Green Alert Take: As someone with a foot in both camps I got a kick out of the Ivy League and Penn State football sharing a common theme ;-)
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As noted here yesterday, while the nonconference team previews on BGA Premium kick off Thursday, the BGA Ivy League football preview series won't commence until one week from today.The reason for the delay? I don't want to make another huge mistake.
I can still remember writing about the prospects for the Penn football team heading into the 1995 season with the return of two-year starting quarterback Mark DeRosa. What I did not know when I was working on that story was that DeRosa had signed with the Atlanta Braves, and as a professional athlete was no longer eligible to compete in the Ivy League. (It turned out to be a good decision. He would go on to play parts of 16 years in the major leagues with eight teams and still earn his Penn degree.)
It's a lot easier to find information on the Internet today than it was in 1995 (LINK) but that doesn't mean everything I need to know about Ivy League teams is online. Although I've pored over the rosters I'm still not sure about all the fifth-year players returning around the Ivy League or who may have given up football, been lost to injury or transferred out. That being the case, it only makes sense to wait until hearing the news coming out of Thursday's Ivy League media day before making another mistake.
Columbia blogger Jake Novak over at Roar Lions 2019 feels the same way. In his latest post he writes:
I don't see how anyone can make a really informed pick in this league before the coaches' pre-season news conference. We often learn of key additions, injuries, and other changes during those news conferences that change everything.While Jake is holding off on his preview, Dartmouth fans will like how his post continued:
. . . I'm still sticking with my Dartmouth pick to win the league until I see some compelling evidence to convince me otherwise. If you don't agree, look at the returning roster and the Big Green's 2018 stats and then get back to me. I do not remember looking at a team coming into any season looking as formidable as Dartmouth does now.
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Journalist/author Jay Greenberg, who does a fine job writing for Princeton Tigers Football, tells the story of the first American collegiate “football” game between Princeton and Rutgers 150 years ago this fall. Find his story about the game that will be celebrated when Dartmouth and Princeton meet at Yankee Stadium on Nov. 9 HERE.
