Wednesday, March 23, 2022

Naming Names

Credit to HERO Sports for taking on the unenviable task of pulling together lists of FCS players transferring both up to the FBS (LINK) and within the subdivision (LINK). The website posted the lists with the caveat that it was trying to "do our best" to track player movement. It also asked for readers to help "if you see any missing."

Keeping all that in mind – and recognizing this list is unofficial and incomplete – here are the Ivy League players HERO has included on its two lists:

PLAYER (POSITION)

FROM

TO

Cam Dillon (LB)

Columbia

Rice

Paul Akere (DL)

Columbia

Virginia

Jordan Colbert (DB)

Columbia

Rhode Island

Hunter Nourzad (OL)

Cornell

Penn State

Curtis Raymond III (WR)

Cornell

TCU

Isaiah Hogan (DB)

Cornell

Cal Poly

Michael Irons (DB)

Cornell

Samford

Devon Brewer (RB)

Cornell

Stetson

Isaiah Johnson (CB)

Dartmouth

Syracuse

Jake Guidone (OL)

Dartmouth

UConn

Robbie Mangas (TE)

Dartmouth

Buffalo

John Paul Flores (OL)

Dartmouth

Virginia

Chris Smith (DL)

Harvard

Minnesota

Spencer Rolland (OL)

Harvard

North Carolina

Jacob Sykes (DL)

Harvard

UCLA

Khalid Thomas (DB)

Harvard

Samford

Anthony Nelson (DL)

Harvard

Villanova

Daniel Abraham (LB)

Harvard

Villanova

D. Major Roman (TE)

Yale

Wagner

Green Alert Take: The list makes no distinction which players used up their Ivy League eligibility (Dartmouth's Jake Guidone, for example) and which players could have returned (the Big Green's other three on the list). Also, there are quite a few player who message boards and Twitter suggest are moving on who are not mentioned. That would include Dartmouth linebacker Jalen Mackie, who has another year of eligibility in the Ivy League but has Tweeted that he is headed to Massachusetts. Players headed to DIII, like Dartmouth defensive end Nate Boone, who will finish his career at Case Western Reserve, are not included. Keep all that in mind when looking at the chart.

(As an aside, Alabama A&M is listed as having 25 transfers from FBS schools. The portal is out of control.)

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Another Dartmouth player who seems sure to end up elsewhere next fall (after exhausting his Ivy League eligibility) is tight end JJ Jones who Tweeted this yesterday:

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Even back when the Ivy League allowed just one day of spring practice schools used to pull together a spring prospectus. (I know that because I had to do it while working at Dartmouth between newspaper stints.)

Those days are behind us but kudos to Harvard, Penn and Columbia for posting spring rosters. Find Harvard's HERE, Penn's HERE and Columbia's HERE.

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Oct. 15 opponent New Hampshire has posted its football schedule revealing that the Wildcats will play Stony Brook the week before coming across the state, and Elon the week after. Their FBS game at Western Michigan is two weeks prior to their trip to Hanover. (LINK)

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The Boston Globe has a story about graduating fifth-year quarterback EJ Perry of Brown that suggests he will "almost certainly will hear his name called during the NFL Draft April 28-30, which is no small feat." (LINK)

Green Alert Take: No question, Perry opened a lot of eyes with his postseason all-star play and at the NFL Combine, but it says here that "almost certainly" is going pretty far out on a limb. I might have written, "has a good chance," or maybe even "a very good chance," but no way would I have written "almost certainly."

The story includes this:

Only one Ivy League quarterback in the last 37 years has been taken in the draft: Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick in the seventh round in 2005. Dartmouth’s Jay Fiedler and Jeff Kemp had moderate success in the NFL, but both went undrafted.

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EXTRA POINT – I was listening to a podcast on my walk to the post office yesterday (no way I was challenging the mud in a car) and as he frequently does the host asked his journalist guest about his more challenging interviews. That got me thinking about my time in newspapers and the most uncomfortable interviews I've had. Here are several that came quickly to mind:

• Asking a famous college basketball coach – in a building named after him – a difficult question and having him point his finger at me and berate me in front of a room full of reporters and TV cameras. For the record, I was in the right and he was in the wrong, but as I learned later from someone who knew him well, he was never in the wrong. Just ask him.

• Interviewing a person after something I uncovered and wrote cost him an important job. (Unbelievably, he was terrific about it.)

• Pulling an old 60 Minutes trick and blindsiding an interview subject by placing a piece of incriminating evidence on his desk and then asking if he recognized it. We both knew it was going to cause him huge problems and perhaps even his job.

• Interviewing a well-meaning doctor who got caught up in a blood doping scandal.

• Realizing quickly that the person I was interviewing was at best exaggerating and at worst telling flat-out lies and knowing if I called the person on it I was going to become part of the story and it would not turn out well for the subject, who I didn't think meant any harm). My decision: Not use anything I couldn't prove and bury the story. (Still left me uncomfortable.)

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