FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY YOUR DARTMOUTH BIG GREEN ARE @ECACHOCKEY CHAMPIONS! #GoBigGreen | #TheWoods 🌲 pic.twitter.com/SX2nhvnNKN
— Dartmouth Men's Hockey (@Dartmouth_MIH) March 22, 2026
Green Alert Take: I've been asked many times if there's another Dartmouth sport that BGA could cover and my standard answer is that only men's ice hockey has the following that could support it. For reference, the Big Green played before 86,913 fans this season, with 52,964 turning out for 19 games at Thompson Arena.
The issue, of course, is a season that begins in October and this year will stretch into April would require winter trips through snow and ice to games in distant New York state outposts like Canton, Potsdam, Ithaca and Hamilton. The travel difficulty and expenses combined with the length of the season make BGA on the ice an impossible challenge. That said, this would have been the year to do it. ;-)
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Men's hockey wasn't the only Dartmouth team to win its first ECAC title yesterday. The equestrian team defeated New Jersey's Centenary University in Charleston, S.C., by a 7-3 score. (LINK)
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Back to football.
Someone who covers Oregon football and no doubt would appreciate baseball's sabermetrics and basketball's KenPom numbers takes a look at former Yale offensive lineman Michael Bennett, who will play for the Ducks next fall. Trying to parse what he has written is exhausting, but here are a couple of excerpts you may find interesting.
He introduces the first video clip he uses this way:
The rushing attack was an essential part of that, and in most games was between 55% to 58% of total meaningful playcalls, but explosive rushing was relatively rare at only about 12% frequency and came about mostly because of defensive miscues - rushing was more like a hammer to dull the defense's wits and set up the real way of moving the ball, which was explosive passing on quick throws made easy by the way they'd affected the defense. The upshot is that a large part of the most productive plays, by design, didn't really involve the offensive line needing to sustain blocks, which is important context for focusing on the setup and behind-the-chains plays when they did.
Whew.
That intro leads to an analysis of Bennett and the Yale offensive line's performance against . . . you guessed it . . . Dartmouth. (Video link) From the column:
Dartmouth's defensive front had Yale shut down both years, with broken tackles in space the only way the Bulldogs could move the ball. The defense is playing conservatively here and Yale instantly throws into the big cushion, something they'd do whenever they had the opportunity. Note the ball is out before the line is even engaged.
The column also includes this, which Yale's performance in the FCS playoffs kind of puts the lie to, but which is still kind of funny:
The final complicating factor is this: I've done season reviews on three years' worth of Notre Dame tape, four years of Auburn, five years of Florida State, and more of Washington than ought to be permitted under the 8th Amendment... and this Yale football team might be the luckiest program that I have ever seen. I was amazed at some of the stuff that the Bulldogs got away with, most of which if Oregon tried I'm certain would not only fail but would somehow result in injuries and NCAA sanctions.
If you have the time, the interest and the patience, check out the column HERE.
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EXTRA POINTIt snowed enough overnight Friday that our road had to be plowed yesterday morning, and we're in the midst of a winter weather advisory that could bring us 3-6 inches of snow and ice today before things finally settle down Monday morning. Enough is enough.
