After seeing a headline that new Jackson State coach Deion Sanders has the top recruiting class in the FCS – thanks in no small part to a commitment from his quarterback son Shedeur – I had to laugh. Ask any coach and they'll tell you recruiting is an inexact science. Reporting about recruiting at the FCS level, as written here many times, is even more inexact.
Take the widely-cited 247Sports recruiting site for example.
With help from some eagle eyes, BGA Daily has posted links to Tweets from 14 players
who have made public their decision to continue their athletic and academic careers at Dartmouth. 247Sports has identified just four of them (LINK).
The Voy Ivy League message board has 20 identified Penn recruits, but 247Sports has just eight names headed for the Philadelphia.
And the 247Sports recruit listing for Dartmouth last year? It included just six of 30 names. Given the service's inability to compile complete class lists, how can they possibly rank them? They can't.
Still, it's fun to see what they say, particularly in a year like this when there's little else to read or write. That being the case, here's what 247Sports has turned up for Dartmouth so far:
"Section 3 of the Order provides an exception that allows an individual to remove their mask if wearing a face covering would either cause a medical condition or exacerbate an existing one, including respiratory issues that impede breathing, a mental health condition or a disability."
•
Today's Woods Watch Party streams video of the dramatic 2015 Dartmouth-Princeton game that would have taken place two weeks earlier if the unfortunate scheduling change that went into place two years ago had already been implemented. Watch Princeton-Dartmouth at 1:30 today HERE.
And here is the Princeton preview from 2015 BGA Premium, word-for-word as it appeared on the site. Please excuse the typos and occasional awkward sentences, but in an effort to take you back to that day, this is a verbatim copy of the story:
Slow The Tigers Down, Kick The Offense In Gear, Win And Watch The Scores
BGA Nov. 20, 2015
It is a familiar quote that might be scribbled on a bulletin board in either locker room before Saturday’s game.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
For Princeton, it could serve as an inspiration.
For Dartmouth, a warning.
Two years ago Princeton arrived in Hanover with an unblemished, 6-0 Ivy League record, at least a share of the conference title in hand and the goal of finishing off its first undefeated Ivy season since 1964.
Dartmouth refused to go along with the script, instead dealing the Tigers a crushing blow, a 28-24 defeat that not only cost them a perfect conference season but forced them to share the Ivy League title with Harvard.
On Saturday afternoon Princeton can return the favor – and then some.
Dartmouth would clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title with a win over the Tigers and while a loss wouldn’t necessarily end the Big Green’s championship hopes it would put them on life support. Should Princeton pull the upset Dartmouth would need both Harvard to lose at Yale and Cornell to pull one of the biggest upsets in recent Ivy history at Penn.
Big Green coach Buddy Teevens is well aware that the 2013 result has been festering in Old Nassau for the last 24 months.
“Certainly, they remember two years ago and revenge is a great motivator,” he said. “They will be out trying to settle the score.”
Princeton comes into the game with a 2-4 Ivy League record, a 5-4 overall mark, and a fast-paced offense that can put points on the board in a hurry.
Discounting the Columbia game played in a monsoon, the Tigers averaged 41.8 points over the first half of the season. Although they ran into a Harvard buzzsaw in Week Six and lost, 42-7, they were right back at it the next week with a 47-21 win over Cornell.
Except for the game against the Crimson, each of Princeton’s Ivy League losses have been by a touchdown or less despite injuries that have limited some of their most important players, including explosive tailback DiAndre Atwater, who has appeared in just four games. Atwater was back in action last week, carrying 12 times for 52 yards in a 35-28 loss to Yale.
“They are a very good, solid team,” said Teevens. “They’ve got some people coming back that have been injured during the course of the year. Atwater, the running back, is healthy and will be playing. So we’re going to have to play great on both sides of the football and with our special teams situation.”
Chad Kanoff, a junior originally committed to Vanderbilt, passed for 338 yards and three touchdowns last week, although he was picked off two times. The Tigers often use sophomore John Lovett in goal line situations but the quarterback/receiver who leads the Ivies with 10 touchdowns (nine running, one receiving) has missed the last two games. Even without Lovett, who has tossed a couple of TD passes, the Princeton offense can be hard to defend with coach Bob Surace known to have three quarterbacks on the field at the same time.
“Recognition and identification is huge,” said Teevens. “Our guys have done a pretty good job. (Secondary coach) Sammy McCorkle in the back end identifies people coming in. Mike Bruno, who is up in the box, is very deft at identifying situational substitutions. So when they send out three (quarterbacks) or two or extra tight ends or whatever it might be, he will call that down.
“Our guys have responded well. We drill it. We practice it. We watch a lot of tape. I think we are ready for it.”
In addition to Atwater, Princeton can call on hard-running Joe Rhattigan, who has a team-best 571 yards this fall, and speedy 5-5 Dré Nelson. In total the Tigers have five backs averaging at least five yards per carry.
Talented wide receiver Seth DeValve has played in just five games but returned to action two weeks ago in an overtime loss at Penn, catching nine passes. The 6-foot-4, 245-pound DeValve teams with 6-4, 220 Isaiah Barnes, who had 151 yards and two touchdowns in last week’s loss to Yale, to give the Tigers a pair of big receivers.
While Princeton has plenty of firepower on the offensive side, the defense has struggled, at least in part because of a plethora of injuries. The loss after four games of sophomore Kurt Holuba – a defensive lineman who was being compared to Mike Catapano and Caraun Reid – took a toll on the Tigers as did an injury to standout linebacker Rohan Hylton, who is questionable this week.
Princeton’s secondary has been heralded for two years but the Tigers are allowing opponents to complete 64.5 percent of their passes, the highest completion rate in the league. While Princeton’s pace of play contributes to the Tigers allowing a league-high 438.7 yards per game of total offense, they are surrendering an Ivy worst 5.9 yards per snap. For comparison, Dartmouth gives up 3.8 per snap.
Teevens knows that to offset Princeton’s ability to move up and down the field the Dartmouth “offense needs to execute. Control the football to keep them on the sideline. They are high-paced. Probably the fastest clip offense that we face. They run a lot of plays. Eighties and nineties every ballgame. If we can minimize that by maximizing our possession time it is frustrating to their offense and it is productive for our football team.”
To best do that Dartmouth needs a return to former of quarterback Dalyn Williams after last week’s uncharacteristic three-interception performance against Brown. It’s imperative, Teevens explained, that Williams avoid relying on the home run ball, no matter how adept at it he is. And that he not try to do too much.
“We talked about that,” the coach said. “He is such a passionate guy. He wants to have success so badly. We told him, ‘Don’t put pressure on yourself to make all the plays. Make the plays that are there for you and have some fun with it. You will get some help in the backfield.’
“We’re running the ball better. Our offensive line is coming off the football. There’s been some holes and some seams last couple of weeks. So I think we can mix it up a little bit more than maybe we have. If we just take what they will give us I think we can hang on to the football and put some points on the board.”
NOTES Should Dartmouth beat Princeton the seniors will graduate with 29 wins, equaling the most for a senior class since the ’74s won 30. … More importantly, the Big Green will win at least a share of its first Ivy League title since 1996 and its record 18th. … With a victory Dartmouth would have to wait to see how the Penn-Cornell game (1 p.m. kickoff) and Harvard-Yale (2:30) fare to find out if it has won the title alone or has to share if with one or two other teams. … Dartmouth has won the last five meetings with Princeton including a 41-10 romp a year ago. The five-game streak is the longest the Big Green has had against Princeton.
The game is being televised by the American Sports Network. Check the stations carrying the game here.
•
EXTRA POINT
That today's BGA Daily was posted a little later than usual is an object lesson in why it is so important to back up your computer!
Earlier this week I updated my Mac to the Big Sur OS and in doing so discovered that my BGA Premium archives had been corrupted. The files could not be opened. Because the system I used prior to 2012 did not provide an easy way to save files from the first seven years of BGA on my computer the entire history of BGA might have been lost if I couldn't resurrect those files I still had access to a week ago.
Fortunately, before I updated the system this week I "cloned" my MacBook's hard drive, making an exact replica of every document, application and system file on the computer. When I realized the Princeton files were inaccessible, I "booted" from the hard drive containing the clone, essentially bringing the computer up exactly how it was before updating. I then copied the stories that are running today and tomorrow before ejecting the external "clone," and re-starting with the laptop's onboard hard drive.
The moral of the story: Back up your computer people! I would have been upset if I'd lost the last six-plus years of BGA, but it would have been far worse if it was treasured family photos or important documents that had gone into the ether.
In case you are wondering, I use an inexpensive and relatively simple program called SuperDuper for my backups but also have used Carbon Copy Cloner.
You've been warned!
