The Week Ahead

The Wise Guys have spoken and installed Yale as a 2½-point road favorite over Dartmouth Saturday on Memorial Field. Elsewhere . . .

• Harvard is a 19½ -point favorite at home over Cornell.
• Brown is a 7-point underdog at home against Rhode Island.
• Columbia is a 27½ -point home favorite against Marist.
• Penn is a 13-point favorite at home against Georgetown.
• Princeton and Lafayette are a pick 'em.

In the only game featuring one of Dartmouth's nonconference opponents:

• Fordham is a 21½-point favorite at home against Lehigh. 

Colgate and New Hampshire are on bye weeks.

Green Alert Take: You've read these words here before, but betting on Ivy League football is just plain nuts. I'd like to think I follow this stuff as closely as anyone and this year the BGA Fearful Forecast can't even pick the winners straight up, let alone with point spreads. 

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Ray Fittipaldo's chat column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had this answer to a question about the succession plan for running the Steelers organization (LINK):

Art's son, Dan Rooney, will take over when Art steps aside. Dan has worked in a variety of roles for the Steelers after graduating from Dartmouth. He was a coach on the field. He worked in the league office. He now works in marketing. The idea is when he does take over he has a full grasp of the entire organization."

Dan Rooney '12 was a backup quarterback for the Big Green.

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A longer Dartmouth-Penn highlight package from the Ivy League begins the same way the earlier one did: 

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Spotted this ranking of FCS defenses in a Xweet citing Pro Football Focus:

1. Illinois State 91.1

2. SDSU 90.7

3. Penn 90.3

4. Southern Illinois 90.1

5. Princeton 90.0

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Front Office Sports has a story headlined, Advocacy Group Files Federal Labor Charge Against Ivy League with this subhead: The College Basketball Players Association filed an NLRB charge over the classification of athletes as amateurs, rather than employees. From the story (LINK):

The charge alleges the conference has misclassified athletes as amateurs, rather than professionals. While there are several other charges currently pending at the NLRB related to college athlete compensation rights, this is the first one filed solely against a conference.

Unlike the petition filed against Dartmouth in September, this case is not a unionization petition. But if advocates win, the case would have a similar outcome: granting athletes employment status under U.S. labor law.

Green Alert Take: If I had my own college, I'd remind athletes we are talking about playing a game. Think about that. If you want to play, great. If you don't want to play, no worries. Someone else will. Would we lose a bunch? Sure, but it's only a game. Or is it?

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EXTRA POINT
Checking on the foliage reports for those of you from away who will be here for Saturday's game I had a laugh at this: 

Ragged Mountain in Danbury is showing off some serious color, with stunning ombre shades of orange and yellow comingling on trees and russet and red leaves shimmering along the treetops.

I think the person who wrote that spends the rest of the year writing wine descriptions.

Find the full foliage report HERE.

For the record, the leaves in the Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Region are reported to be at "25-35 percent color change."