McCarthy, Cargill back at practice

Yale senior defensive end Tom McCarthy (Achilles, calf strains) and sophomore running back Mordecai Cargill (hip flexor) are back at practice and should be good to go for Saturday's game at Dartmouth.

McCarthy hasn't played since the first quarter of the season opener against Georgetown and with a knee injury expected to keep the other starting defensive end Matt Battaglia out of Saturday's game, the timing of McCarthy's return could not be more ideal.

"Having your captain back for his first Ivy League game, we are hoping it will give us a boost," Yale coach Tom Williams said. "I know he is excited to play. I know the guys are excited that he is back. We hope all of those things will equate to a chance to win a game on Saturday."

Center Jake Koury will also be out against Dartmouth after suffering a knee injury. Jeff Fell will replace Koury in the starting lineup. Fell is also being pushed by Kyle Wittenauer for the starting long snapper role while Williams said he has reopened the kicking competition since Yale is 0 for 4 on field goals this season with three of the FGs being blocked. Alex Barnes is the incumbent while Philippe Panico is being given a 50-50 chance to earn the kicking job.

Another item I brought up at the weekly press conference at Mory's was reaction to the arrest of former Yale football player Jordan Jefferson during a New Haven police department raid on the Elevate Lounge on Crown Street. The raid, in which some of those on site have accused the police of brutality, came two weeks after there was a shooting on Crown Street.

"We already talked about it as a team, (the importance of) making good decisions," Williams said. "We always talk about that but the one thing we said in light of
what happened downtown with the gunfire is that everybody is on edge. We can’t add fuel to the fire so if you are in the situation when an officer is talking to you about doing something, you’d better do it, you’d better do it right away.

"We had this conversation long before this happened with Jordan. Unfortunately he is not on our team right now so he missed that conversation. When you are under the circumstance that our police are under, you are edge so we don’t need to do
anything to add to that. We need to help diffuse those situations."

Jefferson was a freshman tight end on Yale's 2009 squad. He appeared in two varsity games and although he did not have a reception, he did make a tackle on special teams. He has a medical condition which kept him from being cleared to return to the football field.

While it is possible that Jefferson could play for the Bulldogs again, Williams said "I don’t know what the odds are so there is a chance, you never say never but based on the last conversation I had, it was slim."