With the winter quarter now underway transfer portal news is slowing down, but one Dartmouth player is reporting a new offer. That would be tight end Zion Carter, who Tweets an offer from Alabama A&M. His offer sheet already included Grambling, Buffalo, Marshall, Tulane, Campbell and Alabama State.
#
Dartmouth has a story headlined, Teevens Praises NFL for Response to Hamlin Incident News; The Dartmouth coach talks to his team about the on-field collapse of the NFL safety. From the story:
Teevens says the incident was on all of the players’ minds and talking it through was “cathartic.”
Read the full story HERE.
#
After quarterback Bob Timberlake went 1-for-15 kicking field goals for the New York Giants in 1965 the team signed Cornell grad Pete Gogolak away from the AFL's Buffalo Bills and the rest is history. In his first season with Big Blue, Gogolak was 16-for-28 and the era of the soccer-style kicker was born.
It's not quite as obvious but we are seeing another revolution with the Australian invasion having an impact on the art of punting. From a lengthy story about the Aussies and their impact on college football and the NFL (LINK):
In a half a generation’s time, Australians have gone from football interlopers to standard-bearers. It is not just their massing ranks (this season, nearly 40 percent of Division 1 punters hail from the country) or statistical success (a pair of Australians lead the NFL in cumulative yardage); it is their reshaping of the sport’s interlude, its universal fridge break, into something worth sticking around for.
The 4,800-word story tells not only of the Australian academies that have sprung up to groom players from Down Under for college football, but explains the specific techniques that are "reshaping" the art of punting.
But are they really?
Bob Rex '57, who captained the 1956 Big Green, has a keen eye for punting and isn't so sure. After reading the story about the Australian invasion he heard echoes of the quick kick system the always innovative Bob Blackman had him use in his senior season. A little more research online confirmed it for Rex. "It was exactly the same as the Blackman method," he writes.
Green Alert Take: Dartmouth hasn't yet dipped into the Australian ranks for a punter but if that day comes, mate, it would seem the new guy won't be the first Aussie-style punter to play for the Big Green. ;-)
#
EXTRA POINT
With the temperature hitting 40 degrees a couple of days in a row the top few inches of our dirt roads have thawed. While mud season is still a couple of months or so away there's still plenty of yuck to go around. If I can scrounge up enough quarters I'll be taking our EV down to the self-service car wash after hiking today (because it will be warm enough that the soap and hot wax won't freeze before I get out of the bay). Here's a "before" picture I just shot, and if the roads don't freeze up again soon I can promise you it will look like this again in just another couple of days:
 |
| So you want to live on a dirt road, huh? |
