Checking In At Practice
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| Defensive coordinator Don Dobes works with his unit Monday afternoon. |
HANOVER – After the opening practice of the Dartmouth preseason, senior tackle Delby Lemieux made it a point to say it wasn’t the Big Green’s first practice of the 2025 season, but rather the 13th because the first dozen came in the spring.
If that’s the case, would head coach Sammy McCorkle join Lemieux and characterize Wednesday’s third practice in as many days as the 15th for the upcoming season?
McCorkle chewed on the question for just a couple of seconds. “Yeah, I’d say so,” he answered. “I mean, the way we see it, we just had a long delay between practices. We’re not starting over. We’re continuing what we started in the spring.
“No doubt about it,” he added on reflection. “We’re continuing to build. You’ve got to stack them.”
WHO’S BACK?
While admitting that in reviewing a roster of more than 100 players he might miss a name or two, McCorkle offered up a brief list of players who have returned from injury, and one who’s moved on this fall.
He pointed to linebackers Zyion Freer-Brown and Steve Simkins, who was injured last year, as being recovered from injury. Defensive back No’Koi Maddox, who missed the spring, and fellow D-back KJ Edwards, who did as well, are both back on the field and full go.
“I feel like we’ve got a good number of guys back. We feel pretty good about where we are right now,” said McCorkle. “We are coming in pretty healthy.”
The return of Freer-Brown and Simkins helps make up for the loss of linebacker Tyler Kessel, who opted to transfer and give up football after spending just one season at Dartmouth.
“That one hurts,” McCorkle admitted. “But that’s about it right now.“
POSITION CHANGE
The most notable position change this fall is 6-foot-6, 232-pound Gergely Hudák, a sophomore from Székesfehérvár, Hungary, making the move from tight end to defensive end.
McCorkle also confirmed that after making the move in the spring, 6-3, 225 sophomore Kyle Meier has been locked in at tight end. He arrived on campus a year ago as a quarterback. He’ll be looking to follow in the footsteps of Cole Marcoux and Jace Henry, who both started as QBs and finished their Dartmouth careers as All-Ivy tight ends.
ON THE MEDIA POLL
McCorkle, like Buddy Teevens before him and virtually any coach you might ask about them, doesn’t put much stock – if any – in preseason polls.
That said, he didn’t necessarily disagree with the notion that being picked second behind Harvard might not be a bad thing because it shows respect for the program while possibly making the team hungry to prove the doubters wrong.
“I guess that could be,” McCorkle said, “but either you are going to be hungry because you’re chasing, or you are hungry to prove you belong at the top, because people are going to be coming after you either way.
“But nobody cares about the polls. We know every weekend is a big deal, so it doesn’t matter. It’s a playoff every time you play another Ivy school.”
A TOUGH ONE
McCorkle did not flinch when asked to name one position group on each side of the field that has the most to prove this fall because of graduation losses.
“On offense, I’d say our line,” he said. “We've got just two guys who were starters last year in Delby and (Konstantin) Spörk, but we’ve got guys who have played. Vasean Washington saw a lot of time last year. Max Wentz played a lot last year.
“I think you always hear,’ Oh, you graduated a lot on the line.’ Well, now those guys have to step up, fill in and play.”
Runner-up on the offensive side? Wide receiver. “We’ve got some veteran guys there,” McCorkle said. “But we’ve got to find those next guys. But that’s true across the board, at every position.”
Defensively, the area needing to prove itself is, once again, up front.
“We lost some really good players on the defensive line,” McCorkle said, “but we’ve been down this road before, right? (Defensive line coach Duane Brooks and offensive line coach Keith Clark) have been here before. They lose really good players and develop new ones. Graduation creates competitiveness and guys wanting to be the next guy.
“We talk about it all the time. We don’t just play 22 guys, so it isn’t about finding two or three guys. It’s multiple guys we are counting on to fill in. We’re finding out now who is going to step up and be those guys.”
TRUE OR FALSE?
Lemieux, tight end Chris Corbo, and kicker Owen Zalc – each a preseason All-American – might well be the three best players in the entire Ivy League, regardless of position. Does McCorkle buy that premise?
“They could be,” he said. “Could be. They’ve earned that kind of recognition. But all three of those guys are of the mindset that there’s much more out there. For those three, it’s not about them. It’s always, What can I do to help this program get to the next level?
“They’ve already taken their games to the next level, and what they want to do is help everybody else get there.”
THE QUARTERBACK QUESTION
It wouldn’t be a first story of the preseason without some kind of note about the quarterback situation. If senior QB Jackson Proctor had remained healthy and taken all the meaningful snaps last fall, Dartmouth would be in the midst of a serious competition to be the starter this year, but that’s not the case.
When Proctor was injured last year, it gave then-sophomore Grayson Saunier valuable experience and he made the most of hit. Saunier came on and led the Big Green to the remarkable comeback win at Yale, as well as victories over Central Connecticut and Columbia.
He finished the season completing 47-of-74 passes (63.5 percent) for 533 yards and five touchdowns lwhile also running for 231 yards on 42 carries (5.5 yards per) and a team-high eight touchdowns. That earned him starter’s reps in the spring and has him on top of a preseson QB depth chart that McCorkle really likes.
“(Saunier) brings a sense of calmness and can take control out there, and that’s huge,” the coach said. “Woods (Ray) has been in there, and while he unfortunately missed the spring, he’s also ready to roll. With as many reps as (Noah Trigueros) got in the spring while Woods was out, we have three guys who are ready.
"And then we have (freshmen) Jaden Cummings and Charlie Peters, who are going to be really good quarterbacks we are excited about.”
AND FINALLY . . . HOW IS IT GOING?
McCorkle: “I'll tell you what, I thought on Saturday the guys came out and you could see they were juiced. Of course, it was the first day. So we challenged them: How will you come out the second day? I thought there were some highs and some lows, but we looked pretty pretty good across the board.”
Today – Day Three (or probably 15 in Lemieux’s view) – was a little more uneven after the mercury challenged the mid-80s.
“I thought there were some guys who struggled a little bit today,” McCorkle said. “We added some plays, it was a little bit longer practice, and it was a little bit hotted. So things were a little bit harder.
“You’ve got to prepare yourself a little bit more. I thought we were a little undisciplined and we've got to clean that up. You get a little tired and your mind starts to wander. You can't have that. You've got to fight through that.”
Practicing on Memorial Field at Buddy Teevens Stadium with the sun beating down and heat radiating off the artificial turf took a toll on some players.
“Guys have to learn to fight through it,” McCorkle explained. “We’ve been going in the early morning and it’s been cool. We came out here today and for some of the guys the heat punched them in the face a little bit.
“Now they know it's not just what you do out here for two hours. It’s what you do the other 22 hours. That's the most important thing. The sleep. The eating. The nutrition. The hydration. All that is important.“
UP NEXT
With three days in the books, per NCAA regulations there will be no practice Tuesday The team instead will report for the annual “photo day” shoot.
Editor’s Note: Check BGA Overtime tomorrow for another story out of practice.
