Spring Wrapping Up
HANOVER – If you’ve been reading the headlines, you know the spring football game is an endangered species at the FBS level. Fortunately for Dartmouth fans, the Green-White Game isn’t going anywhere.
Actually, that may not be true.
While head coach Sammy McCorkle has no intention of scrapping the annual contest, the Green-White might be going somewhere after all.
Where, you ask? Across the street to the Indoor Practice Facility, AKA the Green House.
Although McCorkle made it clear earlier in the week he wanted the last of the 12 spring dates allowed by the Ivy League to be in Buddy Teevens Stadium, a look at the weather forecast has him somewhat reluctantly pondering a venue shift for the Saturday morning event.
“If it’s a downpour, I don’t want (play) to be sloppy and not get anything out of it,” McCorkle said after Thursday’s practice under gun-metal skies at Memorial Field. “That’s not what we’re trying to do in the spring.
“I want to get a good practice in, so if we have to go inside, we’re going to go inside. Our guys will be fine in there. If we can be out here, we definitely would prefer that. But I’m not going to waste a practice when you only get 12 of them.”
HOW HAS SPRING PRACTICE GONE, COACH?
McCorkle: “It's been awesome. It’s been great. I've been in a lot of spring practices here at Dartmouth over 20 years, and they're all good, but I tell you, this one, you could just tell by the energy they showed every single day.
“Even the days that we do not practice, you can sense the energy in the offices, when we're watching film, when we're meeting, and down in the weight room. There's just that different edge across the board.”
Added the coach, who has guided the Big Green to Ivy League titles in both of his years at the helm: “The players are doing a great job and they're doing what a Dartmouth football player does – show up every day, ready to work hard.”
NCAA CHANGES
Over the month or so that Dartmouth has been practicing, the NCAA has made two changes that will impact the Big Green.
First, the FCS will join the FBS in the fall in allowing coach-to-player helmet communications during games. While the Ivy League was a little late to the party regarding video review, it has gotten on board with the helmet communications according to McCorkle.
“It was approved for the league, so it’s in the works and hopefully we’ll be able to do it this season,” he said. “We haven’t been able to work with it in the spring because there’s a purchase process we’ve got to go through, but we hope to be able to have it in preseason.
“(New offensive coordinator Shane) Montgomery has used it, so I feel pretty good about it. We’ll be able to adjust and adapt pretty quick.”
The other rules change will allow FCS teams to join their FBS brethren and play 12 games every year. While the Ivy League is limited by the conference to 10 games, the expanded schedule for schools from the Patriot League and the rest could benefit the Ancient Eight.
“We’re already scheduled out for the next few years, but I do think it could open opportunities for us with teams that are going to be looking for games,” McCorkle said.
Given that the Ivy League already made a sea change by finally agreeing to allow its members to go to the NCAA playoffs, McCorkle isn’t making any promises about a push to play 11 regular season games.
“That one’s out of my hands, but you never know,” he said. “Would we like to? I think it would be good to have the extra game and a chance to play more and prepare (for the playoffs), but we’ll see.”
SPEAKING OF ‘COACH MONTY’
Montgomery, the new quarterbacks coach as well as offensive coordinator, hasn’t overhauled the Big Green attack this spring, but there has been a push for Dartmouth’s passing game to be more vertical. That’s not to say the Big Green will change its personality next fall.
“We still want to run the ball,” McCorkle said. “That’s never going to change. That’s who we are. That’s our identity as a physical team up front, on both sides. We want to establish the run.
“But at the same time, we have guys out there on the perimeter who have good speed and who can run and make big plays. We want to make sure we give them an opportunity to do that. I think Coach Montgomery has done a good job of stretching the field. And what that does (in practices), is makes our defense better. You better make sure you're back there, and in the right spot.”
ABOUT THE QUARTERBACKS
As has been the case through much of the spring, Dartmouth had only two quarterbacks available Thursday. With Jackson Proctor grad transferring to Northern Illinois, Woods Ray out with injury and Kyle Meier transitioning to tight end, rising junior Grayson Saunier and Noah Trigueros, just winding up his freshman year, are getting a lot of work.
Saunier completed 47-of-74 passes with five touchdowns and one interception last fall and ran 42 times for 231 yards and eight touchdowns. While he’s a known commodity, Trigueros has been something of a revelation this spring.
“He’s impressive,” said McCorkle. “This has been great for him. I feel bad for Wood that he had to miss (spring) because of surgery. But he’s been phenomenal as a mentor for Noah.
“With Noah, you could tell he was getting more confidence each day. He’d speak a little more and a little louder each day, and he started taking control. He’s going to be a good one.”
In addition to getting Ray back for the preseason, Dartmouth has two incoming quarterbacks, Jaden Cummings from South Carolina and Charlie Peters from Texas. Cummings is coming off a knee injury suffered in the state championship game, but McCorkle is hopeful he’ll be ready to go this fall.
MORE ‘ROOKIES’
Offensively, the other first-year name that kept coming up this spring was that of Dylan Elder, a 5-foot-10, 192-pound running back.
“He’s had a really good spring,” said McCorkle. “He has really, really grown these last couple of weeks, understanding what we're doing offensively.
“But I tell you what, all the running backs have done a great job, and DJ (Crowther) has done a great job mentoring those guys. He has taken it to another level. Every one of those guys you put in there, our expectation is for them to be ready to make a big play, make a big block, be in the right spot. And they've done that across the board. We’re super excited about them.”
Among the young players who have impressed McCorkle this spring are defensive back Thai Brown and nickel Lou Lamar.
“Thai has done a good job of stepping up at the corner position,” McCorkle said. “And Lamar has put in the effort to truly understand what we’re doing defensively. He shows signs of being a very explosive player.”
GRAD TRANSFERS
Dartmouth will have at least 15 players doing a grad transfer season next fall, with at least 11 moving up to the FBS. McCorkle stresses Dartmouth’s ability to get players ready to play elsewhere after graduation as a selling point in the recruiting process.
“I just think our guys do a very good job of buying in on the development part of it,” he said. “Our staff does a great job developing our players. And that's kind of what we tell recruits.
“We've got double-digit guys going DI and a good handful of guys who are going Power Four. They may not have had all the stars coming out of high school and might have had only had one, two, maybe three offers. But we find those type of players who are willing to commit, and put in the extra hard work and listen and trust the coaching. We help develop them, and obviously they work hard developing themselves.”
And when they arrive at their next stop, they have some very impressive hardware on their ring fingers.
“The guys have a real test of success here,” he said. “Then they have it in their minds to go on and prove they can do it at an even higher level, and they’ve been able to do that.”
CAPTAINS
The voting is done and the ballots are in, but McCorkle is keeping the winner under his hat until Saturday’s spring game. What he would say is that he liked the results.
“The individuals the players decided on, they hit it right on the head,” he said. “They did a good job. And I tell you, there are a number of guys who got votes, and that’s a testament to the leadership in this program.
“But I think the guys they chose, without a doubt, are going to do a great job for us.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
While the players get a chance to catch their breath after the spring game, not so the staff.
“We're jumping on the plane Sunday, and we're recruiting for two straight weeks,” said McCorkle, who will be speaking on the West Coast and recruiting in Georgia. “We'll be back on the road going after guys that we've targeted.
“We're going to be everywhere. We’re hitting all the camps that are going to have the type of players that we're recruiting, and we’ll have our camps. We’ll be going at it the entire month of June.”
Dartmouth coaches aren’t allowed to talk about commitments among players wrapping up their junior year of high school, but those commitments will be coming.
“Our hope is to have some this weekend,” McCorkle said. “We had an OV (official visit) last weekend and have another one this weekend.
“We’ve got five guys coming in. Every weekend in May is an OV weekend. So it's gotten earlier, and we’ve targeted guys. Hopefully, some guys are ready to jump in the boat.”
