Mistakes Doom Dartmouth At Cornell
BGA (Nov. 17) – Ugh.
Make that ugly.
Whatever could go wrong for Dartmouth Saturday did go wrong as Cornell reeled off 23 unanswered points in a 10½-minute span between the third and fourth quarters while dealing the nation’s 24th-ranked team a stunning 39-22 loss that knocked the Big Green out of a tie for the Ivy League lead.
Dartmouth is now 7-2 overall, but more importantly, 4-2 in the Ivy League. While the Big Red was winning its color war with the Green, Harvard was rallying from a 21-7 third-quarter deficit to beat Penn on a 21-yard field goal as time expired to improve to 5-1 in the Ivies.
Dartmouth now needs a season-ending win over Brown next week and the Crimson to stumble against Yale to gain a share of the title Harvard clinched Saturday. Should the Crimson lose The Game, surprising Columbia (6-3, 4-2) can also grab a piece of its first championship since 1961 with a home win over Cornell (4-5, 3-3).
"It's out of our control now, but we can't worry about that,” said a disappointed Dartmouth coach, Sammy McCorkle after the Big Green's second loss in three weeks. “We can only control what we can control, which is preparing for Brown."
The Bears will bring a 3-6 record into the finale at Buddy Teevens Stadium, but if Dartmouth’s loss to Cornell showed anything, records and statistics mean nothing. Consider:
• Cornell came into its home finale having given up 67 points and 627 yards of total offense in last week’s loss to Penn. The Big Red limited Dartmouth to 14 points until a late touchdown, and to 327 yards of total offense.
• Cornell was allowing opponents to run for 190.4 yards per game coming in. With leading rusher Q Jones held to four yards on seven carries, Dartmouth’s running backs managed just 16 yards on 12 attempts. The Big Green finished with 60 yards thanks only to quarterback Jackson Proctor’s 46 yards on 10 carries.
• Dartmouth entered the game 10th in the nation in run defense, giving up just 103 yards per game. Cornell’s 5-foot-7 Ean Pope topped that by himself with 111 yards on 26 carries as the Big Red ran for 175 yards.
• The Big Green was third in the nation for fewest sacks allowed before the game with eight. Cornell collected five sacks.
• Dartmouth came into the day with 18 sacks. It managed just one against the Big Red.
• A Big Green team that won the time of possession in six of its first eight games saw Cornell have almost a 9½-minute advantage with the ball, and run 16 more plays.
• For the first time since the opening game a year ago, Dartmouth did not manage a field goal while Cornell kicker Alan Zhao, who had just six field goals all season, was a perfect 4-for-4 against the Big Green.
• A Dartmouth team that came into the game having thrown just one interception all year was picked off three times by the Big Red, offsetting the three interceptions the Green had of Cornell quarterback Jameson Wang. Add in a Big Red fumble recovery returned for a touchdown and Dartmouth lost the turnover battle.
“Just too many mistakes,” said McCorkle. “You can’t do that and allow a team the opportunity to control the ball, control the clock, and allow them opportunities to score more points."
Trailing 6-0 early in the second quarter and 13-7 at the half, Dartmouth took a 14-13 lead midway through the third quarter on an eight-yard touchdown run by Grayson Saunier.
The Big Green then appeared to dodge a bullet when Sean Williams went high to end a Cornell threat with an interception at the two. But Dartmouth’s second interception in as many Big Red drives was offset six plays later when linebacker Luke Banbury picked off Proctor at the plus-18.
On the third play after the interception,Wang ran 14 yards off the left side for a touchdown that gave Cornell a 19-14 lead with 1:17 left in the third quarter. Looking to stretch the difference to seven, the Big Red went for two with a double pass that failed, but it wouldn’t matter.
After forcing a Dartmouth three-and-out deep in the Big Green's end, Cornell took over at its own 40 on the first play of the fourth quarter. Three first downs later, it was Wang rolling left and then gathering himself enough to throw an off-balance 17-yard touchdown pass to standout receiver Sam Musungu. This time, Cornell kicked the point to make it 26-14 with 10:08 remaining.
It didn’t stay that way long.
Stepping in for Proctor on the Big Green’s next possession, Saunier fired a third-and-eight pass that went off a receiver’s hands and into the arms of corner Michael O’Keefe at the plus 36. When the Cornell drive stalled, Zhao came on to boot a 31-yard field goal for a 29-14 lead with 5:53 left.
Things would only get worse for the Big Green, and yet again, it didn’t take long.
On the first play after the kickoff, Cornell got a big rush on Saunier, and the ball came loose as he loaded up to throw. Defensive end Hunter Sloan scooped it up and ran it 22 yards into the end zone. When a video review ruled that the backup QB’s arm had not started forward and that it was indeed a fumble, Zhao came on to kick the extra point for a 36-14 Cornell lead with 5:41 remaining.
Dartmouth had erased a 21-point deficit with 7½ minutes remaining to win at Yale in overtime earlier in the season, but trailing by 22 points with less than six minutes left would be too tall a mountain to climb this time.
The Big Green responded to the Cornell scoring blitz (10 points in 12 seconds of playing time) with a 10-play, 70-yard drive capped by Proctor’s four-yard pass to Daniel Haughton and a two-point conversion pass to Jackson Namian. But any chance of another miracle comeback ended when Dartmouth’s onside kick did not travel the required 10 yards. The Big Red then proceeded to run Pope five straight times and add the exclamation mark on the win with a 38-yard field goal with 58 seconds to play.
“Hats off to Cornell," said McCorkle. "Cornell came out ready to play, and they executed and made plays when they needed to. And we didn’t make plays when we needed to.
"It’s just disappointing. Guys don’t want to come out and have this type of showing, but I tell you, the guys battled. We kept fighting.”
Now the Big Green will have to bounce back from a second difficult loss in three weeks.
“It hurts,” said McCorkle. “It should hurt. But you know, we’ve got to do better. And we’ve got to coach better and prepare better. . . .
“I told them, ‘Hey, we’ve got to learn from this.’ Get back, watch it, make the corrections. The corrections we need to make. And then we’ve got to get ready for Brown and finish strong.”
Get ready for Brown and root hard for Yale.
