Anchors Aweigh

Missed this 1986 Dartmouth highlight video when it was first posted last fall. Check out the third game when Dartmouth traveled to Navy and sophomore wide receiver Craig Morton hauled in eight passes for 174 yards in the first half before the Midshipmen realized they had to change how they played him. 

Morton finished with nine catches for 191 yards, bringing Dartmouth coach Joe Yukica to say: "Morton probably played his best game even though they doubled him every which way."

Rusty Gardner had 22 tackles for Dartmouth while Brett Matthews had 17 and Scott Rusert 15.

The game drew 31,543, at the time the fifth-largest crowd ever at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The Big Green, which lost a  narrow 13-12 decision at Army three years before, wasn't as fortunate this time, dropping a 45-0 decision.

   

Dartmouth finished the season 3-6-1 but was 3-0-1 in the final four games, including a 39-13 win at Yale an a season-ending 28-6 win at Princeton. Morton would finish the year with 44 catches for 1,063 yards, a whopping 24.16 yards per reception. He had 10 TD catches.

#

Remember how your teachers and professors told you to always go back to original sources? It's become even more important in an era of Wikipedia, social media and the internet.

Last week I got an email from a loyal reader wondering if there might be another recruit to add to the list I've compiled. He sent along a link I followed to discover these Tweets. I've blurred the face and addresses because it turns out this fellow is not a recruit and doesn't deserve to see himself highlighted. Blowing up the original postings, it was easy to see the uniform picture was Photoshopped and that the envelope the fellow was holding in the second photo was not from Dartmouth.

Green Alert Take: I don't know for sure but an educated guess is that these Tweets were done in good fun but somehow were unsuspectingly picked up by a Twitter account that purports to offer real recruiting/transfer news.

#

Speaking of transfer news, check out this from a story about the University of Virginia bidding to rebuild an offensive line depleted by graduation and transfers (LINK):

There are reinforcements on the way. The two most important signees from the transfer portal in the offseason, by an order of magnitude, were John Paul Flores (Dartmouth) and Mac Hollensteiner (Georgetown), both tackles. . . .

Flores, a second-team All-Ivy guy this past season, graded out at 67.4 in 2021, on 621 snaps over 10 games, allowing 10 QB pressures and two sacks on 300 pass-block snaps, and grading at 65.0 on 321 run-block snaps. . . . 

Before you turn your nose up at those numbers, consider that Hollensteiner had offers from the likes of Michigan State, Oklahoma State and Colorado, and Flores had offers from a host of schools, including SMU, Temple and East Carolina.

#

Dartmouth football is not practicing today but will be back on the field tomorrow. Check in with BGA Premium tomorrow night for a story out of that session.

#

EXTRA POINT
The sound of birds tweeting (not Tweeting) is a welcome sign of spring of course, but I just heard another that I've been waiting to hear and it sent me running to the window.

That sound? It was the beep-beep-beep of a road grader backing up through the crossroads at the top of our hill. With most of the mud now dried up the town road agent can finally smooth out the ruts and craters carved by huge pickup trucks and 4x4's over the past month. Now that is a true sign of spring in these parts.