellraiser” mentored by the Undertaker up to the production company’s NXT brand. He’s someone who has cultivated a massive online fan base and is known for his dark web explorations.

From the story (LINK):

“I was really interested in computer science during my early years of high school, so I wanted to do a cyber security camp — and I saw there was a free one at Dartmouth,” Hill/Keck said. “So I went, stayed with one of my high school track teammates who lived in the Dartmouth area, and he was like ‘Hey, you’ve running track. I know you’re really fast. You should come to this football camp at Dartmouth, which is at the same time and do their combine testing.’ ...My dad also played college football, so he gave me some pointers before, like ‘Just be really physical and try to do really well.’ It was a three-day football camp and a three-day computer science camp at Dartmouth. And I was doing both of them."

Keck ended up instead at Stanford, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in Sustainability Science and Practice. Find his Stanford bio HERE.

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EXTRA POINT

Remember the PAT earlier this month about the ladybug infestation in these parts? I wrote about ladybugs in our house and being swarmed by the things atop our nearby mountain (LINK).

After a few sub-freezing days the problem has largely subsided in our house so I was surprised yesterday afternoon when on my daily hike to the mountain peak I had to keep waving my arms to keep the ladybugs away from my face. Here’s just a section of siding on the cabin at the peak that was absolutely covered with ladybugs enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon sunshine:

Well-Deserved

For the sixth time in his 2½ years in a Dartmouth uniform and the second time in as many games, Dartmouth placekicker Owen Zalc has been named the Ivy League special teams player of the week.

Zalc booted field goals of 42, 33 and 24 yards in last week's 30-13 win at Fordham. The junior from Cary, N.C., is now 7-of-12 on the season with a long of 51 yards. In his Big Green career he's 25-of-37 with a school-record long of 54 yards.

Also honored for their play against Fordham on Sunday were quarterback Grayson Saunier and safety Sean Williams, both named to the Ivy League honor roll.

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If you haven't yet checked out Your Mileage May Vary on BGA Overtime, you can find it HERE. I'm going to guess there are at least a couple of notes there that you will find interesting.

There have been 42 stories go up on The OT since the start of fall practice. No. 43 later today will feature those two familiar old guys.

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Screenshot from Noah Kahan official website

Vanderbilt Commodores On SI has a story headlined, Exclusive: Why Noah Kahan Attended Vanderbilt Football's Win over LSU.

Kahan, for those who don't know, is an internationally famous singer-songwriter who grew up across the river in Vermont and played soccer at Hanover High School. The story describes him as "a two-time Grammy Award nominee, Billboard Music Award Top Rock Album award winner, 2023 | Heart Radio Best New Artist and the creator of the hit album Stick Season."

The official Stick Season video, by the way, has been viewed 56 million times and the "lyric video" another 44 million times. Those are millions with an M. ;-)

Anyway, why mention him here? Kahan was quoted in the story out of Vanderbilt saying (LINK):

"It's cool to support a team that's winning. Growing up we had Dartmouth College football and, bless their hearts, they were never that good."

Green Alert Take: That gave me an idea. Noah Kahan, who got his start in music as a young boy playing the guitar in the basement of our old post office in Etna, recently bought a house here in the Upper Valley and his family still loves locally. If I worked in Dartmouth communications, I think I'd reach out after reading that quote and playfully remind him that the Big Green is bidding this fall for its fifth Ivy League championship in six seasons. I'd send him a Dartmouth football shirt and invite him to a game. Doubtful his schedule would allow it, but it would make for some fun PR.

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Dartmouth just polished off a Fordham football team that is averaging 83.1 yards per game on the ground this year. That number would probably be a lot higher if the Rams hadn't seen tailback Julius Loughridge, a two-time member of the All-Patriot League first team, transfer out.

Instead of suiting up for a 1-6 team playing in a stadium in The Bronx with seating on just one side of the field, Loughridge is playing this fall for 7-0 South Dakota State, the No. 2 team in the country, which will host No. 1 North Dakota State on Saturday. The former Fordham standout, who missed the Dartmouth game last year, leads South Dakota State in rushing with 102 yards per game this fall – and probably isn't having any second-thoughts about moving on.

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And speaking of the showdown between the top-ranked teams in the FCS, here are this week's polls:

	FCS Coaches	W-L	Pts	Prev
1	North Dakota State (25)	7-0	625	1
2	South Dakota State	7-0	597	2
3	Tarleton State	8-0	578	3
4	Montana	7-0	547	4
5	Montana State	5-2	501	5
6	UC Davis	5-1	487	6
7	Lehigh	7-0	465	7
8	Tennessee Tech	7-0	431	8
9	Monmouth	6-1	417	10
10	North Dakota	5-2	398	11
11	Jackson State	5-1	345	13
12	Villanova	5-2	322	14
13	Rhode Island	6-2	314	15
14	Mercer	5-1	277	16
15	Lamar	6-1	268	18
16	Presbyterian	7-0	241	19
17	HARVARD	5-0	198	20
18	Southern Illinois	4-3	165	12
19	Southeastern Louisiana	5-2	164	22
20	Illinois State	4-3	163	9
21	Youngstown State	4-3	155	25
22	Northern Arizona	4-3	124	21
23	Austin Peay	4-3	73	24
24	Stephen F. Austin	5-2	64	NR
25	Abilene Christian	4-4	48	17
	Dropped Out:  None
	Others Receiving Votes: South Dakota, 32; West Georgia, 29; Western Carolina, 23; N.C. Central, 17; Lafayette, 13; PENN, 11; Sacramento State, 11; UT Rio Grande Valley, 7; Central Arkansas, 6; Gardner-Webb, 4; Alabama State, 3; DARTMOUTH, 1; Duquesne, 1.

	Stats Perform	W-L	Pts	Prev
1	North Dakota State (55)	7-0	1,399	1
2	South Dakota State (1)	7-0	1,339	2
3	Tarleton State	8-0	1,276	3
4	Montana	7-0	1,220	4
5	Montana State	5-2	1,198	5
6	UC Davis	5-1	1,078	6
7	Lehigh	7-0	1,035	7
8	North Dakota	5-2	995	9
9	Tennessee Tech	7-0	987	8
10	Monmouth	6-1	909	11
11	Villanova	5-2	683	15
12	Jackson State	5-1	638	14
13	Rhode Island	6-2	631	16
14	HARVARD	5-0	601	18
15	Lamar	6-1	585	17
16	Southern Illinois	4-3	481	12
17	Mercer	5-1	475	20
18	Illinois State	4-3	429	10
19	Presbyterian	7-0	369	21
20	Northern Arizona	4-3	342	19
21	South Dakota	5-3	296	22
22	Youngstown State	4-3	244	NR
23	Abilene Christian	4-4	227	13
24	Stephen F. Austin	5-2	226	25
25	Austin Peay	4-3	182	23
	Dropped Out of Top 25: Idaho (24)
	Others Receiving Votes (schools listed on two or more ballots): Southeastern Louisiana (5-2, 3-0 Southland), 176; Western Carolina (5-3, 4-0 SoCon), 61; Sacramento State (4-3, 2-1 Big Sky), 47; North Carolina Central (5-2, 0-0 MEAC), 36; Lafayette (5-3, 3-0 Patriot), 9; PENN (4-1, 2-0 Ivy), 8; Gardner-Webb (4-3, 2-1 OVC-Big South), 7; Alabama State (4-2, 2-1 SWAC), 6; Duquesne (5-3, 3-0 NEC), 2; West Georgia (5-3, 2-3 UAC), 2

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EXTRA POINT

There's a house not far from our local lake that has a yard chock full of towering and creepy Halloween decorations that light up at night. The decorations went up a couple of weeks ago and I thought that was a little premature. But then on Saturday I saw the owner of another house had already started to put up scaffolding he uses for his over-the-top Christmas decorations. Tis the season, I guess. Or maybe the seasonS?