Dartmouth uses water bottle as kicking tee against Yale

Dartmouth arrived at its game against Yale on Oct. 6 with a full complement of players, all in uniform, to go with many sets of shoulder pads, several footballs and a coaching staff. The Big Green were ready for an important, potentially season-defining Ivy League game.

Dartmouth brought it all, minus one key on-field component: a kicking tee.

After combing through equipment bag after equipment bag roughly an hour before the start of the game against the Bulldogs, Dartmouth players and coaches realized that someone – and we're not naming names – forgot to include that one vital piece of kicking paraphernalia.

(I will say this: No one is ever truly responsible for packing the equipment. Or everyone is responsible. You know what I mean. Again, we're not naming names.)

So the Big Green did what any team would do in such a pickle: Dartmouth asked Yale, a brother Ivy, if it could spare a tee.

At first, the Yale equipment manager lent the Big Green a substitute tee. About fifteen minutes before kickoff, however, Yale head coach Tony Reno came over to Dartmouth's sideline and said that the Bulldogs wanted their tee back, recounted Dartmouth kicker R.C. Willenbrock.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. You need a kicking tee to, you know, kick off. So the Big Green improvised.

Willenbrock came upon inspiration in the form of a water bottle, one he cut down to size, taped and molded before testing as a makeshift tee. Success!

"I saw a water bottle, and I was like, 'this will work perfectly,'" said Willenbrock.

Why did Yale eventually decline to lend a tee? Gamesmanship, perhaps. This was a big game for the Bulldogs and Mean Green, with both teams starting 0-1 in Ivy League play. Every advantage counts – why would Reno, with a potential win in the balance, help out a conference rival?

Another storyline revolved around the eligibility of Yale freshman running back Tyler Varga. Yale held Varga out of the game against Dartmouth after the university was notified that the NCAA has received a complaint about the freshman's eligibility.

Who, perchance, raised the red flag to the NCAA over Varga's potential eligibility concerns the week prior to Yale's game against Dartmouth? Scuttlebutt over Varga's removal from the lineup for the game against the Big Green (Varga has since been cleared for action by the NCAA) led Robin Harris, the Executive Director of The Council of Ivy League Presidents, to issue a statement on Oct. 8.

"It has come to my attention that a rumor has started and is spreading regarding the source of the information questioning the status of Tyler Varga," said Harris. "While we do not reveal sources of such information, I have decided in this case to issue this email to clarify definitively that Dartmouth, and [Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens] specifically, were not the source of this information. Both schools may use my statement to quell the rumors."

Despite the perceived handicap, Dartmouth outkicked Yale, water-bottle tee and all. Starting kicker Riley Lyons averaged 60.0 yards per his seven kickoffs and had two touchbacks; Yale's kicker averaged 59.3 yards per kickoff and had zero touchbacks.

The final score? Dartmouth 34, Yale 14. Does this mean that the Big Green have eschewed a traditional kicking tee for a makeshift, water-bottle replacement? Not quite.

"Let's just say that no one is forgetting the kicking bag anytime soon," said Willenbrock.