The 1993 Big Green football team will begin its quest for Dartmouth's fourth consecutive Ivy League title tomorrow when it will hold its one and only day of spring practice.
Current conference regulations permit one day of practice before August but will allow 12 days of practice beginning next year.
The team will not practice in full gear, but with helmets only.
"We're limited in what can get done without pads," head coach John Lyons said. "There's more of an emphasis on getting the players familiar with technique and the terminology, along with evaluating them too."
"It's more like touch football than real football," he added.
One person who will make an impact tomorrow and during the 1993 season is Jay Fiedler '94, last year's quarterback and captain of the 1993 squad. As Lyons said of the Ivy League's most valuable player in 1992, "He's for real."
"Players like him come along very rarely," he said. "In 19 years of coaching, he's the best quarterback I've been around."
Also, Pete Oberle, a tailback from Colorado State University, will join the Ivy League championship football team this fall as a transfer student.
Recruited by Dartmouth two years ago, Oberle decided to attend Colorado State where he was red-shirted as a freshman. After playing during the 1992 season, Oberle chose to transfer to Dartmouth. He will be a member of the Class of 1996 and will be eligible this fall.
NCAA regulations allow an athlete five years after matriculation to use four years of eligibility. Normally, an athlete is not permitted to compete for one year after transferring, but recent changes by the NCAA allow players to move from Division I-A to Division I-AA without sitting out. Dartmouth is a Division I-AA school, Colorado is Division I-A.
"He will definitely be a factor next year," Lyons said.
Ivy League football is presently in a period of transition, due to the elimination of the freshman football program at all of the Ivy schools except for Harvard. For the first time ever, freshmen will be able to compete on the varsity squad during their first year.
The Ivy League instituted this change along with the increase in the number of spring practice days this past year.