Mistakes Doom Big Green In Ivy League Opener

 Believe it or not, there was one piece of good news for Dartmouth coming out of Saturday’s 36-24 loss to Penn.

It’s doubtful the Big Green will make as many mistakes in one game again this fall.

A case can be made that two interceptions, a bad snap for a safety, a fumbled punt and allowing a huge punt return led to 26 of the Quakers’ points. Seven penalties didn’t help the cause either as Dartmouth (2-1) dropped its Ivy League opener before a Franklin Field crowd of 6,541.

Penn, which struggled past Stonehill in its opener and lost to Lehigh last week, improved to 2-1 and 1-0.

“Penn’s a good football team,” said Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle. “I mean, they’re a very good football team. They’ve got a lot of older guys, veterans on their offense and . . . if you make mistakes, they are the type of team that is going to capitalize on that. And they did that. Hats off to them. They took the opportunity and they made the most of it.”

Big Green quarterback Grayson Saunier ran for two scores and completed 16-of-30 passes for 142 yards, but he was unable to find the end zone though the air and was intercepted twice.

“We felt like we could do a lot of things on offense against them,” Saunier said. “We just kept beating ourselves. That’s really how I (felt) at the end of the game. It’s not a great feeling to lose, but I feel like we beat ourselves almost more than they beat us.”

The game couldn’t have started much better for Dartmouth.

Quakers coach Ray Priore’s curious decision to take the ball after winning the coin flip proved costly when Big Green safety Harrison Keith made a diving interception on the day’s first play from scrimmage, giving Dartmouth the ball near midfield. Six plays later Saunier cut back against the grain and ran in untouched for a 17-yard touchdown and a 7-0 lead.

After a 22-yard Penn field goal on the Quakers’ ensuing possession, the Big Green went right back to work, driving 70 yards in 14 plays, the last a three-yard run by Saunier that made it 14-3 early in the second quarter.

When Penn went three-and-out on its next possession the Big Green was staring at the chance to go three-for-three in scoring drives, only to make the first of the day’s big miscues.

With Penn’s special teams gunners just a step away from him while he tried to field a 44-yard punt, Dartmouth returner Sean Williams had the ball jarred lose and recovered by the Quakers at the Big Green 19. Then, gifted a first down at the two when Dartmouth was called for pass interference in the end zone, Penn used a pair of one-yard runs, the second for touchdown by quarterback Liam O’Brien, to pull within 14-10.

The Big Green answered with its third scoring drive in as many tries, holding the ball for 14 plays while marching from its own 25 to the Penn five before settling for a 26-yard Owen Zalc field goal and a 17-10 lead.

Getting the ball back at its own 27 with 1:40 remaining in the half, Dartmouth decided to go for the jugular with Saunier launching a spiral deep down the right side toward speedster Luke Rives. But Penn’s Alec Wills picked the pass off at his own 35. The turnover would prove costly.

O’Brien's 21-yard run on third-and-three kept the resulting Penn drive alive, and he finished it with a nine-yard back-shoulder throw to Bisi Owens for a touchdown with 16 seconds left in the second quarter. A game that minutes earlier seemed to be tilting heavily in Dartmouth’s direction was 17-17 at the half.

O’Brien would go on to finish as the day’s leading rusher with 99 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries, along with 16-of-21 passing for 147 yards and two touchdowns.

“The biggest thing was the third downs,” said Dartmouth linebacker Teddy Gianaris. “We didn’t expect him to keep it that much. I think he was running it straight downhill and that’s something that kind of threw us off a little bit.”

Thanks to Penn’s decision to take the ball to start the game, Dartmouth received the second-half kickoff with a chance to resurrect a lead. But then came another pair of costly mistakes.

When the Big Green’s opening drive of the third quarter bogged down, punter Luke Armistead boomed a 59-yarder only to have an illegal formation penalty nullify the play. After Armistead set up five yards back for a re-punt, the snap sailed over his head and into the end zone. The sophomore alertly kicked the ball out the back of the end zone, conceding a safety rather than a potential Penn recovery and touchdown.

But all the safety did was delay the touchdown as the Quakers got a short field after the Dartmouth kickoff  and they took advantage with a six-play, 48-yard drive capped by O’Brien’s 12-yard pass to wide open tight end Cadin Olsen to make it 26-17.

For McCorkle, the muffed punt setting up a Penn score late in the first half, and the special teams issues at the start of the second, were symptomatic of what plagued his team much of the day.

“It took the momentum way from us,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve got to do a better job protecting and giving our returner, Sean, room. You can’t allow a guy to run down there and get right in his face and create that distraction. But we’ve got to catch that.

“We had the momentum there and kind of gave them a short field. And then obviously with the start of the second half you go three-and-out and go to punt and get a good punt to pin them back and we can’t align correctly, so we’ve got to re-punt it. Next thing you know we snap it over (the punter’s head). That’s very frustrating.”

Dartmouth responded to the Penn touchdown with yet another lengthy drive, this one covering 75 yards in eight plays and culminating in a 12-yard run by DJ Crowther (17 carries for 86 yards) to pull within 26-24 after three quarters.

But that would be as close as the Big Green would get as the  second Penn interception of the game early in the fourth quarter gave the Quakers the ball at the plus 28. O’Brien made the mistake hurt with another conversion – this one an 11-yard-run on third-and-seven – followed by his two-yard TD run for a 33-24 lead.

There was still 11:30 on the clock and time for a Big Green team that has shown the ability to come from behind to mount another comeback.

The back-breaker for Dartmouth this time came after a Penn blitz turned what had been a third-and-four at the Quakers’ 37 with about nine minutes remaining into a fourth-and-25 at the Dartmouth 42.

Needing a big punt and a stop, the Big Green got the first but not the second. Uber dangerous returner Julien Stokes fielded a 52-yard kick and somehow squeezed down the left sideline for a 65-yard return to the Dartmouth 29. And then yet another costly mistake.

A Dartmouth offsides penalty negated a fumble recovery on a third-and-25 play, and two snaps later Penn got a 30-yard field goal to close out the scoring.

The Big Green now returns home Saturday to face 2-1 Yale, which lost at Lehigh Saturday, 31-13.

“You’ve got to learn from it and move on,” McCorkle said of the Big Green’s first loss of the year. “You’ve got to wipe it. Yeah, you love to win them all but we focus on one game at a time, and we didn’t play up to par to win this game today.

“We’re not going to let this game beat us the next time. We can’t. You’ve got to forget about it. Learn from it. There’s a lot of film and a lot of corrections we can make from it and we’ll prepare ourselves for a very good opponent next week in Yale.”