BGA Overtime

HANOVER (Sept. 30 BGA) – Week Two is in the books so it’s time for another edition of the BGA Six Pack Plus with thoughts and analysis heading into the first Ivy League game. 1) Notre Dame played a part in Dartmouth’s win at Merrimack. Stay with me now. It was January of 2022 when the Fighting Irish “flipped” a highly regarded kicker who had committed to Dartmouth. That and several injuries forced the Big Green to pull Ryan Bloch ’23 out of a self-imposed retirement. It also sent Dartmouth back into the market for a kicker, and that resulted in the Big Green landing Owen Zalc. All the sophomore has done since then is make 21-of-26 field goals, with his third of the game Saturday providing the winning margin against Merrimack. The kicker who switched to Notre Dame? He has kicked four extra points for the Irish and hasn’t attempted a field goal. 2) The decision to send Zalc out for a career-long, 50-yard field goal attempt on a fourth-and-nine play at the Merrimack 33 with just 7:54 left...

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (Sept. 29 BGA) – Dartmouth’s 16-14 win over Merrimack Saturday afternoon wasn’t anywhere near the kind of tour de force performance the Big Green enjoyed in the season-opener against Fordham a week earlier. But needing a key stop and then having to drive 62 yards for Owen Zalc’s 32-yard field goal with three seconds left might just prove to be even more valuable heading into the start of Ivy League play against Penn this week. “It’s going to be important for us, for sure,” said defensive lineman Ejike Adele after the Big Green improved to 2-0. “I think when it’s Ivy play we're going to end up in dogfights like this. Probably – definitely – more than once. “It's good that we have this experience now so we can move forward, look at the things that we messed up on in key situations, and just keep building on it. But we're extremely happy that we made it happen at the end.” It happened because both sides of the ball stepped up with the game on the line. Tra...

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (Sept. 27) - Dartmouth and Merrimack are meeting for the first time. … The Merrimack website hasn’t been updated but it would seem this is just the school’s second game against an Ivy League opponent. In 2022 the Warriors let a 21-7 lead with under five minutes remaining in regulation slip away in a 28-21 overtime loss to the Crimson. … Merrimack is being outscored through four games, 32.8-17.3. … Rushing numbers are relatively even with the Warriors averaging 149.8 yards on the ground to 166.5 for opponents. The bigger difference is through the air where opponents have averaged 201.5 yards and Merrimack just 124.3. … The Warriors are converting  just 26.7 percent of third-down opportunities while opponents are at 42.9. Merrimack has been penalized 31 times to the opponents’ 22. Mike Gennetti is in his first year as Merrimack head coach. He succeeded Dan Curran, who led the school through the transition to Division I and left after last season to take the Holy ...

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (Sept. 27 BGA) – No guarantee who will start at quarterback. A dangerous running back. A potential game-breaking wide receiver who may or not play because of injury. A dominant defensive lineman.  The 1-3 Merrimack team Dartmouth faces Saturday has some real similarities to the team it easily dispatched a week ago. But this game differs in one significant aspect. The Big Green’s 45-13 win over struggling Fordham last Saturday came on Memorial Field. This game won’t just be Dartmouth’s first on the road, but it will be Homecoming for the Warriors and like Sacred Heart – which stunned the Big Green two years ago before a boisterous crowd of alumni – Merrimack apparently does Homecoming right. Consider: Although it has a capacity of just 3,500, last year 13,647 were shoehorned into Duane Stadium for Homecoming. That’s almost 5,000 more fans than the Warriors had for their other four home games combined and they were rewarded with a win over Stonehill. Two years ...

HANOVER (Sept. 24 BGA) – Much to the chagrin of some readers and to the reading pleasure of others, the guys have made the move from BGA Premium to BGA Overtime. You know who we’re talking about. The one you love and the one you love to hate. They are – drum roll please – The Optimist and The Pessimist . For those of you who are new to this electronic precinct, here’s how they introduced themselves last year. As your moderator, I don’t think I could improve on what they have to say, so without further ado: The Optimist: I guess I’ll go first. I’m a huge believer in the Dartmouth football program and as the name implies, I see the glass as half full. OK, that's not quite right. I see it as completely full. Over the top as the other guy would probably describe it. Even when my friend is getting a little snarky, I try to maintain civility no matter what cheap shots he takes knocking the team I love. My hope is to point out the absolute best outcomes possible. The Pessimist : The nam...

Paxton Scott with the first of his six catches for 121 yards in this screen grab from ESPN+ HANOVER (Sept. 23 BGA) – Here’s your Week 1 Six Pack of Observations from Dartmouth’s 45-13 win over Fordham in this year’s season-opener: 1) For openers, this was the running back-heavy offense coach Sammy McCorkle said he wanted to use. Although Jackson Proctor is a gifted runner, the quarterback carried just four times for 22 yards, a far cry from a year ago when QB Nick Howard led the team with 138 attempts, 11 more than Q Jones and 80 more than Tevita Moimoi. Against Fordham, Jones had 16 carries, one shy of his career high despite playing just three quarters. DJ Crowther mixed in nine carries. While Proctor had nothing to prove as a runner after posting runs of 78 and 64 yards the past two seasons, soph Grayson Saunier showed he’s a quarterback with a pretty good set of wheels by reeling off a 30-yard TD run. 2) Proctor was a solid 14-of-18 for 185 yards and two touchdowns. In the final ...