Coach Sammy McCorkle's thoughts after the first week or so of practice went up yesterday afternoon on BGA Overtime. There are two posts, one on the offense and one on the defense. Find them HERE.
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Dartmouth held the first of its two preseason intrasquad scrimmages yesterday and McCorkle provided some observations to the athletic department's office of strategic content and brand management HERE. For those who prefer to avoid Xwitter and Instagram and the like, here's a lightly edited transcript of McCorkle's remarks after the scrimmage:
I was happy with how many plays we've got in. We put in a lot of situational stuff out there. Obviously, only being our ninth practice, there's a lot of stuff that we feared was going to happen. Some situational stuff that we've got to clean up. But I thought overall the energy was really good. Really good.
We had some guys who came out here and competed. We had guys who stepped up and we had some guys who, we've got to clean up some mistakes. But I tell you for the first scrimmage, being in the stadium, overall I was really pleased with just the way we came out here and performed and ran around and the energy level for sure.
The defense obviously had some good, big plays, especially when we needed it on third down. And I thought, especially the second offense, did a really good job of moving that ball and keeping the drives alive. We just need a consistency across the board, which is hard sometimes because if the offense has consistency, obviously defense isn't. But I thought it was a really good balance of that for sure.
And there's things that, once again, little attention to detail stuff that we've got to continue to clean up. But being out here and with the coaches on the sidelines and stuff, there's not anybody there to hold your hand. You've got to be able to go out there and play without that coach sitting there right there, with that security blanket.
Of wide receivers, I thought Painter (Richards-Baker) had some great catches across the middle, some big plays for us. Obviously Paxton Scott. But across the board, I thought the wide receivers did a good job of catching the ball. I don't recall too many dropped passes.
And I thought our running backs did a really good job hitting the holes, hitting it vertical, hitting it downhill. Chris Roper does. DJ (Crowther) did a heck of a job being physical, but working downhill.
Defensively, I thought across the board our D-line put a lot of pressure on our quarterbacks, forced them to have to make some tough decisions. And in the secondary, I thought overall were in the right spots making plays. So really impressed with that.
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The hope was that The Dartmouth 2024 Freshman Special Issue would have some football content, but while there were stories headlined, Tackling traditions: Athletes welcome first-years to varsity teams and Catching on: Walking onto varsity teams at Dartmouth there was no football content.
Worth a read, though, is a Q&A with Brad Ausmus '91, who signed with the New York Yankees before ever playing for Dartmouth but somehow managed to earn his degree while playing in the minors and then went on to a lengthy career in the majors as both a player and manager. He's now a bench coach for the Yankees. Find the story HERE.
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EXTRA POINT
We've been meaning to bring Griff the Wonder Dog to Dog Mountain for several years and today's the day. Almost cloudless skies and warmer temperatures make this the perfect opportunity to take him on an adventure here:
