Lightning Strikes Again As Dartmouth Repeats As Ivy Champion
BGA (Nov. 23) – Taking possession at its own 25 with a little over six minutes remaining in the second quarter of Saturday’s game against Brown, Dartmouth was in position to close the opening half with a time-consuming scoring drive, and then make it back-to-back touchdowns after receiving the second-half kickoff.
Except that the Bears seemed to have foiled any chance to pull off the classic double by getting a defensive stop and following with a six-play, 61-yard scoring drive of their own to make it 14-14 with just 55 seconds left in the half.
With championship hopes on the line, avoiding a mistake in their own end after receiving the ensuing kickoff would be the call for a lot of coaches.
But not for Sammy McCorkle. Not on this day.
“I want our players to know we have confidence in them and that we know they can do it,” the Big Green’s second-year coach said. “I told them before the game we were going to be aggressive and that we believe they can get the yards when we need to . . .”
The decision made to stay in attack mode after taking possession at its own 35, Dartmouth pushed the ball to midfield with 29 seconds left. Jackson Proctor then hit a clutch 30-yarder to Grayson O’Bara, setting the Big Green up at the plus-20 with 14 seconds remaining.
After a timeout and an incompletion, Proctor threaded a pass to tight end Chris Corbo in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown that made it 21-14.
The drive that sent the Big Green into the break up seven points had taken just 52 seconds.
Dartmouth would need just 54 seconds of the third quarter to grow that lead. On a third-and-seven play after taking the kickoff, O’Bara pulled in a Proctor pass on the sideline and outraced the last Brown defender for a 72-yard score. The “middle eight” rally that sent the Big Green on to a convincing, 56-28 victory had taken a grand total of 106 seconds of game time.
Dartmouth's win, combined with Yale’s 34-29 victory over Harvard, brought the Big Green a share of its second Ivy League championship in a row, its fourth in five years and record 22nd overall. Dartmouth (8-2, 5-2 Ivy League) shares the title with Harvard and Columbia, which defeated Cornell to claim its first championship since 1961. Brown finished 3-7 and 2-5.
“I just can’t say how proud I am of this football team, our players, our coaches, our entire support staff and administration across the board,” said McCorkle. “I mean, it took everybody to put us in this situation, to have a chance to finish the way we did this season.”
Credit the strong end of the first half and the fast start to the second for making sure the 2,769 fans who sat through sporadic sprinkles saw the season end the way it did.
“You jump out to a lead like we did, and all of a sudden you squander it, and it's just, the guys could panic, right?” McCorkle said of the final minute of the first half. “Our offense was excited to get back out there on the field, and they were very composed. I thought that was the biggest thing, is they just methodically worked it down the field. Everybody knew where to be, what we needed to do, and hats off to the offensive staff for putting us in that situation.
“That was huge. To hit that touchdown you essentially just take the air out of their balloon a little bit. And then coming out to start the second half and you do the same thing, to continually make them have to chase, and make them … a little bit more one dimensional on their offense.”
With Brown now trailing by 14 points and its run game managing just one yard in the first quarter and 33 yards in the first half, Brown coach James Perry proceeded to call for six consecutive passes after Dartmouth's quick-strike score. The last of the half dozen throws ended up in the welcome arms of the Big Green's Jordan Washington, who won a 58-yard sprint to the end zone to make it 35-14 just over four minutes into the third quarter.
Brown would twice get back within two touchdowns but Proctor made sure the Bears never got any closer with consecutive touchdown runs of 75, nine and two yards. The Big Green quarterback, who had a 13-yard scoring pass to O’Bara in the first quarter and a 35-yarder to Painter Richards-Baker in the second to build the early 14-0 lead, finished his afternoon 18-of-26 with four touchdowns and no interceptions through the air. He also had 13 carries for 171 yards and three touchdowns on the ground.
Proctor’s seven TDs “responsible for” ties a Dartmouth record set in 1898 and his 479 yards of total offense surpasses the Big Green’s previous high of 440 yards by Jack Heneghan in a 2016 loss to Brown.
The records were nice, of course, but it was the journey the team has been on – before and after the loss of coach Buddy Teevens – that was on Proctor’s mind after the game.
“The adversity we've gone through the last four years, obviously with Coach T, and, you know, the stuff that we've been going through. It’s been a lot,” the senior quarterback said. “But I think it's made us who we are, and all the guys can attest to that. . . .
“It’s cool to see it kind of finish the way it did, with the title. We got three, so it feels pretty good.”
But the seniors wouldn’t know they were going to get that third championship ring until the Harvard-Yale game went final.
Last year at Brown the Dartmouth players and coaches tuned in ESPN+ and Gametracker on their phones to follow the final minutes of a Yale win over Harvard that brought a share of the title. Being at home this time around they were able to watch on a bigger screen as Yale sealed its win by recovering an onside kick. While most of his players were concentrating on the happenings at Harvard stadium, McCorkle’s attention was elsewhere.
“To tell you the truth, I went in Leverone and didn’t watch,” he admitted. “I was just kind of watching our players. I was like, you know what, I don't need to (watch the end of Harvard-Yale).
“You don't want to make it that hard for yourself, but we put ourselves in a situation where we gave our chance to win an Ivy League championship, and that's what we did today.”
It’s just the seventh time since the start of formal Ivy League play in 1956 that a season ended with three teams sharing the title, and Dartmouth has been one of the three all seven times.
“Obviously, we never want a tie,” said defensive lineman Ejeke Adele, who had a sack, four tackles and a fumble recovery in the final game. “We always want to go 10-0, but the way that this team did it was incredible. All the things we’ve went through, especially us as a class the past few years. And for it to culminate in this – we’re just so happy it ended up like this. It means everything to us.”
Added Washington, who had five tackles and four pass breakups: “Nobody knows how much work we all put in. It's a lot of stuff we’ve got to do every single day with school and football and the pressure on you. So, us getting out here, getting this dub with the guys, with the people you love, it's just amazing.”
Because the Ivy League does not allow its football champions to go to the playoffs, winning the title on the final Saturday of the season has even greater importance according to O’Bara, who finished with four catches for a career-high 124 yards and two touchdowns.
“The fact that we do not have a postseason, we only have so many Ivy League games – we talk about it all the time – and it kind of makes every Ivy League game a championship game,” he said.
While the Big Green will have to share the title, that doesn’t take anything away from what O’Bara and his teammates accomplished.
“Of course,” he said. “Going into the game you know you have to win this game to have a chance at an Ivy League championship. All week in preparation we’re hearing you are playing for a championship.”
Which they clinched in no small part thanks to a couple of lightning strikes just 57 seconds of playing time apart.
