Monday, August 23, 2021

A Busy Monday

A few shots from the first day of Dartmouth preseason football practice:
Good luck holding Zack Bair back after his return from injury.

Simon says, Do This!

Fancy new headware.





BGA Premium had its first full camp report last night and will be back at practice this afternoon for tonight's posting. Look for it by 10 Eastern tonight.

A couple of notes from last night:

• The Big Green had 122 players at the first day of camp with the permissible 110 in the freshman through senior classes and 12 "super seniors/grad students" allowed back by NCAA and Ivy League decree.

• While the Dartmouth athletic department has had what has to be an unprecedented turnover in personnel the permanent football coaching staff has stayed intact, with Mickey Grace and Ahmaad Smith coming aboard as "defensive assistants." Grace is the latest woman on the Big Green staff after doing a stint with the Los Angeles Rams. Smith is a former Tennessee State defensive captain who played for a number of arena teams and was in CFL camps.
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From a Dartmouth news release yesterday about the start of practice (LINK):
Buddy Teevens, the Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coach and winningest coach in program history, will have to replace nearly his entire starting lineup with eight gone from the offense and 10 from the defense. 

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The fact-filled Phil Steele Preview came out last week but seems to have taken the roster movement at Dartmouth to heart. Here are Steele's All-Ivy League first, second and third teams. (Click to enlarge.)
In case enlarging didn't work for you, find the Steele teams HERE. Selections from Dartmouth were:

OFFENSE
Second Team
QB Derek Kyler
OL Evan Hecimovich
OL John Paul Flores

DEFENSE
First Team

DB Niko Mermigas
Third Team
DB John Pupel

Steele has Brown quarterback EJ Perry as the preseason offensive player of the  year and Princeton linebacker Jeremiah Taylor as the defensive POY.

Here's the breakdown of selections to the Steele first, second and third team by school:


1st

2nd

3rd

Total

Princeton

9

6

6

21

Yale

3

5

7

15

Columbia

5

6

3

14

Harvard

5

4

3

12

Cornell

1

2

8

11

Brown 

2

3

2

7

Dartmouth

1

4

1

6

Penn

4

0

0

4

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From a Calgary Herald story about last week's Stampeders game (LINK):
In the final seconds of the first quarter, Folarin Orimolade went down with what appeared to be a left-knee injury. The Stamps had really high expectations for Orimolade this year after he missed the entire 2019 season with a quadriceps injury .

Here's a screengrab of the former Dartmouth standout from the story:

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EXTRA POINT
It would seem we dodged any significant impact from hurricane/tropical storm Henri, although the shorts and T-shirt I hiked in this morning are now hanging from the shower curtain and dripping liberally into the tub.