The headline (LINK):
National Powers Highlight 2022 Stats Perform FCS Preseason All-America Team
The lone Ivy League player who gets a mention on the Stats preseason All-America team is Clay Patterson, a 6-foot-3, 267-pound junior defensive lineman from Yale, chosen to the second team.
Patterson is one of four players on the preseason All-America team Dartmouth will face this fall. The others:
• New Hampshire defensive lineman Josiah Silver, a first-team pick.
• Sacred Heart running back Malik Grant, a second-team pick.
• Sacred Heart defensive lineman Kevin Peprah, a third-team pick.
• Sacred Heart longsnapper Brian McNamara, a third-team pick.
Green Alert Take: I totally get North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Montana and Montana State combining for 10 spots on the All-America first team when the headline is something about national powers. But seriously, when Stats Perform names first, second and third All-America teams and Sacred Heart has three players listed and the entire Ivy League has one, something is amiss.
#
The Pioneer Football League has released its preseason poll and Week One Dartmouth opponent Valparaiso is picked eighth in the 11-team conference. Here's how the voting went with last year's overall and league records, points and first-place votes:
1. Davidson (8-3, 7-1 PFL), 98 points (8 first-place votes)
2. San Diego (7-4, 7-1), 91 (3)
3. St. Thomas (7-3, 6-2), 78
4. Dayton (6-4, 5-3), 72
5. Morehead State (7-4, 6-2), 58
6. Marist (5-5, 5-3), 52
7. Drake (2-9, 1-7), 42
8. Valparaiso (4-7, 4-4), 34
9. Stetson (4-7, 2-6), 33
10. Butler (3-8, 1-7), 30
11. Presbyterian (2-9, 0-8), 17
Dartmouth has gone 6-0 while outscoring overmatched Pioneer Football League teams, 215-68, since beginning play against the non-scholarship conference with a 35-7 win over Butler in 2012.
From a STATS story spun out of the Pioneer media day (LINK):
“I think with all the upheaval (in college athletics), I think there’s a place for non-scholarship football in Division I – today maybe more than ever,” PFL commissioner Patty Viverito said. “If we’re going to see some change, it may be in the realm of institutions that may decide that a non-scholarship model is something that makes sense.”
#
James Jones has had two stints as defensive line coach at Dartmouth, the first for just the 2005 season and the second from 2008-10. He's now associate head coach and defensive coordinator at Northern Colorado. (LINK)
Jones' son, a familiar figure around Memorial Field as a young boy who everyone called "Jonesie," went on to play defensive back at Air Force, even earning a rookie minicamp invitation from the Miami Dolphins.
Now a second lieutenant in the Air Force, James Jones IV ran a quick 40-yard dash time as one of the active duty military personnel invited to take part in NFL Combine drills in the Tampa Bay Bucs, "Salute to Service Boot Camp" event. He was interviewed for a Tampa Bay Times story about the event.
Here he talks a little about still having NFL dreams:
#
Dartmouth wrapped up its Meet the Freshman series reprising its look at the entire group in this graphic:
With precious little rain and a lot of blazing sunshine, most of our lawn has gone dormant.
