Committed!! #GoBigGreen @CoachDaft @Coach_McCorkle @DartmouthFTBL pic.twitter.com/lyF2oNgn7o
— Charlie Peters (@Charlie_Peters9) August 12, 2024
Peters threw for 2,993 yards and ran for 338 more last year as a junior with 32 passing touchdowns and two on the ground. He completed 66 percent of his attempts and chose Dartmouth over offers from Columbia, Sam Houston and Prairie View A&M. Check out his junior year highlights:
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And now for all the news out of Ivy League media day:
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OK, I am kidding. Sort of.
Once again, little to no useful information came out of the virtual media day. To host Jack Ford's credit, he tried. As an example of how the video presentation went, here is an actual exchange he had with Yale coach Tony Reno, presented verbatim:
Jack FordI'm sure that anybody who's watching this and anybody who's a fan of Yale football is going to want to ask if they had the opportunity to ask you a question, they'd say, all right Nolan Grooms, two-time Ivy League player of the year, fun to watch. As somebody who has covered the Ivy League (Grooms was) really fun to watch as somebody who played at Yale previously. But he's not there anymore. Again you haven't started camp yet so I suspect you don't have the answers. But give us a sense of that group, the incoming quarterback group here and what you see might develop from that group.Tony RenoWe've got we've got four great guys. We bring in a freshman and we've got three guys returning and I was really excited about the growth they made this spring. And the camaraderie they have together, and how they're all trying to make each other better. All of them are here this summer so just excited to see them compete. I think one of the things that is really important at that position is guys being able to compete and someone being able to you know win the team. That happens. It’s happened every year since I've been here and I'm looking forward to seeing that happen again this preseason.
Green Alert Take: Names? Does anyone have the inside track right now? Is one a better thrower than runner? Is one a better runner? Does one have a really good grasp of the playbook? Did any of them see any action last year? Does anyone remind you of Nolan Grooms? Did anyone take a step up in the spring? When would you like to have a decision made?
Look, I don't blame Reno. Like a politician, he's answering a question without answering the question. I get it. But I do wish Ford had pushed a little harder – and would have preferred if he'd talked a little less and encouraged the coaches to talk a little more – but in the final analysis, he wasn't the problem.
I blame the format. I promise you, if this had been the kind of in-person media day they had in the past when reporters rotated from table to table talking to coaches, Reno would have been asked if Grant Jordan has an edge as a senior over juniors Marshall Howe and Brogan McCaughey. And if there was a chance Brady Fleharty might be ready to play as a freshman. (If you hadn't read that sentence you wouldn't have a clue who might be behind center in New Haven this fall.)
Now back to the Ford-Reno conversation.
With the quarterback question out of the way, it was time to go across the line of scrimmage. The answer again was not an answer:
FordWhen you look at the defensive side of the ball coming into this season, again the strengths that you anticipate would be what?RenoI just think we've got some guys that in a variety of roles who have been able to positively affect the game for us in our front, in our linebacker position, and in our secondary. They've got a lot of experience in areas with guys that, whether they've been starters or they've been been guys who have been substitutional players, have been big parts of our success in the last three years. Some of them four years. We have fifth year guys this year. So, yeah, I think the strength of our defense is our ability to play play together. I think our guys play really well together and I saw it this spring. I was just excited about how much better we can get. I think there's a high ceiling for us as a team. The question is are we going to be able to get there? That's the fun of this whole thing. The fun of being able to grow and develop a football team.
Green Alert Take: This is not meant to be a knock on Reno, a successful coach I've come to appreciate a little more with each passing season. Yale's lucky to have him. While a few coaches mentioned a few names, he's representative of why a virtual format where almost no media called in with questions and the host let the coaches ramble, simply did not work.
Green Alert Take II: Trust me, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I received one email reading: "Big fat nothing burger." Another said: "A couple of tidbits but not much." And another: "Total waste of time." A poster on Ivy League media board wrote: "Today’s media day highlights: Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale had nothing useful to say" before offering a very general sentence on the other schools. Just now an email came in saying: "I counted 3 questions from different media. ESPN guy had a couple poor questions." (For the record: Probably because BGA Premium has shut down, I did not receive an invitation to participate.)
Green Alert Take III: I wasted a couple hours I could have been mowing my field listening to the whole thing in hopes I could learn a few things to make my Ivy League opponent previews more substantial. For the record, per YouTube's numbers there were between 64 and 96 viewers at any one time watching the presentation with the exception of when Dartmouth was on the screen. The Big Green viewership set the bar for the day at 114. As of this morning, at least parts of the presentation had been viewed 1,068 times.
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Here is a lightly edited sampling of Dartmouth highlights. (McCorkle and his two players received a grand total of zero questions from media callers.)
Coach Sammy McCorkle on last season:
It was definitely an emotional roller coaster. I think it really showed the resilience of our program, our players, our team. But I think that that was something that we learned, and were taught by Coach Teevens. That's something that was part of his blueprint, part of who he was, part of his DNA. We always talked about A&I, adjust and improvise. ... It wasn't just the individuals involved. It took a village. It really did, and the support that we received from all over, from other coaches in the Ivy League, from (Jack Ford), from the office of the Ivy League. It was phenomenal. And I can't thank our President Sian Beilock and our athletic director, Mike Harrity (enough) for what they've done for this football program and what they're doing for the athletic programs here at Dartmouth College. And also the alums across the country. Everybody knows how how passionate Dartmouth alums are and it was just unbelievable how everybody stepped up and was a huge part of helping us.We took it one day at a time, that's what we did. We focused on each day. Not every day was easy. There were some really tough times, but I think that the culture that has been built here at Dartmouth College allowed us to come together and to focus on accomplishing our goals each day. And you know, I have the best staff in the country. Our coaching staff and our support staff ... as long as we've been together, was a big part of it. That allowed everybody kind of know what we needed to do. Definitely the way the season ended – you couldn't ask for a better way, a better gift to give to the Teevens family, for sure.McCorkle on the team in general:Our guys have had a really good offseason. We talk about all the time in our program about taking care of the little things, attention to details, nothing's too small. And obviously, holding each other accountable. Those are the things that we really focus in the off season. We've we've got a lot of experience with our team. We've got a lot of guys who have the potential to be really good leaders, and they've proven that in the offseason.McCorkle with a few specifics:We're an experienced team. We've got 27 seniors returning on a roster. We've got 3 5th-year guys coming back, and I'd say, essentially, close to about 75 percent of our roster had some type of playing experience last season. Offensively seven of 11 starters come back. Our O-line returns three of the five starters. Of our running backs, we return three of our top five rushers. At quarterback our leading passer is back. We return three of our top five wide receivers. Paxton Scott, our lead receiver, is coming back. Defensively, Donnie Dobes and that staff do a phenomenal job. We return our second-leading tackler, linebacker Danny Cronin. And our top two leaders in sacks, Braden Mullen and Josiah Green. And we also return two Phil Steele preseason, All-Ivy players in the secondary, with Sean Williams and Jordan Washington. And then with our special teams. Owen Zalc, our All-Ivy kicker, it's good to have him back and have him for a couple more years.
And finally, the Dartmouth segment wrapped up this way:
Ford:I want to come back to something you said about your coaching staff, and we made this observation on the air many times. If you look at that coaching lineup at Dartmouth, what always gets my immediate attention is how long so many of those men have been there at Hanover and coached at Dartmouth. What does that say to you? First of all, how important has that been to the success of Dartmouth football? And what does it say to you as a guy who's an assistant and then became the head coach, about these people and and about Dartmouth?McCorkle:It’s been huge. I mean, just the number of years of experience that we have on our staff from not just being at Dartmouth, but other places in the Ivy League as well. They truly understand this league. And I think the biggest thing that has helped us be so successful is there's no egos here. You know, we've got a lot of coaches on our staff who have had a lot of success, but we leave egos at the door. And we all know we have a common goal, and that's to win. ... And you know, e have a couple new coaches on our staff who bring a little bit of different perspective outside the league, and I think that's important to have as well. I'm very fortunate, very blessed, to be with a group of men who prepare our guys day in and day out, not only be the best football player, but be the best student, but more importantly, be the best man.
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Dartmouth's office of "Strategic Content and Brand Management" had a story out of media day HERE that includes video of the Big Green interviews.
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EXTRA POINT
Perhaps you've read in the past that there is no mail delivery on our part of the road and that the databases some online retailers use defer to the next town over when we try to input our address. (It's not excusable but understandable because the next town is only about 300 yards down the hill and the road there has the same name as the road here.)
We learned Saturday morning that a critically important little package that was supposed to already have been delivered ended up not at our house, and not at our tiny post office, but at the post office in the nearby town. We went to that post office and were told they thought the package was meant for someone with the same proper name as Mrs. BGA who once lived on our road (albeit in the nearby town) and they'd forwarded it to her.
The woman at the post office said she would follow up and took our phone number. That was on Saturday. Yesterday (Monday) we learned the woman had gone on vacation. Needless to say the phone hasn't rung.
The result: Mrs. BGA spent well more than seven hours on the phone and computer yesterday trying to fix an issue caused because 1) the package sender wouldn't deliver an envelope-sized package to a post office box; and 2) because some online databases won't accept our actual street address, and 3) because a promise to follow up on the issue went the way of a beach or mountain vacation for the USPS personnel.
Yeah, it was not a good day all the way around.
