Friday, May 15, 2020

Check It Out

I'm not sure if this has appeared on BGA Daily before but even if it did, it's worth watching again:


•
Noontime Sports has a story under the headline What Would Be The Best New England FCS, D-II & D-III Football Matchups? (LINK)

On reading the column I quickly realized the headline probably should have been about FCS Versus D-II and D-III but with apologies to Dartmouth-New Haven, those games hold no appeal. Seriously, Harvard against MIT? UNH against Bentley?

Anyway, the story got me thinking about New England games I'd like to see but that haven't been played while I've been on the scene. Here are several:

• Harvard-UNH (A few years ago they were the two top teams in New England, they are just 65 miles apart and they refuse to play for some reason.)

•Yale-Central Connecticut (It wouldn't exactly get Yalies' hearts racing but the schools are just 35 minutes apart and CCSU was 11-2 last fall – the losses to FBS Eastern Michigan by four points and in the opening round of the NCAA playoffs.)

• Maine-UConn (Bring back the Yankee Conference!)

• Dartmouth-UMass (Don't laugh but like Princeton vs. sad sack Rutgers, this game might have been very competitive the past few years.)

OK, except for Yale-Central Connecticut (which is reportedly on the 2024 schedule) those games aren't going happen. Here's one that could and should:

• Dartmouth-Holy Cross

Green Alert Take: Playing regional games against Marist or Sacred Heart or Central Connecticut and not playing the Crusaders is hard to accept. Dartmouth leads a series with Holy Cross that began in 1903 by a 40-37-4 count. The teams played every year since 2000 with the exception of 2015 and last fall. While Holy Cross has disappeared from the schedule, Dartmouth played Marist last fall and has it on the schedule this October, Sacred Heart in 2021 and 2022 and Central Connecticut in 2024. Holy Cross is nowhere to be seen.
•
The Cleveland Plain Dealer's website has as detailed (and lengthy) story as you'll ever see about former Dartmouth quality control coach Callie Brownson's rise to Cleveland Browns chief of staff HERE.
•
Vouching for the veracity of anonymous postings on message boards is a dangerous thing but a recounting of the highlights of a virtual engagement by retiring Harvard Athletic Director Bob Scalise is worth reading. (LINK)

Green Alert Take: The comment regarding the Harvard-Yale football game is priceless.
•
Wherever West Virginia president Gordon Gee goes – and the Brown president from 1998-2000 has certainly gone a lot of places – he makes headlines. He's at it again. Said the 76-year-old Gee:
“We are going to play football in the fall. I really do believe that – even if I have to suit up. And I got my ankles taped. I’m ready to go in.”

•
EXTRA POINT
There's an old saying about firewood heating you three times: when you cut it, when you split it and when you burn it.

I didn't cut or split our firewood but it's already heated me four times. The first time was when I helped unload it  in our driveway and then hauled it all the way around to the back of the house. The second? A week later when I stacked it in two neat piles, a big one on our deck and a smaller one in our three-season sunroom.

The third time came when we actually burned wood during the winter, although perhaps not even one-quarter of how much we ordered.

The fourth time the wood heated me came yesterday when I cleared every last log I'd so carefully stacked on the deck last fall and what we didn't burn from our sunroom stockpile and reassembled it on some pressure-treated footing in the yard.

I can't tell you if there will be football in the fall but I know when the weather turns cold what I'll be doing.

For the fifth time ;-)



Posted by at