The Optimist-The Pessimist Return
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 name says it all. I’m all about pointing out that even in those times when the glass is half full whatever is in it must be undrinkable. You aren’t supposed to take what I say to the bank, but maybe to the local 7-11. I’m occasionally funny and I know I’m a little rude but hope you don’t take it personally. My only guard rail is this: I'll never say anything nasty about a player or a coach. True story, there was a woman a few years back who threatened to take out a hit on me. As for the snarky part? Snark is my middle name.
The Optimist: Welcome back and what a return to Memorial Field. I mean, we dominated our opener in all three phases, offense, defense and special teams. And don’t forget, those guys were widely regarded as a strong contender to win the Patriot League this fall.
The Pessimist: Where do I start? You do realize that Fordham was without the starting quarterback who was on the watchlist for the national offensive player of the year and without its 1,000-yard rusher, its top wide receiver and its biggest offensive lineman, right? And without the linebacker who came into the season with more career tackles than any active player in the country. I mean, as one of our readers asked, How would Dartmouth have looked without Jackson Proctor, Q Jones, Delby Lemieux and Josiah Green?
The Optimist: Better than we let Fordham look. Like I said, that’s a team picked to challenge for the Patriot League title.
The Pessimist: Glad you mentioned that. Do you know who was picked to repeat as the Patriot League champion?
The Optimist: Lafayette.
The Pessimist: And you know how the preseason Patriot League favorite fared on Saturday?
The Optimist: They lost.
The Pessimist: You left out one detail. They lost to Columbia, picked last in the Ivy League. That’s right. The least-respected team in the Ivy League beat the most-respected team in the Patriot League. If you are going to make some noise you better have won that game.
The Optimist: I’m not a fan of you speaking in italics. I just really like the way QB Jackson Proctor ran the team, how our running backs ran wild and how our receivers ran free. And our defense pretty much ran Fordham off the field.
The Pessimist: That’s a lot of running so let me run something by you. All that came against an 0-4 team that was hammered by Central Connecticut, 33-3, and a week later lost to Stony Brook, a team that was coming off an 0-10 season.
The Optimist: With Fordham behind us we’ve got our final warmup for Ivy League play this week at another struggling team, 1-3 Merrimack. That’s just what we need before entering Ancient Eight play.
The Pessimist: You do know the Big Ten is 60 years older than your Ancient Eight, right? As Casey Stengel famously said, You could look it up.
The Optimist: Yeah well, the point remains. Merrimack should be another good warmup.
The Pessimist: For the record, one of Merrimack’s losses was by just 21-6 against FBS Air Force, and on Saturday Maine needed 13 points in the fourth quarter to pull out a 26-15 win over Merrimack, whose nickname really should be the Monitors.
The Optimist: I see what you did there. For the record, you conveniently forgot to mention Merrimack’s other loss so I’ll share it with you. Let’s see, oh yeah. They lost to UConn, 63-17.
The Pessimist: I’ll grant you this. You’ll have a lot easier time Saturday than you would have had if a schedule change hadn’t condemned you to play in front of a friends-and-family crowd a cozy little Duane Stadium instead of up at historic Michie Stadium.
The Optimist: Trust me, I wasn’t happy about Army punting us. I still remember Craig Saltzgaber booting four first-half field goals the last time we played at West Point back in 1983 when we lost just 13-12.
The Pessimist: Ditto. By the way, any idea what Merrimack’s real nickname is?
The Optimist: Warriors. And after we take care of them we have the Quakers. Interesting juxtaposition of team names, huh?
The Pessimist: Hadn’t thought of that but yeah.
The Optimist: Speaking of the Quakers, they blew a lead 22-21 lead Saturday against Delaware to drop their opener.
The Pessimist: What you fail to mention is the game was at Delaware in front of a hostile crowd of 17,848. And that Delaware is undefeated at 3-0. And that because the Blue Hens are moving up to the FBS they aren’t ranked in the main polls but computer rankings have them as high as No. 1 in the country. Oh yeah, and the homestanding Blue Hens needed a TD with 1:44 left to survive the team you’ll face in your Ivy League opener.
The Optimist: After Penn we’ve got Yale, Central Connecticut and Columbia. I’ll grant you the Bulldogs won’t be a pushover, but it will be smooth sailing after that.
The Pessimist: Yale beat Holy Cross last week and the other two had very impressive games. Central Connecticut had FBS UMass on the ropes until the final minutes and we’ve already talked about Columbia knocking off Lafayette.
The Optimist: We’ve got Harvard after Columbia and you know we’ll be ready for them on Dartmouth Night Weekend. Princeton looked terrible losing to Lehigh and then we get woeful Cornell, which also lost last weekend. We couldn’t ask for a better way to end the season than the Tussle Against little sister Brown.
The Pessimist: That’s a lot to unpack. Granted, Stetson wasn’t much of a test but Harvard is my pick for Ivy League champion. Neither Princeton nor Cornell was very impressive but Princeton is still Princeton and Central New Jersey and Ithaca, N.Y., mean two long bus trips in as many weeks. As for Brown, please note they won their opener. On the road, no less.
The Optimist: Two can play that game. Please note that the opponent Brown beat was that noted Patriot League powerhouse Georgetown, picked to finish fifth of seven teams in the struggling PL. And oh by the way, defense still seems to be a dirty word for the Bears. They surrendered 402 yards to the Hoyas.
The Pessimist: We’ve got eight games before the Tussle with Brown so this is as good a place as any to leave it. I’ll see you next week, Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel just a different web address. Not sure what BGA Overtime is but it has a nice ring to it.
