FCS Football Central turned to the Pro Football Focus (PFF) database and grading system to try to rank the top individual units in the subdivision in 2024. Five Ivy League schools show up in the rankings, which featured the top 10 graded units at each area of the field (LINK):
OFFENSE
7. Columbia
8. Harvard
PASSING
None
PASS BLOCKING
5. Yale
RECEIVING
None
RUSHING
None
RUN BLOCKING
3. Columbia
T5. - Dartmouth
T5.- Harvard
10. Penn
DEFENSE
None
RUN DEFENSE
None
TACKLING
2. Penn
Green Alert Take: First, keep in mind there's a lot of debate about how meaningful PFF numbers are, and that's even more a matter of discussion at the FCS level. That said, what are we to make of four Ivy League teams in the top 10 or run blocking? And Dartmouth not being in the top 10 in tackling, something in which the Big Green players and coaches take great pride?
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HERO Sports has a list of the top incoming freshman quarterback recruits at the FCS level, and one Ivy League recruit gets a mention. From the story (LINK):
NO. 9 – Charlie Smith
FCS CHOICE: Harvard
OTHER TOP CHOICES: 7 G5 offers, 6 FCS offers
Smith is a 6-foot-2, 195-pound quarterback from North Carolina's Charlotte Catholic High School. Per 247Sports, his FBS offers include Connecticut, Toledo, Marshall, Middle Tennessee, East Carolina, Arkansas State and Georgia Southern. Ivy offers were from Harvard, Yale and Penn.
Green Alert Take: Keep in mind Princeton had a quarterback offered by Alabama, Arizona State, Tennessee, Minnesota and others a few year ago, and he was never able to see the field for the Tigers.
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Peyton Manning, apparently riding in the back seat of a car, shares with Pat McAfee why he spearheaded the making of the film The Buddy Way, and why he penned a first-person story about Buddy Teevens:
“He was one of the first coaches to hire women, one of the first coaches to get rid of tackling in practice… an innovative guy in growing the game who lost his life way too early and wanted to pay his legacy forward.”
— Omaha Productions (@OmahaProd) January 31, 2025
Peyton joined the @PatMcAfeeShow to talk about The Buddy… pic.twitter.com/zSZklqjMgs
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The latest Sign of the Apocalypse brought on by the wild, wild west of college football per the Associated Press (LINK):
The Nebraska spring game, one of the best-attended in college football and a major revenue producer, likely won’t be held going forward because of coach Matt Rhule’s concern about other teams poaching his players.
And . . .
“The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore,” Rhule said Saturday at his midwinter news conference. “It’s just an absolute free open common market. I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, ‘He looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’”
Green Alert Take: I get it, but it will be a sad day for our family if spring games ever come to an end. True story. When I was at the newspaper (and later doing BGA), I worked every football weekend in the fall, so the only opportunity I had to share what Penn State football is all about with our kids was to cart them out to State College for the Blue-White spring game. We'd pitch our tent at the KOA campground in Bellefonte, Pa., a day or two before the game, drown worms in the fishing pond that afternoon, and then cook up hamburgers the first night. The next day we'd head into town to shop for Penn State T-shirts and souvenirs on College Avenue, order grilled stickies at The Diner, grab delicious ice cream cones at iconic Creamery, and explore the beautiful Penn State campus. On Saturday we'd join upwards of 60,000 others watching the action in Beaver Stadium. It's a pretty good guess that That Certain Nittany Lion '16 wouldn't have ended up graduating from Penn State without our annual trip out for the Blue-White weekend. And I wouldn't have such special memories of sharing a wonderful weekend with the kids if not for the spring game.
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EXTRA POINT
Apparently, we were a little ahead of the curve five years ago when we moved from New Hampshire to Vermont.
Per a story cited by Newsweek, the five "states that had more people moving in rather than out, ranked by proportion of people arriving, were:
1. Vermont, 2. Delaware, 3. Hawaii, 4. Oregon, 5. Georgia.
And the five states "losing more people than they are gaining:"
1. New Hampshire, 2. DC, 3. New Mexico, 4. Arizona, 5. Montana.
Check out the top 10 in each category in the Newsweek piece HERE.
