Un Futuro Atleta Olimpico

Former Dartmouth quarterback Jared Gerbino '20, who had success playing pro football in Italy after graduation, will represent that nation as a receiver on its flag football team when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028. He even thinks Italy will make it to the gold medal game.

Find a story as well as an edited version of this video HERE.

(And thanks to Google Translate for the headline help. ;-)

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A reminder that Saturday's noon kickoff between Dartmouth and Yale in New Haven will be carried nationally on ESPNU. Eric Frede and Jack Ford will be the broadcast team. An audio broadcast of the game will be available with Matt Corsetti on the call.

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The Massey ratings system correctly predicted a four-point Dartmouth victory over Penn last week. It was off on the final score, however, picking Dartmouth to win 28-24 when the final was 14-10.

Looking forward a week ago, Massey had Dartmouth falling to Yale, 31-24, with 71 percent confidence.  After last week's games, the system sees the same score but has raised its confidence level on the pick to 72 percent.

The one significant change on Massey's part regarding the rest of the Dartmouth season is against Princeton in Week 8. Last week it had Dartmouth beating the Tigers, 24-23, with 50 percent confidence, making the game a tossup. This week it sees Princeton winning that contest, 24-21, with 58 percent confidence.

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While we're at it, Sagarin has Yale as a five-point favorite over the Big Green Saturday. Here's how Sagarin ranks the Ivy League this week (LINK):

Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Cornell
Dartmouth
Penn
Brown
Columbia

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If you want a sneak peek at Dartmouth's next two opponents, check out highlights from last week's Yale-Merrimack game HERE. 

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There's nothing you probably don't already know here, but this went up a few days ago and you may still find it interesting:

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And finally, a good friend shared a link to a story that is worth checking out. Find the piece headlined The Easter Egg Hidden in Michigan’s Football Jerseys; Gerald Ford almost quit the team over the mistreatment of a black player, and the jerseys nod to it HERE.

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EXTRA POINT
I may have mentioned this before, but my electric lawn tractor turned stubborn about a month ago and these days chooses to go backwards only. With the growing season winding down, I figured there was no hurry getting it serviced, so instead I've held off while I've been researching a potential switch to a new type of battery that would dramatically improve the tractor's run time next year.

Unfortunately, my assumption that the growing season was pretty much over proved a little optimistic. Twice in the past month I had to pull out my walk-behind mower and spend long hours cutting the lawn. Yesterday I broke out the walk-behind and cut the grass for what I seriously hope is one last time. Helping pass the time, I had a few podcasts lined up and I listened to every last one of them before I  could put the mower away.

Out of curiosity, when I came inside I checked the steps app on my iPod. Wondering how accurate it was, I jumped on my laptop, plugged in the numbers, and asked two different AI engines how far I would have had to walk behind a 21-inch-wide mower to cut my entire lawn. Both AI results were in lockstep with what my iPod said.

Cutting my entire lawn – which I should mention is relatively hilly – I pushed my John Deere walk-behind mower ±7 miles. So yeah, I'll be having the tractor worked on this winter.

Vote Early, Vote Often

 

Admit it. After looking this over, you HAVE to click HERE to find out what the former Dartmouth defensive line coach is up to, right?

Green Alert Take: I don't really understand, but Coach Brooks got my vote. ;-)

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To be completely honest, I haven't spent much time looking over the Sting data-driven breakdowns of Dartmouth and its opponents and I can't vouch for what they purport to show. That said, here's a graphic from the site about the upcoming Dartmouth-Yale game that may tease you into checking it out. Click HERE to investigate.

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Roar Lions podcaster Jake Novak updated his Ivy League power rankings after last week's games and they look like this (LINK):

Dartmouth
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Cornell
Penn
Columbia
Brown

Green Alert Take: I have to admit that when I saw Jake was ranking the teams again I was pretty sure he'd have Harvard at No. 1. I just thought the undefeated Crimson sneaking past then-No. 20/22 Colgate would push them past a Dartmouth team that improved to 1-2 with a hard-fought win over 1-2 Penn.

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Yahoo has a story headlined Several Ivy League Grads Making Their Mark In The FBS that centers around TCU quarterback Jaden Craig and UCF safety Ty Bartrum, former Harvard teammates who faced each other on Sept. 26.

The story also includes this from Dartmouth grad  DJ Crowther '26, now tearing it up as the lead running back at South Florida (LINK):

"Coming out of high school, (players) can go to the Ivy League, get their degree and then transfer. It is something that definitely could put more eyes on the Ivy League. Over the past few years there have been a lot of Ivy League players that have gone to the FBS level and are doing well."

Green Alert Take: The headline is a little misleading. There are more than "several" Ivy League grads making their mark in the FBS.

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A bio of ESPN writer Hallie Grossman just surfaced HERE and it deserves a mention because of this paragraph (italics are mine):

In 2026, her in-depth profile on WNBA star Sophie Cunningham was one of the most-read and shared pieces on ESPN.com of the year. Among other sports figures she has written features on: football players Saquon Barkley, Jared Goff, Fernando Mendoza and Trevor Lawrence; boxer Katie Taylor and Nebraska women’s volleyball head coach Dani Busboom Kelly. She also has written about the successful Oklahoma softball program, and one of her favorite pieces was a story on Dartmouth football and then-coach Buddy Teevens.

That sent me scurrying to find the story, which you can find HERE.

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EXTRA POINT
You've seen variations of this theme before, but now that our beloved '84 VW bus is rolling again, I drove it over to our nearby lake to write yesterday's piece for BGA Overtime. My mobile office has no phone, no fridge, no pooch, no toys and no other distractions except for the view, which is ideal for a writer. With the sun shining brightly, even on a 50-degree afternoon it was perfectly comfortable.

Penn In Review

Your Mileage May Vary went up on BGA Overtime last night. Two crotchety old guys will be stopping by the site tonight.

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Dartmouth defensive back Johnny Stephens has been named the Ivy League defensive player of the week after helping the Big Green open its Ivy League season with a 14-10 win over Penn on Saturday afternoon. Stephens led Dartmouth with 13 tackles. Find a story out of Dartmouth HERE.

Punter Luke Armistead, linebacker Gavin King and quarterback Grayson Saunier earned spots on the Ivy League honorable mention list for their play against the Quakers. Find the Ivy release HERE.

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The Penn game story is now available at The Dartmouth site HERE.

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This is from Dartmouth's social media:

And there's this from a fan:

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Computer/AI-driven preview posts are often quite useless, but this one looking ahead to Saturday's Dartmouth-Yale game in New Haven offers a few things to think about. (LINK) 

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This would be worth a watch even if Yale wasn't Dartmouth's opponent this week:

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Dartmouth receives votes in the FCS Coaches Poll and no fewer than five Big Green opponents are either ranked or receiving votes in the STATS poll:

	STATS	W-L*	Pts	Prev*
1	South Dakota State (52)	5-1	1419	2
2	Montana (3)	5-1	1345	3
3	Tarleton State (2)	5-0	1305	4
4	North Dakota	5-1	1171	5
5	LEHIGH	6-0	1136	6
6	Montana State	5-1	1128	1
7	Stephen F. Austin	6-0	1119	7
8	Youngstown State	4-2	1088	8
9	Austin Peay	5-1	977	11
10	South Dakota	4-2	897	13
11	Lamar	4-1	834	14
12	Illinois State	4-2	720	10
13	Northern Arizona	4-2	670	19
14	UC Davis	4-2	661	16
15	Tennessee Tech	4-1	604	9
16	Idaho State	4-1	576	12
17	Campbell	5-1	542	18
18	HARVARD	3-0	458	20
19	Richmond	5-1	299	24
20	Mercer	4-2	295	23
21	South Carolina State	5-1	256	15
22	Jackson State	5-0	236	25
23	Colgate	4-2	130	22
24	ETSU	4-2	107	NR
25	Southern Illinois	3-3	92	21
	Dropped Out: West Florida (17)
	Others Receiving Votes (schools listed on two or more ballots): Southeastern Louisiana (3-2, 1-1 Southland): 70; MONMOUTH (4-2, 3-0 CAA): 68; Northern Iowa (2-2, 1-0 MVFC): 60; Stony Brook (3-2, 1-0 CAA): 57; West Florida (3-2, 1-2 UAC): 52; Morgan State (4-1): 51; YALE(2-1, 0-1 Ivy): 47; Western Carolina (3-3, 1-1 Southern): 11; Elon (4-2, 2-2 CAA): 9; Bryant (4-1, 2-0 CAA): 8; Abilene Christian (2-4, 1-0 UAC): 7; CORNELL (2-1, 1-0 Ivy): 6; North Alabama (4-2, 1-0 UAC): 2

	FCS Coaches	W-L*	Pts	Prev*
1	South Dakota St. (24)	5-1	648	2
2	Tarleton St. (1)	5-0	614	3
3	Montana (1)	5-1	570	4
4	Stephen F. Austin	6-0	558	5
5	LEHIGH	6-0	528	6
6	Montana St.	5-1	509	1
7	North Dakota	5-1	496	7
8	Austin Peay	5-1	472	9
9	Youngstown St.	4-2	454	10
10	Lamar	4-1	408	13
11	UC Davis	4-2	358	15
12	South Dakota	4-2	338	16
13	Illinois St.	4-2	288	11
14	Northern Arizona	4-2	287	19
15	Richmond	5-1	277	17
16	Tennessee Tech	4-1	255	8
17	Idaho St.	4-1	197	14
18	Mercer	4-2	194	21
19	HARVARD	3-0	180	22
20	Campbell	5-1	171	24
21	South Carolina St.	5-1	152	12
22	Jackson St.	5-0	147	23
23	Colgate	4-2	78	20
24	MONMOUTH	4-2	48	NR
25	Southeastern Louisiana	3-2	41	NR
	Dropped Out: West Florida (18), Southern Illinois (25)
	Others Receiving Votes: West Florida, 37; Bryant, 32; YALE, 24; Southern Illinois, 19; East Tennessee St., 15; Elon, 15; Idaho, 14; Stony Brook, 9; Abilene Christian, 8; DARTMOUTH, 3; Morgan St., 2; Alabama St., 1; Central Connecticut St., 1; North Alabama, 1; Robert Morris, 1.

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EXTRA POINT
Look who we brought home yesterday! Wiffle, our 1984 VW Westfalia poptop camper – named that because the color brings to mind a familiar plastic baseball bat – is such a tease. It could not have driven better on the way home from having work done at the VW Whisperer up on Lake Champlain. If it always drove that way – or at least almost always – we would never consider selling it because it feels like a family member.