Tuesday's news and notes

 

First, check out this story on Henry Furman and how he went from fighting for playing time at WR to starting QB for the 3-0 Bulldogs.

Following a big win over previously nationally ranked Cal Poly, Yale will travel to face Dartmouth. The Big Green will be playing with a major sense of urgency after losing in four overtimes to Penn (the longest game in Ivy League history) and falling to 1-2.

“They should be 3-0 in our eyes,” SS Cole Champion said.

Dartmouth has one of the top QBs in the Ivy League in Dalyn Williams. He was last year’s Ivy League Freshman of the Year and is leading the league in total offense (353.5 ypg). Williams saw his streak of 216 passing attempts without an interception come to an end against Penn. Dartmouth also has a talented running back in Dominick Pierre and a deep group of WRs. Defensively, they are very disciplined and do a good job of disguising their defensive looks. They have size that could present some issues for the Bulldogs.

And don’t expect last week’s win to have any effect on Yale.

“We haven’t won in a while,” Furman said. “We won two games last year, so everyone is in high spirits. But we need to decide if we want to be a good team or a great team. Do we want to rest our laurels here or really do something special this season.”

A LOOK BACK

Last season, Yale RB Tyler Varga, a transfer from Canada, had to sit out against Dartmouth as the NCAA investigated his eligibility. The NCAA received a complaint about his eligibility and many speculated it came from Dartmouth. Varga was eventually cleared. The Ivy League eventually issued a press release stating that the complaint did not come from Dartmouth.

Then during pregame warmups, Yale lent Dartmouth a kicking tee because the Big Green forgot theirs. But Dartmouth kicker R.C. Wilenbrock told the USA Today that Yale coach Tony Reno came over and asked for the tee back. Dartmouth cut a water bottle and molded it into a tee.

Needless to say, there’s some bad blood here.

Dartmouth went on to beat Yale 34-14 last year.

“We don’t really know what happened with that,” said Furman about the Varga situation. “We just know he wasn’t able to play that week. We’re more concerned with the 34 points they put up on us. They played at the level we inspired to play at every week. We want to beat Dartmouth. And we want to beat them bad.”

Added Reno: “As long as he’s there Saturday, that’s all that matters to me. Whatever happened last year, happened. That’s out of my control. What’s in my control is my 95 guys and us getting ready to play a football game.”

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

Where Yale stands in the FCS…

Total offense: No. 11 (486.7 ypg)

Turnover margin: Tied for No. 1 (+2.0 tpg)

Interceptions thrown: Tied for No. 2 (1 INT)

FURMAN ON YALE’S OFFENSE AGAINST CAL POLY

“We have a lot of weapons,” he said. “Cal Poly ran their base coverage. They didn’t really blitz or try to disguise their schemes or anything. They basically say we’re better athletes than you and we don’t need to do that kind of thing. Our first drive we moved the ball well, we didn’t score, but huge it was a huge confidence booster. Ivy League football is often portrayed as slow. I thought we did a good job with what we always do pressuring the defense by pushing the tempo. We have really good athletes on the team and it’s nice to see the guys respond to the challenge.”

WALSH ON YALE

And in case you missed it, here’s a quote from Cal Poly coach Tim Walsh on the Bulldogs.

Bulletin board material at its best…

“I’m sure that deep down they weren’t totally 100 percent convinced they could play against our school, but they had tremendous confidence after halftime,” Walsh said. “They believed. And I think once you get a team that starts to believe, great things can happen for you. I think that team started to believe and probably is going to have a huge thing to build on with this win.”