There has been mostly good news coming out of the Yale football camp this week in terms of injuries as offensive tackle Roy Collins, receiver Chris Smith and running back Alex Thomas returned to practice. But the news was not all positive. Starting left tackle Wes Gavin will need surgery on his injured ankle and will miss the rest of the season.

"The ankle is going to require some surgery and he is not going to be able to make it back," Williams said. "They want to do it ASAP so pretty soon so it is just a matter of clearing out his schedule and getting it done."

Freshman Ben Carbery has played well in Gavin's absence so he will become the starter at left tackle for the rest of the season.

Of the previously-mentioned trio, Collins has been in there the most at practice this week although all three should be able to play against Brown on Saturday.

"Smith is good to go, Thomas is good to go although he is still gimpy but he practiced a little bit today and Roy Collins is good to go," Williams said.

Collins should move back into his starting right tackle spot. While it's no guarantee that Smith and Thomas will start, look for them in the game. That won't make the Brown coaches happy since Smith and Thomas played starring roles in Yale's 27-24 win over Brown last year. Smith returned kickoffs 79 and 83 yards for touchdowns in a span of 2:23 in the second quarter and also caught a team-high six passes. Thomas ran for 121 yards including a 27-yard TD.
One change in the starting lineup I have neglected to mention is that Brian Leffler has moved ahead of Wes Moyer at linebacker.
"We gave him an opportunity to start (against Columbia), he played well last week against Columbia so he is going to get that start this week against Brown. "He is stouter and against a team like Brown that really likes to establish the run game, he is a better match for what they do. With the competition that he was have at that position, we feel like he has played better than Wes at this point so we gave him an opportunity last week and he held serve so he gets the nod again this week. We will still play multiple guys but he will be the first guy out."

When Williams addressed the team after Thursday's practice, he told the team he thought it was a good week of practice. He also emphasized that the Bears are in the same situation as Yale in terms of being able to win the Ivy League title by winning out. That is not entirely accurate. Yale would earn at least a share of the title by winning its last three games since the Bulldogs would have to beat first-place Harvard (the only Ivy League team unbeaten in conference play). Brown would need to win and have Harvard lose a game in order to claim a portion of the title. Still, Saturday's game has the feel of an elimination game. It certainly makes it easy to get motivated for the early-morning practices at this time of the year.
"I think it changes the energy level," Williams said. "I think our guys come out with energy anyway but certainly when you have something to play for and you are back in the hunt, it makes it more enjoyable with a goal in mind. You have something you can touch out there. We were in the same situation last year playing Brown at Brown, we have some experience from last year. I like playing at home this year. We haven't been at home in a long time so this will be great, it should be a great game."

Practice ended on Thursday will Williams having senior defensive end Austin Pulsipher address the team. Pulsipher is the only Yale player to have an Ivy League championship ring. He was a reserve on the 2006 Yale team before taking a two-year Mormon mission.

Yale's defense, outside of one play, and special teams had strong performances in Saturday's 24-7 win over Dean College in a scrimmage at the Yale Bowl.

Yale had seven sacks (of course with the no hitting the quarterback rule at the scrimmage, defenders only needed to be in the general vicinity to get some of these sacks.

Carter Deutsch, who is back on defense after a move to the offensive line, had three of the sacks while Cliff Foreman had two sacks. Jordan Haynes led Yale with six tackles (according to my unofficial stats). After Haynes made his presence felt on Dean's first offensive possession, one of their assistant coaches could be heard telling his players "we've got to block the Mike (linebacker). Why can't we block the Mike." I am sure more than a few Ivy League coaches said or thought the same thing since Haynes is the Mike or middle linebacker at Yale. Haynes was not the author of the best hit of the scrimmage. That came from sophomore tight end who rumbled for yardage on his only reception when a Dean player came in and tried to lay a huge hit on Coty. The result was the defender being knocked backwards and Coty continued to move forward as if he was barely touched. The play happened in front of the Yale sideline and Coty's teammates went absolutely crazy after the play.

On special teams, Gio Christodolou brought back a punt 65 yards for a touchdown and a fumble recovery on a dropped Dean punt led to Alex Thomas' 2-yard touchdown. Yale coach Tom Williams was impressed with the efforts of his freshmen punters Parker Toms and Kyle Cazzetta.

He was not as happy with the effort of the first-team offense. At halftime he challenged them to come down the field and score and the Bulldogs did just that. Thomas ran three times for 41 of his team-high 45 yards on the six-play, 79-yard drive which ended with Patrick Witt hooking up with Chris Smith on a 28-yard touchdown.

Witt struggled at times throwing the ball down the field although he finished 13 of 20 for 122 yards with the one touchdowns and an interception. Smith led the team with 51 yards on three catches while Allen Harris had a team-high four catches.

Yale offensive starters were Witt, Mordecai Cargill at tailback, Cameron Sandquist, Deon Randall and Allen Harris at receiver, Kyle Wittenauer at tight end and the offensive line of tackles Roy Collins and Wes Gavin, guards Gabe Fernandez and Colin Kruger and center John Oppenheimer. On defense, it was ends Matt Battaglia and Austin Pulsipher, tackles Reed Spiller and Jake Stoller, linebackers Haynes, Will McHale and Wes Moyer, cornerbacks Drew Baldwin and Dawson Halliday and safeties Geoff Dunham and Nick Okano.

As for the freshmen, William Chism and Ben Carbery saw time on the second-team offensive line, linebacker Will Vaughan, running back Wynston Bouknight and corner Nick LaTesta where the ones I noticed as well as the two aforementioned punters.

There have been some injuries among the freshmen. Running back Kahlil Keys suffered a knee injury during practice earlier in the week and he may miss the season, defensive back Ethan DeSilva had a knee injury late in his senior season at Mission Viejo (Calif.) and will not play this season. Chism hurt his hand in the scrimmage and had an MRI done on Saturday.

There's plenty of stuff to report off Monday's practice (the last afternoon practice for quite some time).

First, I went over to get a sense of how the hurricane/tropical storm impacted Yale's practice schedule. Here is the story I filed for the paper.

In the time I was at practice, I noticed that John Whitelaw saw most of snaps at quarterback and starter Patrick Witt wasn't in there at all. Turns out the Witt strained a groin and with the field a little slick thanks to the large rainfall in the area over the week, the Yale coaching staff decided to play it safe.

"It wasn't anything bad but the grass was slick," Yale coach Tom Williams said. "He planted and his foot slid. It was mostly as a precaution. Johnny (was able to get) as many reps as he could stand. Pat got some reps but we didn't give him a lot. We didn't give him any pass reps. We gave him some handoffs so we didn't have to stretch his groin. We've give him tomorrow off and we are hoping Wednesday morning and be back to as close as 100 percent as he can be."

Whitelaw looked extremely sharp running the first-team offense. He is ahead of Witt in two noticeable areas - the screen game and the ability to make plays with his feet.

"It is not only beneficial to John to prove that he can do it but it is beneficial for the rest of the offense, the rest of the team to see John to be out there and be able to operation because now we know we are definitely two-deep at quarterback with John Whitelaw," Williams said. "The more reps he gets, the more comfortable he is going to get. We went through our two deep after the scrimmage on Saturday as a staff and we feel like we are two deep at every position and 2 1/2 deep at some and that has never been there before. It is exciting for us. He has a great feel for the screen and the other thing that he gives you that Pat can do but hasn't shown it is that John can scramble and get you 10-12 yards. About four or five times a game he can get you a first down which puts pressure on the defense. He is very similar to (former Cheshire and current Penn quarterback) Billy Ragone in that regard that if it breaks down, he can run and if you turn your back on him, he can go a long ways."

Williams referred to the scrimmage. Yale had originally planned to have an intrasquad scrimmage on Sunday but had a change of plans because of the unstable weather. So the team scrimmaged on Saturday.

Here are his thoughts on which players stood out.

"The guys were expected to be players for us did what they expected us to do. Some guys who showed up where (defensive lineman) Charles Holmes who has been out for a couple of years in injury, I thought he had a really good scrimmage. (Freshman running back) Kahlil Keys was a guy that we wanted to see how he would do against varsity defense. Practice is one thing but games are different. He showed up. (freshman linebacker) Will Vaughan, looks like he is a guy who can help us. (Defensive back) Charles Cook, another freshman who showed up. Offensive line wise, Ben Carbery and William Chism, those guys look like they will be able to help us this year. In the secondary, probably the emerging starter for us at corner is Dawson Halliday. It is a great competition with Collin Bibb. I think Dawson has proven in camp that he has been more consistent and Collin has been nicked up injury wise. That has given him the edge. Nick Okano is being pushed by John Powers. I think that thing is going to go down to the wire. By the time we play Dean (in a scrimmage on Sept. 10), I think we will have a better idea. (Linebacker) Wes Moyer has had a good camp. He is a guy who has been a backup linebacker for us but is pushing to be a starter."

I followed up with Williams on Carbery and Chism to see if they are pushing for starting roles.

"Those freshmen offensive linemen were a pleasant surprise," Williams said. "I just wasn't sure if they were going to be up with the tempo. Athletically they can do it. Without a doubt. They are pushing guys who are up front right now. (They are) potential starters. I would say that they are both where Wes Gavin was a year ago which is 'we think he is good enough but we have to put him out there in the game and see.'"

Carbery is a tackle while Chism is making a push at center and guard.

Yale is taking Tuesday off because it is hectic day for students at Yale getting ready for the start of the fall semester. Yale will shift to morning practices beginning on Wednesday with the Bulldogs going 7:30-9:30 a.m. from now on with the exception of the scrimmage against Dean Junior College on Sept. 10.