Six Pack (And More) After Yale
BGA (Oct. 14) – It’s Monday and that can mean only one thing. OK, it also means the start of the work week but for our purposes right now it means the BGA Overtime Six-Pack (plus one). Read on.
1) Let’s start at the beginning. I mean the end. That was as crazy a Dartmouth football game as I can remember in a long time. Honestly, I had the “flush it” lede that was italicized in my game story written when the mistake-prone Big Green was down 21 points and looking like it was going to lose even worse than that. In what had to be one of the more challenging halftimes since he became head coach there was no panic in Sammy McCorkle, and that says a lot about him. Here’s what he recalled telling his player in the locker room: “Hey, don't look at the scoreboard. Let's just go out there and go one play at a time. Chip away at this. Chip away.” It’s not like there were ever any reservations about McCorkle being promoted to head coach last year, but the Yale comeback was yet another reminder that he was the right choice.
2) Grayson Saunier! An email came this way asking if there would be a quarterback controversy should Jackson Proctor is able to go this week. My answer: Absolutely not. Saunier had a terrific game and deserved Ivy League offensive player of the week honors. Heck, he should have been in line for national honors given the circumstances. But Proctor earned the starting role for a reason and all you had to do is watch the end of the Penn and Merrimack games and you could see why. Beyond that, you never lose your job because of injury (unless your name is Wally Pipp. Google it). What the Yale game showed is that with Saunier and Woods Ray – who got the starting nod at Yale and would have had a chance to show what he could do if Saunier had struggled – Dartmouth has some pretty good talent in the chamber for the next couple of years.
3) The run game stepped up again. With Q Jones going for a workman-like 84 yards and one touchdown on 18 carries, Saunier running for 84 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries, and Desmin Jackson punishing would-be tacklers on his four carries (and long run on a short pass), the Big Green ground attack had its second big game in a row. After piling up 207 yards against Penn the Green had 182 yards rushing against Yale before special teams losses dropped the net to 157. When the passing game is clicking and the run game is that productive, the Dartmouth attack presents a little bit of pick-your-poison problem for defensive coordinators. How this team managed just three touchdowns in its two games prior to Yale combined is a mystery.
4) Dartmouth had its share of uncharacteristic special teams gaffes at Yale that could have cost the Big Green the win. A fumbled snap on a punt that resulted in Yale gaining possession at the Dartmouth 29. A wrench in the operation that threw off kicker Owen Zalc and led to a rare 22-yard field goal miss. A snap over the punter’s head and out the back of the end zone for a safety. If Josh Greene ’23 was still around, he buck up soph Andy Belles, the Big Green’s highly regarded first-year snapper, by telling him about his first game as the starter when he sailed a snap out of the end zone for a safety at Valparaiso. He never had another bad snap the rest of his career, earning All-America and All-Ivy honors before he was through and to listen to the Dartmouth coaches, they are confident Belles will follow suit.
5) Dartmouth got the dramatic win, but allowing 532 yards of offense and 28 first downs is troubling. Also concerning is Yale recording touchdown passes of 71 and 62 yards with quarterback Grant Jordan completing 68.1 percent of his attempts for 412 yards and five touchdowns (one in overtime) in just the second extended action of his career. On the plus side, the Big Green allowed only one double-figure gain by a running back, a 14-yarder. The longest run for Josh Pitsenberger, the former Ivy League rookie of the year who had 127 yards a week earlier against Central Connecticut, was nine yards. He finished with 71 yards but took 21 carries to get to that number and finished with a 3.4-yard average.
6) The Big Green has to clean up the penalties. Dartmouth was whistled 11 times for 92 yards against Yale. Nationally, only 10 of 123 FCS teams have been penalized yards than the 76.5 yards the Big Green has been penalized per game.
And your bonus . . .
7) Two complaints about what used to be called sports information. First, it’s unfortunate that Dartmouth used the expression “coach’s decision” with regard to Jackson Proctor not playing against Yale. I received a good number of emails asking about that and I’m going to guess there were a lot more people wondering what it meant. When it’s a health issue, it’s much better to say “undisclosed injury” rather than “coach’s decision.” The latter leads to all kinds of rumors, which is unfair to the player.
As for my other complaint, if Yale posted game notes on its website during the week I couldn’t find them and neither could a few readers who emailed me asking where they were. For me, the best use of game notes comes while writing my previews and that means having schools post them as early as possible during the week. For my preview I had to do a ton of research to pull up information that would have been at hand if the game notes had been posted. The local Valley News and The Dartmouth had to write their previews sans the notes as well. When something as simple and traditional as game notes are not made available to the media ahead of time it speaks to what the schools think about football. The Ivy League should require schools to post notes during the week but given the dearth of football coverage out of the league office, I wouldn’t expect that to be the case.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Micah Green led Dartmouth with 11 tackles, the first double-figure tackle total for the Green this fall. … Micah’s twin Josiah had the lone sack among his seven tackles. Zach Farris and Danny Cronin each had eight stops. … Cronin also had a 27-yard fumble return and a pass breakup. Jordan Washington had two breakups.
Paxton Scott had six more catches for 100 yards with one touchdown and a long of 38 yards on a day when Dartmouth got a little away from dink-and-dunk. Daniel Haughton caught a pass for 42 yards, Desmin Jackson was credited with a 41-yards and Chris Corbo a 32-yarder. Corbo, by the way, is developing into a lethal weapon on those all-important 50/50 balls.
Yale finished with 28 first downs to 24 for Dartmouth and had its own share of problems with penalties. The Bulldogs were flagged 10 times for 96 yards. … The teams combined for 977 yards of offense with the Big Green having 445 to Yale’s 532.
The Bulldogs opened the game with a 19-play drive that consumed 8:56 on the clock but went for naught when Jordan Washington blew up a fake field goal on fourth-and-nine from the Big Green 10 that would prove costly in the end. … Dartmouth’s longest drive was a nine-play, 74-yarder that ate up 4:29 of the second quarter and culminated in Saunier’s 32-yard TD pass to Corbo.
THEY SAID IT (lightly edited for clarity)
Yale coach Tony Reno on going for the two-point conversion at the end: “This is on me. I didn't think they could cover the route. Unfortunately, we just didn't connect."
Reno: “We had some unforced errors that really hurt us. They didn't allow us to close the game out. You’ve got to close the game out. We just didn't do it."
Dartmouth quarterback Grayson Saunier: “I had complete faith in everybody else that if I wasn't going to play my best, that they were going to be there to pick me up. And I just felt comfortable. You know, we felt comfortable in every situation. And at the end of the game, everything was working for us. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it's not. We just had to keep pushing. And we did that, and we came out on top.”
Linebacker Braden Mullen: “It was crazy, man. A tale of two different halves. It seemed like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in the first half and then everything that could have gone right went right in the second half. I mean, it's really just a testament to this team and how we can hang in there and endure through that adversity.”
Running back Q Jones: “My O-line and tight ends, they were doing a tremendous job in blocking and making lanes for me. So, it was just a matter of me coming out there, putting my best foot forward and hitting those holes.”
Sammy McCorkle on the offense: “Across the board those guys were confident and they knew we could move the ball when we had to. Obviously there were some times we stalled there. But overall I think they felt like they had the confidence that we can put points up.”
McCorkle on the turning point: “I guess it was in the fourth quarter when we got that onside. And once we got that onside kick, with how our offense responded and how we moved the ball down the field, you knew right there we could hit some big plays if needed. I thought our guys did a good job. You could sense the energy and the confidence and I think the defense fed off the offense and their confidence starting picking up as well."
