On Fields, The Schedule, Transfers And More

 HANOVER (Sept. 2) – For as much as he appreciates having an all-weather artificial surface in Buddy Teevens Stadium, Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle has regularly eschewed practicing on the plastic stuff this preseason, and for several reasons.

First, the two grass Blackman Practice Fields, which visiting scouts have in the past have praised as “NFL quality,” could not be in better shape this preseason.


“This is a golf course,”said McCorkle earlier this week as he marveled at the kind of neatly trimmed, bright green lawn a suburbanite would kill for. “I mean, our facility crew does a phenomenal job keeping it up, and it’s not just the look. We’ve practiced on both fields and they are in really great condition. They couldn’t be better. We are very lucky to have them.”


Before going on to the other reasons for crossing the street to practice on the pristine grass, a little history lesson.


Not all that long ago, the only permanent facility at Chase Field was Thompson Arena. While the addition of the Boss Tennis Center, the indoor practice facility, and permanent soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and softball stadiums have carved up the once wide-open Chase property, there’s still more than ample room on the adjacent 100-yard fields for McCorkle’s coaches to each have their own area for conducting drills between team periods.


“That’s the biggest reason for being out here,” McCorkle explained. “It’s the space. We are able to spread out and really utilize as much space as we need, which we really can’t do in the stadium.”


Beyond that, instead of being boxed in between the Teevens Stadium's concrete stands and Floren Varsity House, the Blackman Fields allow the players – and coaches – to appreciate something that sets Dartmouth apart from Columbia, Harvard, Penn, and the like.


“I mean, you come out here and you’ve got the woods,” McCorkle said with a sweep of his hands toward the Appalachian Trail, which passes just beyond the Blackman Fields on its way up to Velvet Rocks and eventually Moose Mountain. “There’s just something about being out here in our own little place.


“We tell people, ‘Welcome to the Woods.’ Well, here you go. This is the woods.”


IF GRASS IS SO GOOD . . .

Would McCorkle turn back the clock, as some schools are starting to do, and replace Memorial’s ersatz grass with the stuff that Hall of Famer Dick Allen once characterized as the stuff that horses eat?


As the great Lee Corso would say, Not so fast, my friend.


Now in his 20th year in Hanover, McCorkle remembers when the stadium still had grass and that it wasn’t always a pretty sight, particularly after a few wet games had chewed it up, and the mercury had started to drop.


“I just think with the weather we get in the back half of the season going back to grass wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said. “When we first got here it was grass, and that was my first experience with it in the north. It was a mess when it rained, and late in the season it was hard as rock.


“Grass is nice, but it would be tough when the weather gets cold. We’re lucky to have grass to practice on this time of year and to have (artificial surface) in the stadium.”


SCHEDULE MUSINGS

While Dartmouth’s three nonconference opponents were kicking off their seasons last Saturday, the Big Green players were instead at Storrs Pond doing the same kinds of things the rest of us do on summer holiday weekends.


That’s because Dartmouth and its Ivy League brethren won’t play real games for another 2½ weeks.


With the Ancient Eight coaches and players only recently winning their long fight to  compete in the FCS postseason, McCorkle knows it would be pushing things to petition the Ivy presidents to join the rest of the free world and play an 11th game. But if someone sprinkled some magic dust and made him the Ivy League commissioner with unlimited powers, he’d take an important first step in that direction.


“I’d start by moving the season up so we could have a bye week,” he said. “I mean, it’s hard enough going 10 straight games, but now a team that goes into the playoff would be playing 11 or 12 weeks in a row or more. So that’s the most important thing. To find a way to have that bye week.”


Adding a game, pretend commissioner McCorkle believes, would have real value in the run-up to playoff selection and seeding.


“Unfortunately,” he started off, "you already hear the other conferences saying about the Ivy League, ‘Well, they only play 10 games.’ I heard that at the FCS convention. I said, ‘But we don’t have a bye week,’ and they said, ‘But we play 11 or 12 games.”


Although Ivy League won’t make its playoff debut until this fall, Commish McCorkle is already thinking ahead.


“To me, in order for an Ivy team to get an at-large bid, you are going to have to go to an 11th game,” he said. “Then you have to win at least eight games, which means if you don’t win the Ivy, you will pretty much have to run the table in conference to get the at-large.”


THE GRAD TRANSFER PITCH

Dartmouth had at least 18 former players explore the idea of grad transferring after last season, and the vast majority found new homes where they are using their final year of eligibility.


McCorkle not only applauds those who move on – after earning their degree – but he has made the chance to graduate from Dartmouth and then play another year at the next level part of his recruiting pitch. Players who appear in no more than four games in one season can use that year of eligibility as grad students elsewhere.


“That’s something we talk about with recruits,” he said of the cutoff for preserving a redshirt. “We’ll sit them down and have that conversation with them. We tell them when the time comes, we’ll say, “Hey, you’re getting to that fourth game,’ and we’ll make a decision.


“At that point, we’ll talk about what we are looking at for our program, but also what the individual is thinking. We don’t want to burn (a redshirt year) if we don’t have to. But lucky for us, we are usually an older team, so we don’t have to play young guys as much as some teams.”


The grad transfer model has been a sea change McCorkle has witnessed firsthand.


“It’s funny,” he said. “It used to be, ‘Coach, I’ll come to your school if you guarantee me I start.’ Now it’s the opposite. They don’t want to start, so they can preserve that extra year.


“It’s completely changed over the last five or so years. You used to hear, “Am I going to play?’ And if they didn’t hear what they wanted, they’d go somewhere else. You don’t hear that anymore.”


While McCorkle and his staff pledge to uphold their part of the bargain with recruits hoping to use a final year elsewhere, they make it clear there’s another part of the deal.


“We want them to graduate,” the coach said. “That’s an advantage we have in the Ivy League. Almost everyone who transfers graduates. I know a couple of guys, like the running back from Pennsylvania (Malachi Hosley, now at Georgia Tech), left early. Those are the ones you worry about.


“But usually, the guys who graduate have more clout at the schools they may consider going to. So the way I see it, getting the degree and then using the extra year to start another degree is too good an opportunity to pass up.”


ON TAP

Dartmouth went full pads on Monday, transitioned to “uppers” on Tuesday and will be all kitted up for Wednesday’s scrimmage. BGA will be on the scene with a story Wednesday evening.

Click the Previous Posts link reading “click here” (directly above this line) for a full list of stories.

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