Yesterday's BGA Daily post included a few observations on where incoming Ivy League freshman football players were not from. Today we'll have some notes about where they are coming from. But first a few bits from today's news . . .
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A local news outlet from Illinois has a story headlined, After starring at Dartmouth ,DeKalb grad Derek Kyler takes on new role at Pitt that sheds a little light on the former Big Green standout's surprise decision to continue his football career at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. (LINK)
The story reports, not at all surprisingly, that Pitt's first contact with Kyler was by Jonathan DiBiaso, a reserve quarterback at Dartmouth from 2015-17 before eventually graduating from Tufts. DiBiaso is an offensive grad assistant with the Panthers this fall.
From the story:
It was the chance to eventually become a coach that intrigued Kyler in May, after he had decided a few months earlier he was going to step away from the game.
Per the story, Kyler will transition to a grad assistant role after the season
More from the story . . .
“I realized I was very fortunate, very content with how my football career unfolded up to that point,” Kyler said. “I had a lot of success in DeKalb with my team, then I got to Dartmouth and I think we had the best run they ever had in program history. Part of me was very content with what I had done with football. I was fully content to use what I had gone to Dartmouth for in the long run, which was that degree.”
And . . .
Kyler arrived in Pittsburgh in mid-July and has been working on learning the playbook and working out with the team.
He said he knows his role, even if it is a new one for him – an experienced veteran who is coming in as the backup. He said he knows (USC transfer Kedon) Slovis is the starter.
“I think a lot of people were confused with that aspect of it. I was actually confused when they told me they needed a quarterback,” Kyler said. “I knew they had Kedon, knew he was coming in. But they said they just needed depth. That’s really all they're looking for, a veteran who can help in their QB room. It’s a different role for me. I’m always going to be ready to compete, but he came here for a reason.”
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From a story headlined, Garett Tujague Talks Virginia's Offensive Line Entering Fall Camp UVA's offensive line coach previewed fall camp and talked about the battle for the starting center position comes this (LINK):
Tujague expects there to be some significant competition for starting center during fall camp and he named sophomores Jestus Johnson III and Ty Furnish as frontrunners along with Dartmouth grad transfer John Paul Flores. If Flores does not end up starting at center, he is likely to end up playing elsewhere on the offensive line depending on need. The 6'5", 300-pound lineman was a two-year starter at left tackle at Dartmouth and was named to the All-Ivy League Second Team in 2021 after helping the Big Green win a second-consecutive Ivy League Championship.
The coach talks briefly about Flores at the 35-second mark of this short video clip:
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Also on the grad transfer front, a reporter finally touches on an intriguing angle in a story about the opening of UConn practice (LINK):
UConn added a number of impact transfers in the offseason, including offensive linemen Jake Guidone from Dartmouth, who joined the Huskies in December and will compete for the center position despite earning All-Ivy League honorable mention as a tight end in 2019.
Green Alert Take: Yup, I think an all-conference Division I tight end-to-center transition would make a pretty good story.
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OK, now back to the incoming Ivy League freshmen and where they call home. Keeping in mind this is where the players live, not where they might attend prep school, the class features players from:
• 32 states
• The District of Columbia
• Canada
• Germany
The leading producers of Ivy League players in the Class of 2026:
• Texas (21 players)
• California (20)
• New Jersey (16)
• Florida (13)
• Ohio (13)
• Pennsylvania (13)
• Connecticut (10)
• Georgia (10)
• New York (10)
A few more fun facts:
• The most freshmen any school has from one state: Harvard has five from Texas. Just about every other school has four players from one or more states.
• Not surprisingly Texas and California have freshmen at all eight Ivies.
• Cornell is the only Ivy not to have a single incoming player from New Jersey, but it is the only school that can claim a recruit in this class from Alaska.
• States with recruits at seven schools with the missing school in (parenthesis): New Jersey (Cornell), Florida (Dartmouth), Ohio (Columbia), Pennsylvania (Yale).
• States with just one incoming recruit in addition to Alaska: Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina.
• Most concentration in New England: Brown 8 (Four Connecticut, three Massachusetts, one Rhode Island), Cornell 3, Penn 3.
• Incoming freshmen from California and Texas combined: Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Yale (6 apiece), Columbia 5, Penn 4, Cornell 2.
• Every school has players from 12-15 states.
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EXTRA POINT
This was really dumb.
Hiking last week I came across a fallen maple leaf that had already turned bright red and I was going to shoot a photo of it for BGA Daily as a sign that we are closing in on fall and football. I stuck the leaf in the pocket of my shorts and when I got home I had a pocketful of red confetti.
Earlier on this absolutely beautiful morning I found another very colorful leaf and thought to bring it home for a photo but this time, remembering what happened the last, I stuck the stem of the leaf in the elastic waistband of my hiking shorts to keep it from being destroyed.
Smart? Nope.
Dumb again.
About five minutes after finding the leaf I started to laugh and pulled the leaf out of my waistband. I almost always listen to a podcast while I hike on an old iPhone handed down by That Certain Dartmouth '14. With no SIM card or cell plan it's really just a glorified replacement for my outdated iPod Touch, and while it no longer is capable of making phone calls, it still has a mighty fine camera. Aha, I said to myself in one of those palm-to-forehead moments, I don't have to bring the leaf home. I have a camera with me, just as I did last week when that other leaf crumbled in my pocket.
So I gently placed the latest leaf on a piece of granite and shot this pic as an interesting reminder that fall and football are on the way:
