Jake Novak over at the Roar Lions 2020 blog has info about Columbia recruits for the next cycle that he's dug up but that's burying the lede from his latest post. He writes:
(P)arents of current students tell me that Columbia is still not planning to return to normal on-campus living and classes through the NEXT fall semester. In other words, no real campus life until 2022.
That may belong in one of those newspapers at the grocery store checkout featuring stories about extraterrestrials visiting the royal family – or it may not. I'll let you decide.
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Game three of Dartmouth's virtual season streamed last night. If your attention was elsewhere, you can still watch the Dartmouth-Yale 2017 game with commentary from a couple of coaches and players HERE. What follows is the BGA Premium game story from the night of the game:
Dartmouth, Heneghan Rise To The Challenge
BGA Premium, Oct. 17, 2017
HANOVER – His team trailing 24-7 at halftime of Saturday’s Homecoming battle of the unbeatens with Yale, a disappointed Buddy Teevens pulled senior quarterback Jack Heneghan aside.
“I called him out at the half, to be honest with you,” the Big Green coach admitted afterward. “I just said, ‘Look, you need to play better.’ ”
Seldom has such a simple message paid such huge dividends.
After throwing for just 38 yards in the first half, Heneghan passed for 276 yards and three touchdowns in the second, including the winning 15-yarder to Drew Hunnicutt on fourth down with 34 seconds remaining to lead the Big Green to an improbable and historic, 28-27, win over the Bulldogs.
Dartmouth, which for the first time in 136 years of football came back from a 21-point deficit to win a game, is now 4-0 overall and more importantly 2-0 in the Ivy League. Yale, which had won its first three games by an average of 28 points, is now 3-1 and 1-1 in the conference.
Dartmouth and surprising Columbia are the lone Ivy League unbeatens after Harvard dropped a stunner to previously winless Cornell Saturday.
The Big Green now has won consecutive games in the final minute by one over Holy Cross in overtime, by three at Penn as time ran out, and by one over Yale after still trailing by 13 points midway through the fourth quarter.
Teevens might need a pacemaker if the heart-stopping games continue, but the man isn’t complaining.
“I’ll take as many of these as we can get,” he said with a somewhat nervous laugh. “I’ll enjoy every one of them.”
Heneghan finished with 314 yards passing, the three touchdown throws, and a team-high 33 yards rushing, including three absolutely critical carries on the game-winning 13-play, 69-yard march at the end.
The quarterback not only had no problem with what Teevens said to him during the intermission, but he applauded it.
“Probably the whole offense felt the same way but I, especially, felt like I was out of sorts a little bit in the first half,” he said. “I wasn’t playing the way I know I am capable of. It’s always good to have coaches who are demanding and tough on you, as we do.
“Coach T and Coach (Kevin) Daft were constructive in what we were going to do, but pretty straightforward saying, ‘You have got to pick it up. The rest of the guys are counting on you.’ It was good to get that coaching at half.”
The record-setting turnaround, which began with Isiah Swann’s 47-yard interception return for a touchdown with 2:24 left in the second quarter, began in earnest right out of the locker room (actually Leverone Field House, which Dartmouth uses between halves).
Down 17 points, Dartmouth took the opening kickoff and drove 91 yards in just six plays – all through the air – with Heneghan going 4-for-4 on completions of 7, 28, 26 and 30 yards, the last a gorgeous lob over the shoulder of Drew Hunnicutt for a touchdown and a 24-14 score with David Smith’s PAT.
Yale answered right back with a drive to the Dartmouth three before the defense stiffened and forced a 20-yard field goal to make it 27-14. The Bulldogs, who racked up 310 yards and 17 first downs in the opening half, would manage just one more first down until the final minute as the Big Green defense gave the offense the chance it needed to come back and win the game.
“On the sidelines I had the feeling the defense was going to go out there and do their job," said Hunnicutt, who caught five passes for 64 yards and two touchdowns. “The thing about the Dartmouth defense the past couple of years is we’ve been able to rely on them so that if we do our job we know that they are going to do theirs. . . . Because of them we are able to do what we did.”
Still down 13 points entering the fourth quarter, Dartmouth twice drove into Yale territory only to come up empty, first on a fourth-and-five pass at the Bulldogs’ five, and then on a fourth-and-one run at the Yale 40.
Both times, however, the defense bowed up and forced a three-and-out, with the second stop giving the ball back to the Big Green with 7:24 remaining.
Down 13 points deep in its own end, Dartmouth caught a break when Yale’s Copache Tyler was called for a late hit on a Heneghan incompletion, giving the Big Green a first down at its own 30. Heneghan then immediately hit Ryder Stone out of the backfield and the tailback punished would-be tacklers on the left sideline for a 30-yard gain.
On the very next snap it was Heneghan under pressure lofting a perfect lob to Dylan Mellor (seven catches for 133 yards), who caught the ball at the 15 despite pass interference, and ran it in for a 40-yard touchdown and a 27-21 score with 6:10 remaining after Smith’s PAT.
Needing another quick stop, Dartmouth forced yet another Yale three-and-out. Jeremiah Douchee tackled quarterback Kurt Rawlings for a one-yard loss on first down. On second down the Bulldog tight end bobbled and dropped a pass, and on third down Danny McManus and Brennan Cascarano teamed up to tackle tailback Zane Dudek two yards short of the sticks to force a punt.
Taking over at its own 31 with 4:24 remaining, Dartmouth faced a fourth-and-three at its 38 after two incompletions sandwiched a seven-yard pass to Emory Thonpson. With 3:27 left and the game possibly on the line, Heneghan hit Mellor crossing from left to right for nine yards and a critical first.
After a one-yard completion, Heneghan found no one open and ran left for an 11-yard gain for a first down at the Yale 41.
The Big Green then tried a little trickeration, but Mellor’s surefire option TD pass to a wide-open Thompson hung in the air just a second too long, giving Jason Alessi a chance to get a hand on it.
Heneghan then took things into his own hands – or feet, actually – by running for eight yards to the Yale 33. Facing a third-and-two with 1:39 left, the quarterback then faked a handoff and on a designated run picked up 13 yards to the 20.
Two incompletions and a five-yard pass to Mellor later, Dartmouth faced a fourth-and-five with 39 seconds left and called timeout.
With the game and the Ivy League lead on the line, Heneghan took the ensuing snap and zipped a strike to Hunnicutt coming open at the goal line on a crossing route for what would be the winning score.
“I think it was a really good play call by Coach Daft,” said Hunnicutt. “I think he’s done an excellent job this year of getting us in a position to win the ball game. . . .
“Jack threw a dime and that was that. . . . As soon as I caught it I had enough time to really secure it. I mean, I caught that ball and I hugged it like no other.”
And the hugging continued after Yale’s ditch attempt to drive down the field in the final 31 seconds ended as Big Green players ran to the stands and got their share of hugs from jubilant Dartmouth students as they “Lambeau Leaped” into their arms.
“They are unselfish, they are committed to each other and they are believers. That’s a pretty good combination for a football team,” Teevens said after the greatest comeback in Dartmouth history was in the books.
It's All In The Numbers
BGA Premium, Oct. 7, 2017
HANOVER – Dartmouth 28, Yale 27.
Sometimes numbers don’t tell the story. Sometimes they do:
136, 21, 0, 1, 34, 3, 5, 27, 0, 4, 2, 19, 0
That would be . . .
136 – years of Dartmouth football.
21 – points the Big Green trailed the Bulldogs by in the first half Saturday.
0 – times Dartmouth had come from 21 points down to win before Saturday.
1 – time Dartmouth has now done it.
34 – seconds remaining when the Big Green scored the winning touchdown.
3 – Dartmouth games in a row that have come down to the final minute.
5 – total points the Big Green has won those three games by.
28 – years Buddy Teevens has been a college head coach.
0 – three-game spans like this Teevens has been part of in his previous 27 years on the sidelines.
4 – Dartmouth’s wins in its first four games.
2 – the Big Green’s wins in its first two Ivy League games.
0 – teams picked ahead of Dartmouth in the Ivy League preseason poll who are still unbeaten in the conference.
∞ – Odds against Dartmouth and Columbia being the only unbeaten teams in the Ivy League after four weeks.
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EXTRA POINT
Returning from our three-week trip to Colorado in our '84 VW camper I found myself thinking back to the first time Mrs. BGA and I took that much time away from work, visiting the national parks of the west in my Mazda pickup before the kids came along. I was at the newspaper at the time and the day before I was to start back to work I dropped by the newspaper when no one was around to sort through my mailbox to make sure there were no nasty surprises awaiting me.
Email has changed things. Now on a trip like we just finished you can stay abreast of what's happening in real time, which I suppose is a good thing. But really, is that a vacation?
