Your Mileage May Vary – Week Four
Six thoughts and observations coming out of Saturday’s come-from-behind Homecoming win over Yale:
1) What can you say about how quarterback Grayson Saunier engineered Dartmouth’s game-winning drive? Maybe the most apropos description for a Big Green fan would be to say it was Kyler-esque. Saunier's steady and heady play in the final 37 seconds called to mind the way Derek Kyler ‘21 marched Dartmouth 96 yards down the field in the final minute to beat Harvard on the now-famous Hail Mary pass that saved the 2019 championship season. That’s high praise for Saunier and well-deserved. He didn’t play – and doesn’t play – like a quarterback who had just two career starts coming into the season.
2) The Yale Jinx, which was born in 1884 and died in 1935, is a famous part of Dartmouth football lore. Yale coach Tony Reno could be excused if he starts to believe there’s a Dartmouth Jinx after the Big Green's come-from-behind, 17-16 win on Sunday. Last year Reno saw the Big Green erase a 21-point deficit midway through the fourth quarter and go on to win in overtime. In 2021 Dartmouth got a field goal with 13 seconds left to force overtime and beat his team in overtime, 24-17. In 2017 the Green erased a 21-0 deficit against Reno's team and went on to a 28-27 win on a touchdown pass with 34 seconds left. Add it up and a Dartmouth team that had lost nine consecutive games to Yale before Reno arrived has gone 10-2 against the Bulldogs since.
3) Giving credit where credit is due, Yale had a terrific defensive stand when it stonewalled the Big Green four times from the one-yard line near the end of the first quarter. But turnabout is fair play, and Dartmouth returned the favor in the second half. Twice, actually.
On Yale’s first offensive series of the third quarter, the Big Green defense stopped powerful 220-pound tailback Josh Pitsenberger on back-to-back third-and-one, and fourth-and-one carries at the Dartmouth four to end a threat. That stop and the physical price Pitsenberger was paying on a day when he carried the ball 34 times might have been on Reno's mind when the Bulldogs’ first drive of the fourth quarter brought about a third-and-one, and then fourth-and-one at the plus-35. After Pitsenberger was stopped for no gain on third down, Reno opted for a short pass that Dartmouth safety Sean Williams intercepted on fourth down.
3) It is often said one of the most important qualities of a good defensive back is a short memory. You can be sure Williams had put his costly fumbled punt against Penn behind him when the Big Green took the field for practice the next day. But you be just as sure what happened in Philadelphia made his interception derailing Yale's fourth-quarter drive in Big Green territory a week later only that much sweeter for Williams.
5) Dartmouth field goal kicker Owen Zalc was an uncharacteristic 3-for-7 on the season after missing his first two kicks of the day when he trotted onto the field to try a 51-yarder to salvage a win Saturday. But as the 56-yard attempt late in the third quarter demonstrated, the concern wasn’t going to be the distance. It was whether the two-time, All-Ivy League junior would steer the ball through the uprights. Dartmouth probably could have tried a quick, five-yard pass and an immediate timeout to get Zalc a little closer, but coach Sammy McCorkle knew he didn’t have to roll the dice. He was right.
6) As noted on this site time and again, the focus in the Dartmouth football program is about "going 1-0" each week. The rest of us, of course, can’t help but look further down the road. That being the case, here’s something to keep in mind: Yale is now the Big Green’s best friend. With a 1-1 Ivy League record, Dartmouth needs the two remaining Ivy teams without a loss – Harvard and Penn – to lose a game. The Big Green can do something about the Crimson when it heads to Cambridge on Nov. 1. With Penn in the rear-view mirror, Dartmouth can’t do anything about the Quakers. But Yale can, on Oct. 25 in New Haven. What the Bulldogs showed Saturday suggests they are more than capable of giving the Penn that all-important loss.
And as you expected . . .
7) This might be a little bit of inside baseball (or inside football, if you will) but if the home team’s media relations department goes to the trouble of setting up a postgame press conference, it is incumbent on the visiting team’s coach to show up. Yale’s Tony Reno did not participate in the press conference Saturday and it had nothing to do with his team losing, because the Bulldogs were leading Dartmouth when his media relations person announced that he wasn’t going to appear. Sorry, but there were four media types and a videographer hoping to get thoughts from the Yale head coach and their coverage suffered because Reno chose not to show. Given how little media attention Ancient Eight football gets these days, the Ivy League office needs to make it mandatory for its coaches to participate when there are formal press conferences and the media actually show up.
