Sunday, August 20, 2023

Your Mileage May Vary

The Division I Sagarin Ratings are out and the the computer model for the 261 teams in Division I is interesting to say the least. To be fair, it becomes more accurate once at least a few results are in.

Here's what it looks like this morning for the Ivy League and Dartmouth's nonconference opponents ahead of the 2023 schedule:

137 Yale 53.88

149 Princeton 50.77

167 Dartmouth 46.94

175 Harvard 45.34

183 Penn 43.28

192 Columbia 40.98

215 Cornell 35.45

230 Brown 31.38


157 New Hampshire 49.29

220 Colgate 32.70

233 Lehigh 30.12


The top-ranked FCS team, unsurprisingly, is South Dakota State, which comes in at 56. Rounding out DI is Presbyterian, at 261.


Georgia is No. 1 overall.


Per Sagarin, the point spread on Dartmouth's games at this juncture look like this:


• New Hampshire would be favored by 5 points in the opener in Durham.

• Dartmouth would be an 18-point favorite in its home opener against Lehigh.

• Dartmouth and Penn would be a tossup in the Ivy League opener in Philly.

• Yale would be a 4-point favorite at Memorial Field.

• Dartmouth would be favored by 8.5 points at Colgate.

• Dartmouth would be a 9-point favorite home against Columbia.

• Harvard would be a 1½  point favorite in Cambridge.

• Princeton would be a 1 point favorite in Hanover.

• Dartmouth would be favored by 14.5 home against Cornell.

• Dartmouth would be favored at Brown by 12½  points.


If you are counting, that would have Dartmouth at 5-4 with the season balancing on the tossup game at Penn.


In the Ivy League the Big Green would be 3-3 with the Penn result determining a winning or losing conference record.


For what it's worth, here's what Sagarin had before last season:


128 Dartmouth

137 Harvard 

141 Princeton 

163 Yale 

183 Penn 

185 Columbia 

211 Brown 

227 Cornell 


And here's what Sagarin had a season's end:


152 Yale 

155 Princeton 

164 Harvard 

174 Penn 

182 Dartmouth 

189 Columbia 

211 Cornell 

226 Brown 


Green Alert Take I: Fun to look at and talk about, but don't take Sagarin's ratings to the bank.

Green Alert Take II: In the Ivy League, at least, it's a lot easier to pick the bottom of the league than the top.

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The local Valley News has coverage of the first day of Dartmouth's preseason HERE.


BGA Premium will have coverage of Day Two practice tonight. If you haven't signed up or renewed your subscription yet, you are going to have a lot of catching up to do in a few days. ;-)


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A short video look at Day One from Dartmouth's social media:

And some stills from the social media desk:

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EXTRA POINT

First, a little background. Because of safety concerns our Chevy Bolt EV has been limited to charging to 80 percent for most of the two-plus years we've owned it. Finally, after a little poking around by the engineers in Detroit, we've received a software update that will allow us to charge to 100 percent –  but only if the software doesn't reveal any problems over the next 6,200 miles.


Stick with me.


It doesn't work in the regular season but the Dartmouth preseason football schedule is such that for the past couple of years I've been able to ride the free commuter bus from our local park & ride to campus, limiting the miles I put on my car since we moved a half hour north of town. Now, for the first time, I'm actually trying to put miles on the thing to get to that 6,200-mile threshold, so I'm going to eschew riding the bus.


For someone who has always tried to limit the miles on his cars this is truly an Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass time.

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