It's Monday And You Know What That Means

 (BGA Nov. 4) – It’s Monday so let’s get to the Seventh-Week Six Pack:

1. It’s hard not to start with Owen Zalc booting a school-record 54-yard field goal, eclipsing Tyler Lavin’s 52-yarder against Colgate in 2003. A little digging over the weekend turned up this nugget that helps put Zalc’s contributions to the team in perspective. Three times last year the Big Green would not have won if he missed his field goal attempts. Five times in six games this year Dartmouth doesn’t win without his field goals. Add it up and Zalc's kicks have been instrumental in eight of the team’s 12 wins since the start of last season.

2. Did you realize Dartmouth had no penalties against Harvard? None, zilch, nada, donut. That’s right, a team that came into the afternoon among the worst in the nation in terms of infractions, a team that almost gave away the Columbia game thanks to penalties, didn’t have a single flag thrown against Harvard. Whatever message was passed on behind closed doors certainly hit home. But here’s the crazy thing. Is it possible that the Big Green defense was a little tentative because of concerns about all the penalties? Was the offensive line so worried about false starts that it wasn’t firing off at the snap? Probably not on both accounts, but it’s something to ponder.

3. Given how well quarterback Grayson Saunier played the previous three weeks, switching back to starter Jackson Proctor wasn’t quite the slam dunk it would have been if the sophomore had struggled and the team hadn't kept winning. But Proctor  rewarded his head coach’s faith in him with a strong outing, completing 69 percent of his throws for 235 yards and two touchdowns and running seven times for 36 yards. There’s no quarterback controversy in Hanover where Dartmouth now has shown it has two quarterbacks capable of playing at an All-Ivy League level.

4. While the Big Green missed the steady play of leading pass catcher Paxton Scott his teammates in the wide receiver corps stepped up nicely. Jackson Namian, who had one catch coming in, had a breakout game with five receptions while Daniel Haughton opened eyes with a 72-yard TD catches and two grabs for 82 yards total. Painter Richards-Baker and Grayson O’Bara both had a couple of grabs and freshman Luke Rives caught the first of his career.

5. No doubt there are some who were second-guessing Sammy McCorkle’s decision to punt on fourth-and-one at the Harvard  48 early in the final quarter. Davis Golick’s punt pinning the Crimson down at its own six might should have quieted the critics. Here’s something else that needed to be taken into account. To that point in the game Dartmouth backs had been taken down for a loss, no gain or just one yard no fewer than 10 times. Failing to make a first down there would have jump-started a Harvard offense which to that point had been held largely in check.

6. Dartmouth has itself to blame in part for providing the blueprint that Harvard followed for three of its touchdowns. As the Big Green did so often, first with Jared Gerbino and then with Nick Howard, the Crimson pulled its starting quarterback in favor of an even better runner. And Charles DePrima made it pay off by sprinting for TDs each time. To be fair, Harvard coach Andrew Aurich was on staff at Princeton when the Tigers were pioneering that approach with two-time Bushnell Cup winner John Lovett. While the fleet DePrima is a different kind of running QB than Gerbino, Howard and Lovett, – each a power runner – those three paved the way for Ivy coaches to develop schemes to take advantage of a second quarterback’s skillset, which is exactly what Aurich did. (And what Dartmouth did by subbing in the fleet Saunier only to have him fool the defense by throwing a short TD pass.)

And . . .

7. How about that! Not only did Dartmouth have one of the bigger student turnouts in recent years, but it would seem most of them stuck around until the end. Now all the Big Green has to do is play Harvard on all five home dates each year to fill the student section.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

Tyson Grimm and Micah Green topped the Dartmouth defensive stats with eight tackles apiece, with Green having a sack and Grimm a half tackle-for-loss. Braden Mullen was a man on a mission chasing the Harvard quarterback, and while he was listed with just one sack for eight yards, a second tackle-for-loss of three yards and four total tackles, the stats do not reflect his impact. How he didn’t end up with any “quarterback hurries” is a mystery.

(Harvard’s Ty Bartrum led all players with a whopping 16 tackles including one for a loss.)

Big Green tight end Sean Ward matched his season total with two catches including the one-yard scoring toss from Saunier that was his first collegiate touchdown. Fellow tight end Chris Corbo caught three balls for 32 yards.

Davis Golick averaged 44.4 yards on his five punt with a long of 55.

Harvard had the advantage in first downs (22-19), yards passing (311-236) and yards rushing (123-118). The “hidden” yards advantage went strongly in the Crimson’s favor with three punt returns for 32 yards (Dartmouth had one for eight) and a 46-yard kickoff return, both of which brought excellent field position. The Big Green did not have a kickoff return.

Harvard twice started drives in Dartmouth territory, the first time on the kickoff return to start the game and the second time on an 18-yard punt return. The first of those drives result in a touchdown and the drive after the punt return ended with a field goal and a 10-0 lead after one quarter. Dartmouth's only starting position beyond its 35 was when it recovered a fumble on its 45 early in the second quarter. That drive covered just 19 yards but resulted in Zalc's lengthy field goal.

THEY SAID IT

Harvard coach Andrew Aurich: “I learned a lot about this team in that game. We’ve had close games, but the amount of mental toughness it takes to do what they did and focus that hard – we hadn’t been challenged that way yet. We touched a stove and found out it was hot, and still ended up winning the game.”

 Aurich again: “My ultimate job is being in charge of how disciplined we are. We were not disciplined enough today. The reality is, that game did not need to be that close.”

Harvard safety Ty Bartrum explaining the Hail Mary defense: “We were going back to our training. We have (only) one jumper. If everyone does their job, (an incompletion) should happen 10 times out of 10.”

Aurich picking up on the thought: “This is the biggest-do-your-job play in all of football. People get in that situation and they are not mentally tough enough to do their job, and everybody jumps up and they want to make the play. We need one jumper – and everyone else (with) feet on ground. You do your job, and good things will happen.”

Dartmouth quarterback Jackson Proctor on how much faith he had that the Big Green would get in position to try a Hail Mary and have a chance: “A ton of faith. I mean, we work on it every week. We've been working on it for as long as I've been here. And so I think a lot of the guys who were there, they knew what we had to do. We just had to get to a certain point on the field where we could take a shot, and we did. And obviously, we came up short.

“But that's just kind of how it goes. I'm proud of our guys. They did a good job, especially in that last two-minute, getting ourselves down there in the right position.”

Proctor on his mindset coming into the game after missing the last three: “We had guys that stepped up and did a good job in those three weeks, but I did my best to stay ready, whether that was mental reps or doing extra conditioning or whatnot. And I think the three weeks was a lot, but I think I was able to jump in running during this game. Obviously, it wasn't the outcome we would have wanted, but all we can do is wash it and move on.”

 Micah Green on Dartmouth’s takeaways from a 50/50 game that happened to go the other way: “The main lessons we can take away are just to keep chipping away and stop having close games. I mean, we've won six close games in a row, besides Fordham. The goal is just to get a lead, keep the lead and play hard with your brothers.”

Green on DePrima’s game-winning touchdown run: “We knew it was a QB draw. We've seen the formation a thousand times. So they ran QB draw, and they just had good angles, and ended up (scoring). It’s a game of inches. I mean, he barely crossed the pylon, but at the end of the day, he crossed it. So we’ve just got to live with it.

“It was a combination of mistakes that led them to that situation. It's not like it's just that play, but we knew he was going to run the ball. We knew it was gonna be QBR. We’ve just got to make the play for him.”

Corner Patrick Campbell: “We all have to execute and do what we have to do. And I feel like today was a day that we left some plays out on the field. … We’ve just got to move on and get better.”

Coach Sammy McCorkle on the now murkier championship picture: “We don't worry about the title. ... We worry about the next game. We're going to watch this tape. We're going to learn from it. We're going to make some corrections.

"There were a lot of good plays out there. A lot of good plays and we can build on that. We’re going to watch this (Sunday) and get it out of our system. Our complete focus is going to be on Princeton. I don't care about anything else but Princeton. That's going to be our focus going forward.”

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