Former Dartmouth defensive lineman Niko Lalos '20 is in camp with the New England Patriots as a long snapper. A Yahoo story details his journey from undrafted free agent who made a brief splash as a defensive end with the New York Giants, to practice member of the New Orleans Saints, to trying out as a long snapper for the Philadelphia Eagles, to playing defensive end in the XFL. Find the story HERE.
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No media members asked questions of Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle during the virtual "media day" event yesterday – most coaches were not asked a single media question – so the Q&A was entirely between host Jack Ford and McCorkle. Here's a transcript of their Q&A gently edited to remove the "you knows," false starts and the like.
Jack Ford
Taking a look at what needs to get better from last season, 7-3 season, last season to this season. And I'll start with the offensive side of the ball. What are you as coaches saying, Here's where we need to get better offensively? What's the answer to that?
Sammy McCorkle
I think consistency and that's across the board everywhere. But you want to be consistent. And I think the biggest thing that we've got to do . . . we did a good job of keeping drives alive last year, but we’ve got to finish those those drives. What I mean by finish drives, we’ve got to score touchdowns. We’ve got to score points. I think that'll be the biggest thing.
We’ve got to play team football this year. Across the board. All three phases. We need to work together.
I think offensively the biggest thing is to make sure that we allow our athletes to get out and be in space and make plays. And when opportunities arise where we can have explosive plays, we need to have those. I feel confident we have the individuals in places that can do that for us, but we have to be consistent with that.
You can't be one and done. You've got to be balanced offensively. You’ve got to be able to run the football. You’ve got to be able to throw it around. You’ve got to keep defenses off balance for sure.
The most important thing offensively, and across the board, is just the physicality. I say it year in, year out. If you want to win a title in this league, if you want to be successful in this league, you've got to win up front. You've got to have guys up front who can be physical, who control the line of scrimmage, and that has to be done on both sides of the football.
Jack Ford
Same question from the defensive perspective. What what do the coaches say that you need to get better at defensively from last season to this season?
Sammy McCorkle
We can't give up explosive plays. We have to limit those explosive plays. We have to make offenses have to work.
We need to set the tempo on down and distance. We’ve got to put offenses behind the chains early on in the series. You’ve got to win the first downs across the board.
For us it's going to start off with Joshua Johnson up front. We've got to be physical up front.
We’ve got to dictate what offenses are going to try to do to us. In the back end, the back seven, with Harrison back there, we've got to do a good job of being assignment sound. Making sure we're in the right spots and we're in position that we don't give anything away. If offenses are going to make a play, they're going to have to earn that.
Jack Ford
I'm curious about something. One of the great strengths of Dartmouth football in the last decade or so, and you can probably even go back farther than that – but let's just focus the last decade or so – has been continuously reintroducing new quarterbacks who become extraordinarily successful. In an era where you see you know, a quarterback doesn't play, they kind of look to go someplace else. I understand it.
But I look at what Dartmouth has done, having had junior-senior leadership. Having maybe a sophomore getting some snaps, and then all of a sudden that person becomes the junior-senior leadership. And then somebody else comes behind them. You've been extraordinarily successful at doing that. My question, it might sound simple, but the question is, how have you been so successful at that?
Sammy McCorkle
Well, that's a big part of our program, our organization. That's our blueprint. It's all about development.
We really focus on developing our players across the board at every single position. Our coaches do a phenomenal job. Either coaches that have been here in the past, or coaches that we have now. That's part of it. That's part of our DNA that we want to develop all of our players.
Hats off to our offensive our entire offensive staff.
But also it has to do with the commitment from our players understanding that it is about development. Of course, everybody wants to play right away. But I think the biggest thing is understanding when your time is, when you're ready to play.
I think our players do a good job of understanding that. Like I mentioned before, our older players do a phenomenal job of mentoring our younger players. And that's a big part of it. That could be simple things like watching tape together on their own, and having somebody there to help you know how to watch tape, and what you're looking at and what you're watching.
And when you're training, and you're working out in the offseason, having that older player at your position showing you this is what it's going to take for you to get to this level. Then taking that out to the practice field. That leads to, when that opportunity comes for that younger player to step up and be the guy, he is following that blueprint and that development. That's a big aspect of our program.
Jack Ford
Let me come back to something that we mentioned this before, the idea of the Ivy champion now getting an automatic bid. Last year we had two teams in, that first opportunity. You've been around the league for a long time. How has this new ability to actually play for a national championship, how has that introduced itself into your conversations with not only your current players, but in in your recruiting of new players?
Sammy McCorkle
Well, that's a huge part of, especially, the recruiting aspect. The fact that we are now able to do that. That's just that's one more notch in being an Ivy League football player. and having the opportunity to accomplish multiple things during their experience at an Ivy League institution.
But for our players, we take one day at a time. Our goal is always to to to win an Ivy League championship. Our goal is to focus on that one day, that game, that week.
If you channel your business and take care of that, that will happen.
That's the great thing about it now. Every game was important in the past, obviously, but now it's even bigger. Robin (Harris) kind of alluded to it at the beginning about the non-conference games.
We play three teams in the top 25. Two of our out-of-conference opponents are top 25 teams, and the other opponent won their conference. We know that it's good it's a big task, it's a large task. That forces you to have to prepare in the preseason going forward that if you want to reach the goals and the level that you want to be at, you're going to have to do that now. You can't wait until week four to figure that out. And that'll be our goal going into preseason.
Jack Ford
Coach, we’ve got a couple of of really exciting games. Our our ESPN schedule looks great. We've got a couple of exciting games for Dartmouth.
We've got Dartmouth down at Yale on a Saturday afternoon. Which is actually the first time we have done an ESPN game on a Saturday afternoon other than Harvard-Yale, so that'll be fun. And then we do have for the first time Harvard-Dartmouth. As you know, for whatever reason, because of the schedule difficulties, we haven't had a Harvard-Dartmouth game on our ESPN coverage here. Is that something, the national television exposure, is that something that kind of feeds into the excitement of the team?
Sammy McCorkle
It's huge. It's great. Hats off to our our league and Robin and everybody working hard to get that done.
It’s huge. Especially for families who can't make it to games to have the opportunity to watch their relatives, their loved ones on TV.
But the biggest thing is you're you're you're on prime time and you want to perform at your best on prime time. Obviously, it gives a little extra energy that week when you know you're going to be on television. But once again, once that first that ball gets kicked, it doesn't matter if you're on TV or not, yo’ve got to ready to go out there and perform.
It's exciting to have the opportunity to to play those games on TV and we're looking forward to it.
Editor's Note: Yesterday's BGA transcript of Sammy McCorkle's introductory remarks did not include the thank yous he offered at the outset. He began his remarks by acknowledging the contributions of Robin Harris, the Ivy League's executive director, JJ Klein of the Ivy office for organizing the virtual media day, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock, Big Green AD Mike Harrity, Dartmouth alumni across the country, and finally the Big Green coaches and support staff.
On tap tomorrow: Remarks from safety Harrison Keith and defensive lineman Joshua Johnson.
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Make it 14 Ivy League players recognized as the best in the nation wearing their number in the countdown to the first FCS game. From the post about latest addition:
Yale WR Jaxton Santiago
-2026 Junior
-6’3″ 215 lbs
-2025: 50 catches, 687 yards, 5 TDs
The complete list of Ivy players chosen:
96: Yale DT Jaylin Tate
86: Cornell TE Ryder Kurtz
85: Columbia WR Titus Evans
77: Harvard OL Spencer Doan
75: Penn OL Luke Sacchetti
71: Harvard OL Thomas O'Brien
64: Princeton OL Barrett Eddlemon
37: Penn S Ty Cortes
35: Harvard LB Sean Line
29: Harvard K Kieran Corr
27: Princeton CB Evan Haynie
24: Dartmouth S Harrison Keith
19: Harvard WR Brady Blackburn
20: Yale WR Jaxton Santiago
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EXTRA POINTCall me naive but I only recently learned about "flamingo fundraisers," wherein pink plastic flamingos are secretly placed on a lawn and the homeowner makes a donation to have the things removed, or tosses in a little something extra to have them placed on the lawn of someone they choose. It's called "flocking."
