Countdown To Football

It's football week for Dartmouth. Make that football weekend!

That's right, the Big Green kicks off three weeks of camp with practices Saturday and Sunday morning, and BGA Overtime will be there. I'll actually get a head start when I zip down to campus in a couple of days to do interviews for stories that will appear on the site at the end of next week.Stay tuned for those.

If you haven't already, bookmark BGA Overtime for the most comprehensive coverage you'll find of any Ivy League football team.

And while I'm at it, if you've helped out in the past or would like to offer a little encouragement, please consider tapping Griff the Wonder Dog over there to the right to find out the how and the why of helping BGA keep going. Thanks.

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While the Ivies are just getting their preseason started, their opening-game opponents are gearing up for their first games in a little over a week.

All eight Ivy League teams open their season on Sept. 19 against schools that will be playing their fourth game. Here's a look at who the Ivy teams face in their openers, and who those opponents will have already played:

Brown at New Haven
New Haven will have played Marist, Stonehill, South Dakota State

Lafayette at Columbia
Lafayette will have played Georgetown, UConn, Marist

Cornell at Colgate
Colgate will have played Fordham, Holy Cross, Central Michigan

Dartmouth at Lehigh
Lehigh will have played Holy Cross, Georgetown, William & Mary

Harvard at New Hampshire
New Hampshire will have played Albany, Syracuse, Stonehill

Penn at Bucknell
Bucknell will have played Richmond, Villanova, VMI

Princeton at Bryant
Bryant will have played Stonehill, Army, Hampton

Yale at Holy Cross
Holy Cross will have played Lehigh, Colgate, Miami (Ohio)

Green Alert Take: Moving the season up one week wouldn't erase the advantage Ivy League opponents have, but it would reduce it (as well as help with scheduling and allowing a bye.)  

Green Alert Take II: It doesn't help this year that seven of the eight Ivy League teams open on the road against battle-tested opponents.

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Dartmouth has four different game times this fall, with the most popular kick time for road games being noon, and three of five home games starting at 1 p.m. Here is the schedule organized by kick time:

Noon
at Lehigh, Sept. 19
at Yale Oct. 10
at Princeton, Nov. 7

1 p.m.
Monmouth, Sept. 26
Merrimack, Oct. 17
at Cornell, Nov. 14
Brown, Nov. 21

1:30 p.m.
Penn, Oct. 3
at Columbia, Oct. 24

7 p.m.
Harvard Oct. 30 (Friday)

Green Alert Take: Am I the only one who read down Monmouth and Merrimack and thought, "Monitor and Merrimack?"

A reminder that every Dartmouth game will be streamed this fall on the ESPN platform. Again, if your TV provider is Comcast Xfinity, Cox, DIRECTV, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, MLB.TV, Spectrum, U-verse, Verizon FiOS, YouTube TV or any of these other providers (LINK), you do not have to pay for ESPN+ anymore, and simply need to activate the service.

Green Alert Take: Did I really say simply activate the service? I apologize for that. As noted on BGA earlier (LINK), good luck getting the streaming service going. If, like me, you've had ESPN+ in the past, or created an ESPN account under a different username/password combination to enter a pool, or your TV provider is under a different email address or username, get started with customer support before it's too late. This link may help. (How do I activate my ESPN Unlimited plan through my Pay-TV Provider?)

Green Alert Take II: It's a nice perk that ESPN added the streaming service to its package at no extra charge (at least not one that I've discovered). That said . . . I sure am glad I made my way through the maze.

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EXTRA POINT

Football preseason is starting at just about the right time for me this year.

Last week, the overnight temps dipped into the mid-40s a couple of times, but earlier in the month it was very hot and dry, so much so that a good chunk of our lawn browned out. Yesterday afternoon I fired up the electric tractor and quickly learned I only needed to cut a few shaded spots.

The grass will green back up before it goes dormant for winter, but while it naps I'll have more free time to spend on a different green. The Big Green.