Dartmouth Opens Against A Struggling Fordham

HANOVER (Sept. 20 BGA) – It’s not something that’s talked about openly but once Dartmouth got over football's Mendoza Line back in the early 2010s, the Big Green quietly embraced an interesting nonconference scheduling philosophy.

The concept was that the three games would feature one less challenging game, one 50/50 contest and one more challenging game.

When this year’s schedule first came out it was – emphasis on was – a perfect example.

Army, of course, would be the more challenging game. Central Connecticut would be the less challenging game. And Saturday's opener against Fordham would be the 50/50 game (although the hope would always be that by the time it rolled around it would be more of a 60/40 game).

Ah, but as the noted Scottish bard Bobby Burns once opined, “The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”

First it was Army punting the Big Green’s much-anticipated game at Michie Stadium. With that, Dartmouth said goodbye to the biggest challenge not only on this year’s schedule but in decades.

Taking the West Pointers' place on the schedule – but hardly in the competitive pecking order – was relative FCS newcomer Merrimack, which will never be confused with Army, even if the team name is Warriors.

With the Cadets punting the Big Green, Fordham got a battlefield promotion to be the iron of the rejiggered nonconference schedule, leaving Central Connecticut the middle and Merrimack at the bottom.

But even that's up for debate a few weeks into the season.

Fordham not only is 0-3 start after losing its Homecoming game last week to Stony Brook, but it also suffered a suffered a 33-3 humbling in a head-to-head matchup with Central Connecticut, now 2-1. And while Fordham was licking its wounds from a loss last week to a Stony Brook team that was winless in 2023, the Blue Devils were following their victory over the Rams with a 27-20 win last week over Saint Francis, which a week earlier posted a win over an FBS team, albeit that being lowly Kent State.

All of which is to say that the Fordham team that invades Memorial Field Saturday isn’t looking quite like the Patriot League challenger it was expected to be. It doesn’t help that starting quarterback CJ Montes, who threw for 3,000 yards with 26 touchdowns and just one interception a year ago, went down early in the third quarter of the loss to Stony Brook. Or that preseason All-America linebacker James Conway hasn’t played a down yet this fall.

Montes, named to the preseason Walter Payton Award watchlist for the top offensive player in the FCS, was completing a sub-par 51.5 percent of his passes for 111 yards per game when he suffered a right ankle injury in the third quarter of last week's game. His status for the Dartmouth contest is unknown but per FCS guru Craig Haley he's not expected to play.

Likely to start in his place is junior Jack Capaldi, who had all of one career pass completion in his first two seasons on Rose Hill. He was just 6-of-18 for 92 yards with two interceptions last week after Montes was hurt on an absolute bull rush up the middle. (Montes actually went down five times last week and a whopping 19 times in two-and-a-half games before Capaldi came onstage and was dropped behind the line twice while passing.) On the season Fordham has surrendered 21 sacks for a loss of 126 yards. The Rams' defense has three sacks for 26 yards.

The good news for Fordham’s offense – if there can be any for a team that has just two passing TDs and one on the ground through three games – is that rushing leader Julius Loughridge is back and healthy. The 6-foot, 215-pound senior ran for 1,146 yards and 10 touchdowns last year and caught 25 passes for 210 yards and two more touchdowns. He’s averaging 112.7 yards per game this year.

The Rams hoped to have a two-pronged running attack last year behind Loughridge and Utah transfer Ricky Parks. But after running for 33 yards on four carries in their 2023 opener the 5-10, 210-pounder was lost for the season. He's back this fall and running well, averaging 42.7 yards per game and 4.7 per carry. Loughridge is at 7.7 per run with a long of 55.

Grad Student Garrett Cody leads the receiving corps with 13 catches for 155 yards and while he’s averaging just 8.8 yards per, against Stony Brook last week he repeatedly got behind the defense even though his long reception this year was just 19 yards. Loughridge is second on the team with nine catches and a long of 44. Perhaps contributing to all the sacks is Fordham’s penchant for the long ball. The Rams have completions of 60, 44, 41, 35 and 30 yards through three games.

On the season they are completing a woeful 20.4 percent of their third downs although they are a healthy 42.8 percent (6-of-14) on fourth down.

Defensively, the Rams will be without Conway, the anchor of the defense while he was posting a ridiculous 129 tackles last year, his third season in a row topping the century mark. Fifty-five of those stops were solo tackles as he helped the Rams finish second in the Patriot League in run defense (135.7 yards per game) and in scoring defense (24.7 points per game).

Although Conway is out, Fordham still has a game-wrecker in preseason All-America defensive end Matt Jaworski, the 2024 Patriot League Preseason Defensive Player of the Year. The 6-5, 260 Jaworkski had 13.5 tackles for loss with nine sacks a year ago and has 3.5 tackles for loss and 12 QB hurries already this season.

Grad student Mike Courtney, a starter last year, leads the defense with 23 tackles from his linebacker position.

In the back end the name to watch is Nahil Perkins, who has two interceptions, three pass breakups, a forced fumble and 2.5 tackles for loss as he bids to repeat as an All-Patriot League first-team member this year.

Last week the Fordham defense picked up the slack for the struggling offense by registering not one, but two interception returns for touchdowns. Alex Kemper brought one back 55 yards and defensive lineman Peter Chalhoub tipped a pass, caught it and ran it in six yards for a touchdown.

On the special teams front, Will Haslett returned this fall at punter and has averaged a healthy 42.9. yards per boot with seven of his 20 kicks inside the 20. New placekicker Bennett Henderson is 2-for-2 on field goals but his long to date is just 24 yards. He’s also 5-for-5 on extra points.