If you happened to be scrolling through college football scores Saturday night and all you saw was the Dartmouth 30, Fordham 13 final, you would probably think the Big Green rolled over the hapless Rams.
Think again.
Over the first four weeks of the season Dartmouth scored more points in the fourth quarter than in any other two quarters combined, and the Big Green needed yet another impressive final 15 minutes to put a pesky Fordham team away.
Tied at the half, 6-6, and leading by just three points with under 10 minutes to go, the Big Green offense finally came alive with a pair of touchdown passes from Grayson Saunier in a span of less than five minutes to put a bow on an unbeaten non-conference season and improve to 4-1 overall.
Mistake-prone Fordham fell to 1-6, although it took a 24-7 second half for the Big Green to win by more than one score for the first time all year.
“The message at halftime was, ‘Hey, we need to come out and be more aggressive,’ “ explained Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle. “I just thought we were kind of feeling our way a little bit in the first half. They were doing some different things offensively and defensively that we had to adjust to. What I told our guys at halftime is, ‘We’ve got to be more aggressive. We’ve got to be in attack mode.’ “
Dartmouth got a little help doing that right out of the locker room when Fordham coach Joe Conlin chose to try an onside kick to start the third quarter. The ploy backfired when the ball didn’t go the necessary 10 yards, giving Dartmouth possession at the Rams’ 42. Five plays later tailback DJ Crother bounced outside for a 20-yard touchdown, the first of the day for either team. With the PAT Dartmouth suddenly had a 13-6 lead.
Although it proved costly, McCorkle understood underdog Fordham’s decision to try to steal a possession by gambling on the onside kick.
“They’re trying to get the momentum, trying to get it to swing and go a different way,” he said. “I thought our guys did a really good job of being ready for it. Fortunately for us, it didn’t go 10 yards.”
Now trailing by seven points, Fordham had a golden opportunity to tie the score again when it drove from its own 25 to the 17 on the ensuing possession. But on first down strong-armed quarterback Gunnar Smith wildly overthrew his receiver and the ball ended up in the waiting arms of safety Sean Williams for his third interception of the year.
Having dodged that bullet, Dartmouth stretched its lead to 16-6 with 3:53 remaining in the third quarter thanks to a 24-yard Owen Zalc field goal that capped a 64-yard drive.
Fordham caught a break when Zalc’s 45-yard bid early in the final quarter was wide left, and the Rams caught another on the next Dartmouth possession when All-America linebacker James Conway punched the ball out of Saunier’s grasp.
Fordham recovered at the Big Green 36, and after a 31-yard completion on first down Smith tossed to wide receiver Jack Freeberg for a five-yard score. It would be Fordham’s only touchdown of the day, but with the PAT it was a three-point game again – 16-13 – with 11:37 remaining.
At that point the Big Green went to the air with devastating results for the Rams.
Saunier completed consecutive passes of 18 yards to Grayson O’Bara, nine to Nick Lemon, 19 to O’Bara, and 24 for a touchdown to a well-covered Luke Rives in a five-play, 75-yard drive that ate too just over two minutes. With Zalc’s PAT the Dartmouth lead was double figures again, 23-13, with 9:21 to go.
Smelling blood after the quick score, the Big Green defensive line pinned back its ears and came after the Fordham quarterback on its next possession.
First it was Joe Onuwabhagbe going for a piggyback ride on Smith before he collapsed for an eight-yard loss on first down. After a quick completion it was linebacker Zyion Freer-Brown blowing through the Fordham line for a second eight-yard sack of the series, forcing a punt.
Buoyed by the Big Green defense's three-and-out stop, the offense picked up where it left off less than three minutes earlier. Saunier drove the Big Green 60 yards in five plays, with the payoff this time coming via a short pass that O’Bara collected at the Fordham 26 and carried the rest of the way down the left sideline for the 33-yard TD with 4:32 on the clock.
O’Bara’s touchdown closed out 17-point win for Dartmouth on a day when points had been hard to come by in the early going.
Despite moving the ball with aplomb, all the Big Green could manage in the first half were Zalc field goals of 42 and 33 yards. It didn’t help that the Ivy Leaguers had just three possessions in the first 30 minutes.
A 14-play, 87-yard drive that ate up 7:49 was Dartmouth’s only possession of the first quarter, and all the work went for naught when Conway tackled Saunier at the one-yard line on a fourth-and-two at the two.
Zalc’s two field goals in the second quarter made it 6-3.
It looked as if it would stay that way when Fordham went three-and-out in the final minute of the opening half and successfully got off 41-yard punt with 26 seconds left.
But the ball bounced off the foot of a Big Green player locked up with a Fordham player, giving the Rams possession at the plus-28. Smith promptly completed a 23-yard pass, and after an incompletion at the goal line, Bennett Henderson came on to hit a 22-yard field goal with no time left, sending the teams into the lockerroom tied.
O’Bara finished the day with seven catches for 104 yards, his third time eclipsing the century mark this year and fourth time in six games dating back to last year’s finale at Brown. Rives and tight end Chris Corbo each had four catches and Ky’Dric Fisher, who had the game winning touchdown at Central Connecticut and the game-saving catch last week against Yale, had just one catch, but again it was notable, going for 50 yards.
Saunier finished 21-of-29 (72.4 percent) for 281 yards and two touchdowns without an interception.
Crowther ran for 91 yards on 18 carries while Saunier had 45 on eight runs and Desmin Jackson 44 on eight attempts. The Big Green finished with 180 yards on the ground to Fordham’s 90.
Dartmouth returns home for a pair of games against Columbia Friday, and against Princeton eight days later after wrapping up a run of three road games in four weeks.
“Coming here, it was their Homecoming,” McCorkle said. “We knew it was going to be a challenge. They had two weeks off and they are a lot better than their record says.
“I think coming in here and battling, and bouncing back in that second half and playing the way we did – we need to take that momentum going into next week. It’s going to be a short week. There’s a lot of things we’ve got to fix and correct. But our guys will enjoy this tonight. We’ll get on the bus and get back to Hanover and we’ll prepare starting tomorrow for (Columbia).”