Sunday, August 11, 2024

We Know That Guy

A story headlined, Virginia Football: Five Impactful Newcomers to Watch This Season includes a grad transfer from Dartmouth among the five. From the story (LINK):  

OL Ethan Sipe
A glaring weakness of Virginia football in the Tony Elliott era has been the offensive line. Allowing the second most sacks per game in the ACC last season, Elliott and offensive line coach Terry Heffernan looked to improve the offensive line this offseason with the addition of Ethan Sipe. Sipe, a transfer from Dartmouth with two years of eligibility remaining, likely will receive some playing time at guard, but he’s also been practicing at center as well. Sipe played right tackle at Dartmouth, but his versatility should allow him to serve as depth for a unit that has been plagued by injury over the last couple of years.

Find Sipe's Virginia bio HERE. Find his final Dartmouth bio HERE.

Also making the list of five is two-time All-Ivy League tight end Tyler Neville from Harvard, and under the honorable mentions heading is former Penn defensive back Kendren Smith, another two-time All-Ivy. (LINK)

Green Alert Take: It's going to be interesting to see if Ivy Leaguers continue to grad transfer next year when the COVID super senior seasons are finished. The guess here is that they will. Former Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens was starting to make part of his recruiting pitch in his final seasons that he would take into account saving a year of eligibility for players rather than see them slip just over the limit for games played as a freshman by running them on the field for a play or two at the end of a rout. I'd expect other coaches will make the same offer.

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Green Alert Take: Every year at this time I'd be clicking and reading, and clicking and reading for hours trying to dig up as much information as I could about each Dartmouth opponent for the BGA Premium preview series. I'd always wait until media day to get some final details before starting to post the previews to get a little more insight, only to be tempted to toss my laptop out the window when coaches spent their segment of the video call talking about how their players are so dedicated and love each other without mentioning a single name. Who are the leading contenders to take over at quarterback and what do they bring to the table? Hah, good luck getting that. I'll listen in this year and hope with all the changeover in coaches there will be at least some usable information. I'm not expecting much, but I'll let you know.

Green Alert Take II: BGA Overtime will have a look at Dartmouth opponents closer to the season when (hopefully) a little more information leaks out.

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EXTRA POINT
As something less than a major media market our local TV stations tend to have a lot of turnover in their staffs and are regularly bringing in new and sometimes very nervous young reporters.

Several years ago one of those newly minted reporters on the 11 p.m. news way up in Burlington reported a fire on Snake Road, here in little old West Newbury, Vt.. Except, he was so nervous he referred to the incident as being on "snah-kay" road. (Sound it out.) Ever since then Mrs. BGA and I have referred to Snake Road as "Snah-Kay" road.

I was reminded of that Thursday evening when we were returning from our anniversary dinner in Quebec. We had turned the GPS on while we were north of the border and hadn't shut it off on the drive back through Vermont. It was almost jarring when we were getting close and the computerized voice chimed in to, "Turn right on Snake Road." Mrs. BGA and I both laughed because we've gotten so used to intentionally mispronouncing the road name that when the GPS voice said it the proper way it almost sounded wrong.

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