HERO sports has its Ivy League preview and the site has Dartmouth even lower than the Ivy media, which pegged the Big Green sixth. Here's how HERO sees the race playing out (
LINK):
1. Yale
2. Penn
3. Princeton
4. Harvard
5. Columbia
6. Cornell
7. Dartmouth
8. Brown
The HERO piece also offers its "top players" in the Ivy League without a Dartmouth player mention.
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With the first full week of play in the books (sans the Ivies, of course), Sagarin's ratings for the Ancient Eight teams have barely budged. The Big Green's Ivy opponent ratings were a little more volatile. Here are the new ratings with the previous week in (parentheses).
133 Yale (137)
152 Princeton (149)
166 Dartmouth (167)
176 Harvard (175)
183 Penn (183)
193 Columbia (192)
214 Cornell (215)
232 Brown (230)
148 New Hampshire (157)
231 Colgate (220)
239 Lehigh (233)
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Number 99 with the "L" on his jersey is Dartmouth grad Shane Cokes. He's a "Leader" rather than a "Dawg" for the fellow coaching at Colorado. Find a story about the labels said coach prefers
HERE, with a brief mention of Cokes.
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New Hampshire's Dylan Laube, the All-American return specialist/running back Dartmouth will see in Week One, has been selected the FCS National Special Teams Player of the Week for his play in Saturday's game at Stonehill. He piled up 229 all-purpose yards with a 58-yard punt return for a touchdown, 89 yards rushing with a score, 31 yards receiving with a TD and 51 kickoff return yards.
Laube missed the Dartmouth game last fall because of injury but the last time the Big Green played at UNH he had touchdown runs of 53 and 75 yards, the lone bright spot for the Wildcats as the Ivy Leaguers posted a 38-21 win.
Interestingly, the National Offensive Player of the Week after scoring five touchdowns in a 42-20 Holy Cross win over Merrimack was running back Jordan Fuller. From the story about Laube, Fuller and the national awards (
LINK):
It marked the most TDs by a Crusader since the legendary Gordie Lockbaum had six in a 1986 win over Dartmouth.
Green Alert Take: Lockbaum continues to haunt Dartmouth all these years later.
Fuller, by the way, is a New Hampshire kid who got away from both New Hampshire and Dartmouth. He starred at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton before graduating from Governor's Academy in Massachusetts.
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One more note about UNH. The Wildcats play at Central Michigan Saturday in their annual FBS matchup. New Hampshire will be bidding for the first FCS win over an FBS team this year. So far the record for the subdivision is 0-41.
Between 2004 and 2009 New Hampshire won five consecutive games over FBS teams, including victories against Northwestern and Rutgers.
Elsewhere this weekend in games featuring Dartmouth opponents, Lehigh is at Merrimack and Colgate travels to Villanova.
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Click the graphic to watch video from Dartmouth's social media.
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From Football Scoop (
LINK):
Hate the new clock rules all you want, but at least be honest about it.
A viral tweet making the rounds over the weekend blamed the new rule winding the clock on first downs outside of the final two minutes of each half for taking "40-60 snaps away" from games.
Here's what the Scoop dug up that addresses the "viral tweet" from Hal Mumme:
Thus far through this young season, FBS teams are running 66.9 plays per game in 2023. Last year, the median FBS team ran 68.7, according to an analysis of CFBStats.com data.
The NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel predicted the change would chop around 15 scrimmage plays per game; we need more data to see how accurate the prediction becomes.
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Can't take credit for finding this but I can take the blame for missing it when it came out in December:
An injury-plagued tight end has been cleared by the NCAA to play a ninth season of college football should he so choose. Find the original story
HERE. Since that story came out, he transferred to Miami where his bio begins this unbelievable way (
LINK):
Before Miami: Spent first seven seasons of career at Oregon . . .
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Once more with feeling . . .
There will be a Questions for Coach column on
BGA Premium Friday and you can submit your questions at the link below.
All I ask is that you be respectful, don't ask about playing time for individuals, and please understand that interim coach Sammy McCorkle, like everyone around the program, is respecting the Teevens family wishes for privacy.
That out of the way, if you have a question for me to ask McCorkle CLICK HERE. That will address an email to me with the subject line, BGA Questions.
Thanks!
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EXTRA POINT
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I never hustle out to the car running a little late only to realize I'm going to have to stop for gas and be even later.
And of course with our solar tracker covering all of our electric usage, charging ends up being free. Win-win-win.
