BGA (April 19) – Dartmouth is two weeks into its first spring with a new offensive coordinator, a new special teams coordinator, new cornerback, secondary, and wide receiver coaches, a familiar face in a new role as tight ends coach, and a new strength and conditioning coach. With so many players finally getting to know their new coaches and so many coaches getting to know their players, Sammy McCorkle has to be second-guessing the decision he made to shut practice down for the next week, right? Wrong. After the sixth of 12 spring practices on Saturday, the head coach made it clear that the timing is perfect both for his staff, which will spend the week recruiting, and for his players, who can use the time to rest, recover, and review everything they’ve learned over the past two weeks. It helps, of course, that the Big Green is pretty much on schedule with regard to where McCorkle hoped it would be at this juncture. “I think we’re right about where I thought and hoped we would be,” he ...

HANOVER – The Dartmouth players going through the second of the Ivy League’s permitted 12 spring practices this week will be joined late this summer by two dozen or so incoming freshmen, and together those two groups will make up the entire roster for the fall. Or will they? Probably, but that could change in future seasons with the potential for adding a player, or two or three after spring ball. It was a year ago this month that the proposed House v. NCAA settlement all-but erased the 85-scholarship limit for FBS schools in favor of a firm 105-player cap of scholarship and walk-on players combined. Should the settlement be approved, FBS programs that might have traditionally carried 125 players during the season will see that number trimmed by 40 spots. Given an anticipated free-for-all for scholarships among preferred walk-ons, so-called gray shirts and traditional redshirts before and during spring practices at the FBS level, the beneficiaries to the new roster limit could well be ...

BGA photo Big Green Kicks Off Prep For 2025 HANOVER – Almost three weeks after the putative change of seasons, with snow falling and the mercury Tuesday struggling mightily to get over 32 degrees, Dartmouth moved indoors for its first football practice. Make that, its first spring football practice. Head coach Sammy McCorkle made the decision to hold the first of the dozen offseason sessions allowed by the Ivy League out of the elements, and it turned out to be the right one. “Good call on my part, right?” he said with a grin after the brisk two-hour practice that kicked off well before its official 6 a.m. start. A lot of coaches – perhaps most coaches – would have been disappointed after just shy of three months of winter conditioning and almost five months after its last game to be inside instead of in the fresh air. But McCorkle isn’t one of them. “One of the reasons I love being inside is because of the noise and how loud it gets in here,” he said amid the cacophony of sound his t...