If you've been paying attention you know that we at BGA Daily (that would be me, aided by Griff the Wonder Dog) are not exactly true believers of services and websites that purport to rate FCS recruiting.
But today being April Fools what better day to take a look at the FCS recruiting rankings pulled together by 247Sports?
Here's the current 247Sports ranking with the number of identified commits in parentheses:
1. Harvard (15)
2. Princeton (18)
3. Yale (18)
4. Penn (10)
5. Columbia (9)
6. Brown (6)
-- Dartmouth (7)
-- Cornell (2)
Before you get apoplectic, please know that by now each school has ±30 committed recruits so those "rankings" would likely change dramatically if 247Sports could identify them. (If anyone from 247Sports is reading this, you can find 22 more Dartmouth recruits on BGA Daily HERE.)
So, how do the 247Sports recruiting rankings translate to winning? Dartmouth claimed a share of the 2019 Ivy League title along with Yale. Here's how the four recruiting classes on that team ranked:
2016
1. Yale
2. Columbia
3. Harvard
4. Penn
5. Dartmouth
6. Princeton
7. Cornell
8. Brown
2017
1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Penn
4. Princeton
5. Columbia
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth
8. Columbia
2018
1. Princeton
2. Yale
3. Harvard
4. Penn
5. Columbia
6. Dartmouth
7. Brown
8. Columbia
2019
1. Harvard
2. Princeton
3. Yale
4. Penn
5. Dartmouth
-- Columbia
-- Cornell
-- Brown
So, the average ranking of the four classes in the 2019 Ivy League race won by Dartmouth and Yale:
1. Harvard (2.0)
1. Yale (2.0)
3. Princeton (3.25)
4. Penn (3.75)
5. Columbia (4.0 - 2019 not available)
6. Dartmouth (5.75)
7. Brown (7.0 - 2019 not available)
7. Cornell (7.0 - 2019 not available)
And here's the Ivy League standing from 2019:
1. Dartmouth 6-1
1. Yale 6-1
3. Princeton 5-2
4. Penn 3-4
4. Cornell 3-4
6. Harvard 2-5
6. Columbia 2-5
8. Brown 1-6
In case you were wondering, Dartmouth's fifth-year seniors in the 2019 championship season came from a recruiting class ranked fourth by 247Sports in 2015.
Green Alert Take: While Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens scoffs at the recruiting rankings at the same time he offers that developing talent is every bit as important – or perhaps more – than attracting it. Hard to argue with him on either account.
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Albany has become the latest FCS team to punt the rest of its season with games against Delaware and Villanova not being played.
The end of the Great Danes' season cuts short the grad transfer spring of former Dartmouth tailback Caylin Parker, part of that 2019 Big Green Ivy championship team. He finished the spring for 1-3 Albany with two carries for seven yards, two receptions for 14 yards and three kickoff returns for 42 yards.
Comments in a story about Albany's decision to shut down speak to the difficulty of the adjusted season (LINK):
“I think we all kind of saw it coming,” (Athletic Director Mark) Benson said during the teleconference. “The injuries were increasing from week to week, progressively. Watching the game on Saturday, it felt like every several plays we were carting off one of our players and keeping our athletic trainers very, very busy. When (coach Greg Gattuso) reached out to me, I kind of had a feeling he wanted to talk about that. Not overly surprised, but really glad that he reached out.”
And . . .
“In 2020, our football team did not have a padded practice or game,” Gattuso said. “Parting of our training concept is practice and lifting and running, and it’s just been so disrupted. I think that’s what resulted in this many injuries.”
Green Alert Take: What will spring football mean for teams this fall? Dartmouth will start to find out Sept. 18 when it is scheduled to visit Valparaiso and a week later when Sacred Heart is slated to open the Memorial Field season.
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In case you are wondering, a total of 10 schools now have tapped out of the season and 50 games have been canceled or postponed.
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While Ivy League football is idle other spring sports in the Ancient Eight have been given the OK to play local games if/when they achieve certain COVID protocols. At Penn, where the baseball team opened last weekend, the softball, lacrosse, rowing, tennis and track and field teams have all scheduled competitions (LINK).
On my daily hike up the mountain I listen to podcasts and yesterday I played the Fresh Air interview titled, From Card Cheat To Illusionist: Magician Derek DelGaudio. (Listen to it HERE.) The promo to the podcast described it this way:
The sleight-of-hand master explores themes of identity, honesty and the emotional cost of keeping secrets in the memoir, 'AMORALMAN.' DelGaudio's one-man show 'In & Of Itself' is now available on Hulu. "(Secrets) are like a drug," he says. "They enter your system and they intoxicate you and they get you to modify your behavior, whether you know it or not. And so it's learning to control the effects of secrecy that really were key for me, in terms of creating a convincing illusion."
Hearing that his one-man show is available on Hulu – we are in the midst of a one-month trial of the streaming service – I convinced Mrs. BGA to watch In & Of Itself last night. I'm still not sure what to think after watching the program . . . other than I'm not really supposed to know what to think, right? Here's the trailer to the haunting program, which I recommend, if for no other reason than it is very compelling:
