From the Go Figure department: The NCAA.com website has a story headlined The top 12 non-conference games in the 2022 FCS season, and lookie here at one of the games they picked (LINK):
Week 4
Dartmouth at Sacred Heart | Sat. Sept. 24 | 2 p.m. ET
Dartmouth and Sacred Heart each finished 2021 as conference champions, winning the Ivy League and NEC, respectively. Since the Ivy League doesn't send its champion to the FCS playoffs, this could be Dartmouth's one chance to face a playoff team in 2022... if it repeats.
Green Alert Take: OK, I'm a firm believer when it comes to things like this there is no such thing as bad publicity, but it's interesting that the only game on the Dartmouth schedule the NCAA writer could have picked with less juice for the Big Green faithful would be the opener against Valparaiso. To be fair, Sacred Heart is on a pretty good run and on paper it looks like a showdown between two conference favorites bidding to repeat. All true, but the reality is the game is nowhere near as compelling as any Ivy League matchup or the New Hampshire game.
For the record, two other New England games made the list, with an old friend showing up twice:
Week 5
Holy Cross at Harvard, Oct. 1Week 11
Bryant at Holy Cross, Nov. 12
Green Alert Take: You've got to believe a Dartmouth-Holy Cross game would have been a strong contender to make the list. Alas, the Big Green's traditional rival sadly isn't on the schedule.
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The Analyst, the bible of the FCS, continues its conference preview series with a look at the CAA and the projection is not good for Oct. 15 Dartmouth opponent New Hampshire. The Wildcats, long one of the giants of the powerhouse conference, were picked 10th of 13 teams. Here's the capsule (LINK):
New Hampshire (3-8, 2-6) – The Wildcats lost the final eight games of the Sean McDonnell era (157 wins, 14 playoff appearances) and finished last in the CAA in a number of key statistics. New coach Rick Santos guided the program for six months in 2019 when McDonnell was on medical leave. He saw that season what a healthy Max Brosmer can do behind center, and Dylan Laube led the CAA in all-purpose yards per game (147.4) last season.
The CAA's conference poll looked like this:
1-Villanova, 270 pts (16 1st)
2-Delaware, 235 (7)
3-Rhode Island, 224
4-Richmond, 219
5-William & Mary, 206 (2)
6-Elon, 191 (1)
7-Stony Brook, 151
8-Maine, 134
9-New Hampshire, 117
10-Monmouth, 105
11-Towson, 81
12-Albany, 64
13-Hampton 31
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Missed this earlier but HERO Sports posted its Pioneer Football League prediction and Week One Dartmouth opponent Valparaiso didn't fare much better than UNH (LINK):
1-St. Thomas
2-San Diego
3-Davidson
4-Dayton
5-Morehead State
6-Marist
7-Stetson
8-Valparaiso
9-Drake
10-Butler
11-Presbyterian
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This story about the former Dartmouth athletic director who has dealt with serious health issues since leaving Hanover should bring a smile to your face (thanks for the link):
Find the story HERE.
As a sportswriter I guess you'd describe me as a "ham and egger." I've won my share of small newspaper and college sports info writing awards, have had freelance stories in major papers, golf magazines and an NBA game program, and was responsible for the Ivy League chapter of the massive ESPN College Football Encyclopedia. All in all, nothing special.
Sports Illustrated once flirted with a freelance piece I wrote about my playground basketball days, but ultimately decided not to run it. But something I'm proud of did make it into SI one time and when I casually mentioned it to a good friend of BGA a couple of days ago he did some digging and found it in the SI Vault online.
Let me back up. Between stints at the newspaper, I spent five years as assistant director of sports information at Dartmouth. One day in 1987 I was looking at the Big Green's depth chart and noticed something funny about the three-man defensive front.
Keep in mind that way back then a 250-pound defensive lineman was considered pretty large. Dartmouth was starting two of them.
The third starter wasn't nearly as heavy, but he stood a full 6-foot-6.
When I looked at their names, I started to laugh. With then-SID Kathy Slattery's encouragement, I faxed a note off about the Dartmouth D-line to Sports Illustrated.
Now, as I wrote at the top of today's BGA Daily, there's no such thing as bad publicity but the spin SI put on the tip I sent along strains that idea. This is from the Nov 9, 1987 Sports Illustrated:
For the record, when I was at the newspaper I also got a note into the SI Scorecard section from a state amateur golf tournament I was covering. As was (is?) the case in the amateur tournament, one day saw the golfers having to play 36 holes. I was there as the same player holed out from 100-plus yards in each round. And he did it on the same hole. SI bit on that one ;-)
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The first four-day string of Dartmouth preseason practices wraps up this afternoon and as is the case every night there will be a story tonight on BGA Premium. By the way, be sure to read last night's piece about Big Green offensive coordinator Kevin Daft's three weeks working with the Denver Broncos this summer.
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EXTRA POINT
In remote areas of Colorado cell phone coverage is weak to nonexistent. That can change when you are at altitude.
Yesterday That Certain Dartmouth '14 ranger got service and sent along a photo captioned, "My office view today." Here's what she saw:
In case that's a little small, the writing says, "Sunshine Peak, 14,001' "
I've written this before but one of the first times she sent a picture like that I wrote back, "I'm jealous." Her response: "I'm jealous of myself."
We should all be so lucky.
