Big Green Seeks Improvement Against Fordham
With a well-traveled quarterback capable of putting up big numbers and a linebacker who is closing in on the all-time NCAA record for career tackles at the FCS level, Dartmouth’s final non-conference opponent been a more interesting story than a successful team this fall.
Fordham comes into its 1 p.m. Homecoming game against Dartmouth at 1-5, with the sole victory coming at the expense of still winless Holy Cross.
Big Green coach Sammy McCorkle has no trouble making the a case that Fordham is a better team than the record would suggest, but his focus coming out of a one-point escape against Yale is squarely on his 3-1 team.
“As I told our guys, we haven’t played our best game yet and haven’t been close,” McCorkle said as darkness descended after practice on Memorial Field Thursday. “That was our challenge all week. Let’s go out there and try to play our best game. If you do that, it doesn’t matter who you are playing. You are going to give yourself a chance.”
Any chance the Fordham offense has to put up points centers around 6-foot-5, 210-pound quarterback Gunnar Smith, who completed 32-of-45 passes for 354 yards and a touchdown in a loss at Lafayette the last time out. Smith is 11th in the nation with 253 yards per game through the air while completing 58.1 percent of his attempts. He’s also a more-than-capable runner with 203 yards before losses and sacks are deducted. That’s second on the team in rushing yardage gained.
Smith will never be confused with Penn's Liam O'Brien, who gave Dartmouth fits two weeks ago, but he's much more of a threat to pull the ball down and do damage with his feet than Yale's Dante Reno was last week.
Though still only a junior, the Smith is at the fourth stop on his peripatetic football journey. After starring at Florida’s Lake Mary High School, he turned down an offer from Kentucky to begin his college career in 2022 at the University of South Florida. He then spent the 2023 season at Central Florida before ending up last fall at Highland Community College. He threw for 2,455 yards and 19 touchdowns with nine interceptions, completing 51.2 percent of his throws at the Kansas juco.
“Their quarterback is a player,” said McCorkle. “He can sling it around. He’s got a strong arm and he’s mobile. He can run if he has to, and can gain yards with his feet.”
Fordham has seven receivers with double-figure catches this fall and three running backs who rotate in.
“Their quarterback spreads it around, so you can’t zone in and lock in on one guy,” said McCorkle. “They have a bunch of guys catching passes and it’s kind of running backs by committee. But they’ve got some guys who can flat our run. We know their track speeds from high school, so we know they are fast.”
Fordham’s Achilles heel on offense continues to be its offensive line. Even with a pair of 6-foot-8, 300-plus pound starting tackles, the Rams have surrendered 23 sacks and 48 tackles for loss in six games this fall. By comparison, Dartmouth has allowed three sacks and 22 TFLs in four games. Fordham allowed an unimaginable 61 sacks for a loss of 391 yards a year ago.
Defeating the Fordham offensive line will go a long way toward defeating Fordham per McCorkle. “We’ve got to win up front, for sure,” he said. “You don’t want their quarterback to get comfortable back there because if he does, he’ll hurt you. He can thread it.
“We’ve got to show him some different looks and force him to hold the ball and second guess. That will allow us to get pressure on him.”
While Smith is in his first season throwing the ball around on Rose Hill, record-setting linebacker James Conway is in his fifth season throwing ballcarriers around. The 6-2, 235 graduate student in AI from Omaha has 522 tackles in his career and needs just 29 more to surpass the all-time FCS record of 550 set by Illinois State’s Boomer Grigsby in 2005.
Conway missed Fordham’s 45-13 loss at Dartmouth last year but McCorkle has a pretty good idea what kind of impact a player like that can have on a game because he had a similar linebacker who was named the Ivy League defensive player of the year in 2019.
“It’s crazy how similar (Conway) is to Jack Traynor,” the coach said. “He has the same instinct Jack had. He plays fast, he plays downhill and he’s one step ahead at all times. Like Jack, pretty much every time he makes the right decision, and he is a great tackler.”
Still, Fordham gave up at least 40 points in each of its first four games before the 26-21 win over Holy Cross in week five, and a 24-10 loss at Lafayette the last time out. Opponents are completing a startling 70.4 percent of their passes and have outrushed the Rams, 780-488 yards.
One player, no matter how great, is still just one player.
“That’s true,” McCorkle said, “but he can disrupt things. You’ve got to know where he is every play. But they have good players at all three levels, and when that’s the case it can cause you problems.”
Something else Fordham has to hope causes Dartmouth some problems is coming off a bye week, which has allowed a few banged up players to get back on the field, and others to get healthy.
“We’ve got some guys back on defense especially, and were able to get the young guys some work and get a little bit ahead,” Fordham coach Joe Conlin said in a video of the week off. “And we were able to take a good, hard look at ourselves.”
McCorkle is well aware Fordham had an extra week to prepare for his team. And he knows it will be Homecoming in The Bronx. But his main focus, once again, is on his team.
“It’s going to be exciting for Fordham, I’m sure,” he said. “But we can’t worry about all the outside noise. Our job is to go out there and play our game and not worry about anything else.”
NOTES
Dartmouth sprinted out to a 31-0 early in the third quarter of last year’s 45-13 win. Q Jones had 86 yards DJ Crother had 79 yards on just nine carries as Dartmouth punished the Rams with 233 yards on the ground. Grayson Saunier, who would emerge at quarterback later in the season, had just one carry against Fordham but it went for 31 yards and a touchdown. The Big Green posted five sacks in the game. ... The Rams gave up four sacks and 13 tackles for loss the last time out, the 24-10 loss at Lafayette.
Dartmouth leads the all-time series 5-1, losing the first matchup in 1951 but winning the last five, all played since 1994. ... Fordham was picked to win the Patriot League last year but finished 2-10 overall and 2-4 in the conference. ... Fordham coach Joe Conlin is a former Harvard and Yale assistant. He is 32-46 in his eighth year at Fordham.
