The forecast for tonight's nationally telecast football game between Dartmouth (5-0, 2-0 Ivy League) and Columbia (4-1, 1-1 Ivy) calls for 56 degrees at the 6 p.m. kickoff with cloudy skies and an 18 percent chance of rain. The chance of rain will decrease at the game goes on.
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Dartmouth is favored by 17.5 points. (LINK)
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This factoid from the BGA Premium preview of tonight's game is kind of hard to believe but true. Columbia's fifth-year seniors have more wins in their careers than their counterparts at Harvard. The Lions have won 21 games and Harvard 20. Dartmouth's fifth-years lead the Ivy League pack with 31 victories.
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The temporary helmet design Dartmouth will wear tonight gets a writeup in ESPN's weekly look at uniforms HERE.
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A whopping 70 players from Dartmouth's undefeated 1996 team are expected to be at the game celebrating the 25th anniversary of the program's only 10-0 season. The night will have special significance for former offensive lineman JJ Coslet '97, not just a member of that team but the father of current freshman OL James Coslet.
Green Alert Take: That will be fun for me because I was along for the ride as the beat writer covering that team for the Valley News.
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The Columbia Spectator has a solid preview story that includes this from Coach Al Bagnoli (LINK):
"“They’re good on offense where they run and throw the ball well, with a lot of shifts and motions, and give you some schematic headaches with a really solid defense. They’re really sound in the kicking game. … ‘Complete’ is the word I would use, from top to bottom.”
And this from strong safety Ben Mathiasmeier on Dartmouth running QB Nick Howard:
“He does a similar job to what (former Dartmouth quarterback Jared Gerbino) did. He runs hard—he definitely lowers his shoulder and runs like a big running back in a sense.”
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Still referring to himself as "Czar of the Playbook," Emory Hunt offers a video rundown of Ivy League football games this week HERE.
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This is labeled a Dartmouth preview, but there's just one quick thought on the Big Green:
Catch up with Coach Bagnoli in his weekly interview with @AliyahFun ahead of tonight's #ESPNU game at Dartmouth. Kickoff at 6 p.m. ET.#RoarLionRoar pic.twitter.com/pY23n9haqQ
— Columbia Football (@CULionsFB) October 22, 2021
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Bragging rights will be on line for a couple of teammates from Bellevue High School in Washington. Dartmouth tight end Ben Keeter and Columbia defensive back Mitchell Sturgill showed off their colors at graduation:
"(T)here’s nothing like running it down someone’s throat,” center Evan Hecimovich said this week. “When we went out there at UNH and we just started running it 6 yards, 8 yards, 10 yards every play and they couldn’t stop us, that was just fun.”
And . . .
“The running is like proving that you are just more dominant than them,” (Jake) Guidone said. “It’s kind of establishing who you are as a team and who you are up front. (When you’re) able to drive down on a team, it really deflates them.”
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Guidone spent a little time in the transfer portal before returning for the fall and, with no more Ivy League eligibility, will be weighing his options after the season. He won't be the only one.
Per his Twitter (LINK) fellow OL John Paul Flores has fielded offers in the last few days to continue his career next year at Akron, Buffalo and Texas State as well as from the self-promoting coach at Jackson State you may have heard of. More surely to come.
Ivy League offensive linemen moving on to have success at the FBS level isn't unusual. Harvard grad Liam Shanahan is the two-year starting center at LSU. Fellow Harvard graduate Eric Wilson is starting up front at Penn State and current Crimson OL Spencer Rolland already has committed to the Nittany Lions for next year. Tommy McIntyre, a 6-foot-8, 272-pound tight end who spent three years at Cornell has started for undefeated SMU.
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This is kind of a curious Tweet by FCS guru Craig Haley:
It's great that Ivy League football has returned with three 5-0 teams (Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton) plus a 4-1 team (Columbia) just one year after not having a season, but I also feel this is not a vintage group of teams compared to past years in the Ancient Eight.
Green Alert Take: I have a lot of respect for old friend Craig Haley but I'm not really sure on what basis he's making that judgement. In Dartmouth's case, at least, the commanding win over New Hampshire was more impressive than any nonconference win the 2019 Ivy League co-champions earned.
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Dartmouth wide receiver Jarmone Sutherland gets a one-sentence mention in an opus on high school quarterback Arch Manning, his teammate down in New Orleans. (LINK) Sutherland has been lost for the season to injury.
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Just in case you are letting your guard down, here's a reminder why that's not a good idea. Drake has to forfeit Saturday's game to Stetson because of COVID-19.
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EXTRA POINT
For those of you keeping score, Mrs. BGA's car passed inspection yesterday with flying colors so last evening we picked it up and left off the 1984 VW Vanagon Westfalia camper for its annual physical. The brakes, horn, blinkers and headlights are all working fine so it shouldn't fail for the peripherals, at least.
With no game tomorrow, the original thought was to use the free time to put it up for the winter this weekend but we'll see. If the forecast shows another warmup in the next several weeks maybe we'll keep it on the road for a little while longer. Either way, it needs to hibernate for the winter because it's not much for the snow ;-)
We were surprised when we moved our house on the Vermont hillside to find the garage doors high enough for the pop-top VW to make it through. We were even more surprised to discover that the garage is big enough that we can park it cross-wise in the far end and still have enough room to get both of our "daily drivers" inside. The trick, of course, is getting the VW parked across the back of the garage. Two years ago we inched it back-and-forth, back-and-forth as if we were parallel parking. And when I say "inched" it, I'm not kidding. The VW is a four-speed without power steering and unless you were there I'm not sure you can imagine how tiring that was on the arms. It might have taken at least 25 shifts-and-turns to get it in place.
Last year we used four cheap car dollies from Harbor Freight. That allowed us to skateboard it into place, but jacking up all four tires, sliding the dollies in place, moving the VW and then jacking up all four tires again to remove the dollies presented its own challenges. But Wiffle the VW deserves the love!
