HANOVER – Contributing mightily to Columbia’s woes in Friday night’s game were problems in the kick return game. Before delving into the problems, a little history lesson.
It was in 2018 that the NCAA enacted the rule allowing the receiving team to fair catch a kickoff inside the 25-yard line and have it serve as a touchback.
Already concerned about concussive injuries on kickoff returns, Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens studied field starting field position numbers and in the second year of the new rule laid down the law. The only kickoff returns would be at the end of the half, the end of a game, or when a returner “went rogue,” as he called it with a smile one time when a player couldn’t help himself and took off running after catching the ball.
Given that Sammy McCorkle was a special teams standout at Florida and served as Dartmouth’s special teams coach, it’s understandable why his kickoff return was one of the few areas that he changed after taking over for his mentor.
In Teevens’ final three seasons, Dartmouth returned four, three, and three kickoffs. By way of contrast, the Big Green returned 17 and then 14 kickoffs in McCorkle’s first two years.
Through six games this fall, however, Dartmouth has returned just three kickoffs and what he saw McCorkle saw Friday night might be why.
Columbia returned eight kickoffs against the Big Green, and the result was starting field position at the seven, eight, 15, 19, 22, and 23-yard lines. That set the Lions up on average at the 15½-yard line. A dropped fair catch brought about the drive that started at the seven but two completed fair catches set Columbia up at the 25, a 10-yard bonus over where it started on the other kicks.
The kickoff return issues left Columbia with long fields, and Lions coach Jon Poppe gave credit where it was due. While Dartmouth kickoff specialist Matisse Weaver averaged 57.2 yards per kick – well under the 60.8 Columbia’s kicker is averaging this fall – it wasn’t because he doesn’t have a big leg. It was by design.
“The Dartmouth kicker, God bless him, is a professional at squib kicks,” said Poppe. “He did a great job placing it and pinning us near a sideline to take away some angles on our return. Dartmouth did a great job forcing us to return the football.Matisse Weaver
“Some of it is coaching on their end in a positive way, and when you're out of phase with your return, it's tough to create angles, right? That's where you're fighting for every yard you get. I thought our returner besides the drop did a good job fighting for what he got. To have consistent offensive scoring, it's tough to have those starting field positions and score a lot of points in football games, for sure.”
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Senior tailback DJ Crowther topped the century mark for the second time this fall by carrying 18 times for 103 yards. He had 20 carries for 143 yards against New Hampshire in the opener. He’s averaging 95.2 yards per game, second only to the 114.0 of Yale’s Josh Pitsenberger, and well ahead of Columbia’s Michael Walters, who is third with 63.5 yards per game.
Grayson Saunier’s 55 yards have him seventh in the league at 50.5 yards per game. Saunier has run for 303 yards on the season. Crowther is at 572.
Nick Lemon’s three catches for 61 yards represented season highs in both departments. Ky’Dric Fisher had a season-high three catches for 33 yards, and Grayson O’Bara added three grabs for 18 yards.
Zyion Freer-Brown had 12 tackles to lead the Big Green, while Nico Schwikal had seven. Given a little extra run because of the lopsided nature of the game, Steve Simpkins and Sean Chester had six stops apiece. Simpkins had eight tackles in the five games combined prior to Columbia. Chester had four.
Perhaps surprisingly, given how the game played out, punter Luke Armistead had his busiest day of the season, kicking four times for a sterling 47-yard average. His 58-yarder was a season-long. He’s second in the Ivy League with a 44.5-yard season average. Princeton’s Brady Clark averages a league-best 45.7 yards. The Dartmouth record for punting average in a season is 42.9, set by Alex Ware in 2001 on 39 punts.
Dartmouth finished with a slim advantage in first downs, 18-17. Total offense was 358 yards for the Big Green and 271 for Columbia, the low for a Dartmouth opponent this fall. That number was 199 until the Lions put together a 72-yard drive in the fourth quarter.
A total of 59 players saw action for Dartmouth.
The Big Green led 21-0 after the first quarter despite running just five plays in the period
. On the game, Columbia ran 70 plays to Dartmouth’s 53.
Dartmouth drives in order (plays/yards/result): 5/83/touchdown; 5/19/punt/3/9/punt; 2/14/touchdown; 10/75/touchdown; 6/75/touchdown; 16/69/touchdown; 3/5/punt; 3/8/punt.
Columbia drives in order (plays/yards/result): 7/55/interception; 5/12/punt; 6/14/punt; 10/45/punt; 3/-1/punt; 3/-7/punt; 1/-1/half; 8/47/downs; 3/0/punt; 17/72/field goal; 8/18/end of game.
THEY SAID IT (lightly edited for clarity and brevity)
Columbia coach Jon Poppe on Grayson Saunier: “Watching film, his long speed is what really stands out, and you saw that tonight. He's quick with his cuts and does a great job staying north with his cuts. And he can open up in the open field. That's what you saw tonight. What showed up on film showed up tonight against us. And that's what makes him a very, very good quarterback at this level. I thought he threw the ball pretty well. He opened up the game on a play action, and you know we're screaming, ‘Watch the post, watch the play action.’ It doesn't matter. It was just that kind of night for him. He’s a great player, and I’m excited to see what he continues to do, knowing he's only a junior. I hope he has great success every game besides the next time he plays us.”
Poppe: “I appreciate the way our guys have fought to the end. That's been something that we have been able to hang our hat on, but that's not good enough. There will be some major things to come here in terms of improving our play as the season closes out.”
Dartmouth offensive tackle Delby Lemieux: “I think the biggest thing that comes out of a day like today for us is confidence. We work all week on establishing the run. We knew we wanted to run the ball coming into this game. After a performance like that, the biggest thing we take away from it is, all right, we know we can do it. Now we just have to get back to work on Sunday and the rest of the next week and get ready to do it all over again.”
Dartmouth nickel Tyson Grimm on the confidence the team gained with the big win: “I think it's great just for all three sides of the ball, but we can't get too high and can't get too low. We’ve got to wipe it. We have Harvard next. It’s going to be a great test for us. So we have to look forward to Harvard, understand what we're capable of, but that we can always get better. We have got to focus on what we can improve from this game.”
Grimm on his “pick six” interception return for a touchdown: “(The Columbia quarterback) didn't really give anything away. It was just reading the keys, just going through my progressions like the coaches tell me to do. Read the receivers, do my job, and then look for the quarterback, and I just happened to be there and make a play.”
Dartmouth defensive back No’Koi Maddox: “Since this last Sunday’s practice, the team has been . . . really focusing on attack mode. Today I feel like the whole team just brought everything together. Like we have the tools, we have the pieces, and everything just lined up today.”
Maddox on whether he had seen something on film or during the game that gave him confidence that he could get his hands on the punt he blocked and returned for a touchdown: “Yeah, for sure. I came off after the first punt, and I told Coach McCorkle like I could get it, and he gave me the green light, and I just went and got it.
Lemieux on playing on Friday night: “It's fun. You get to be under the lights again. It definitely feels like a little bit of a high school football game. You get that chilly air, the sun's going down while you're warming up, and you're out there under the lights with all your best friends. There's nothing like it.”
McCorkle on the success of the run game: “It comes down to our offensive line. Our guys do a really good job up front. Our offensive line. Our tight ends. And I really thought our wideouts did a much better job this week on the perimeter blocking. A lot of times you don't see that and realize that, but a lot of times when DJ pops, it is because those wideouts are getting hat on a hat, and they're in good position to allow him to find that open space. (The running backs and Saunier) trust the linemen, they trust the blockers, and they trust what we're doing schematically as well.”
McCorkle on Columbia driving down the field on its first possession before Grimm’s 75-yard return for a score turned things around: “I was a little disappointed the way they were running the ball on us. They had a scheme. They came in with a plan, and we did make some adjustments.
“That interception was huge. That kind of stopped that momentum a little bit. I thought our guys, the front seven, did a really good job of knowing what they were trying to do, knowing the blocking scheme they were trying to do. Donnie Dobes and the rest of the staff did a good job of putting our guys in good places to slow that down.”
McCorkle on why the win over Columbia is a benefit beyond the standings: “We've got dudes in this room. We've got guys who can play. I think some guys were just still not completely confident that they could be that guy. And we just kept telling them, ‘Hey man, you just have to go out there and play, because you can be a really good football player.
“A guy like No’kKoi, he's a sophomore. He's right there. And then all of a sudden he went out there today with a lot of confidence. That's exciting. We had a number of guys like that who stepped up. All it takes is one big play, and that just flips an individual's mentality and their confidence. That's all it takes. And I think a lot of guys did that today.”
McCorkle on whether he’s thinking of playoff ramifications yet in two words: “Nope. Harvard.”