Some interesting stuff in The Analyst's Never-Too-Early Top 10 and Sneak Peek to the 2023 Season, which features this prediction for the Ivy League race (LINK):
Yale will be favored to repeat with the return of 13 players who earned All-Ivy honors, led by quarterback Nolan Grooms, the league’s offensive player of the year. Princeton returns the big duo of quarterback Blake Stenstrom and linebacker Liam Johnson.
Green Alert Take: Expect that to be taped to the wall of a few weight rooms this winter.
The Analyst also has a too-early Top-10 that includes one 2023 Dartmouth opponent, one former Dartmouth opponent that a lot of Big Green fans would like to see back on the schedule, and one program with a former Dartmouth football standout atop its organizational flow chart.
The 2023 opponent making the cut is New Hampshire, which Dartmouth faces at Durham on Sept. 16. From The Analyst:
8. New Hampshire (9-4, No. 13) – Running back Dylan Laube, the FCS leader in all-purpose yards, and defensive ends Dylan Ruiz and Josiah Silver were first-team All-CAA selections. Quarterback Max Brosmer’s return as a third-year starter also is key.
The former opponent is Holy Cross, which comes in at No. 5. The Wildcats were 12-1 and ranked No. 6 this year. The Crusaders, by the way, will play two FBS games this fall with Boston College and Army on their schedule.
The highest-ranked team of local interest is William & Mary, which comes in at No. 4 after going 11-2 and finishing eight this year. The Tribe's athletic director is former Big Green quarterback Brian Mann '02.
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From the HERO Sports Twitter regarding 2022 FCS statistics:
Top Rushing Defenses
1. SDSU -- 88.1 YPG
2. Penn -- 89.2
3. Princeton -- 90.7
4. Harvard -- 96.5
5. Columbia -- 98.0
In case you are wondering:
7. Yale – 105.9
27. Cornell – 126.2
62. Dartmouth – 159.2
104. Brown – 202.0
HERO also ran the top five Sacks Per Game
1. Jackson State – 3.69
2. Southern -- 3.67
3. Alcorn State - 3.55
4. Penn -- 3.40
t5. Chattanooga -- 3.18
t5. Illinois State -- 3.18
And once again, in case you were wondering:
12. Harvard – 2.90
17. Yale – 2.70
69. Princeton – 1.90
77. Dartmouth – 1.80
91. Columbia – 1.60
104. Cornell – 1.40
110. Brown – 1.30
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He says sports is the 'new religion' in America. "And I think this is particularly true of the demographic of some white males, who see in the world of sports an alternate universe of clarity, unlike their perceptions — and I underscore perceptions — of the larger world, which they think is somehow unfair to them. So they can retreat into this alternate universe of utter clarity, where something is either in-bounds or out-of-bounds, fair or foul — where even the fields of play are defined by right angles.”
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FootballScoop has a story headlined, NCAA working to crack down on second (and third, and fourth) transfers; The Division I Council voted unanimously to update the "guidelines" for undergraduates transferring a second time. From the story (LINK):
In theory, this should eliminate players transferring three times within a career. In reality, it may come down to which players can afford lawyers that can find a loophole around this.
Green Alert Take: It's time for the NCAA to look into the grad transfer situation as well.
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EXTRA POINT
A dear friend from my hometown is visiting after speaking to a class at Middlebury College yesterday. He'd hoped to hit the slopes today and give his new ski boots their first runs. Alas, the forecast is not promising. Correction: The forecast for skiing is abysmal, calling for 42 degrees and 100 percent chance of rain.
Green Alert Take: Don't get me started again. You know how annoyed I get when the forecast calls for 0 percent chance or 100 percent chance. Mathematicians feel free to disagree, but if you ask me, if it's 0 or it's 100 percent, chance isn't in the equation.
