Your Mileage May Vary – Week Three
Here is your weekly six-pack – or maybe seven-pack? – of thoughts and observations between the loss to Penn and the Homecoming visit by Yale.
1) Mistakes are always costly, and they absolutely cost the Big Green a possible win against Penn. Two interceptions, a lost fumble, a safety and too many penalties contributed mightily to the loss at Franklin Field. Those miscues are not at all characteristic of a Sammy McCorkle-coached team and you can be sure Dartmouth will work on focus and discipline during the week and play a much “cleaner” game against Yale Saturday.
2) Special teams were a hallmark under McCorkle’s leadership before he took over as head coach and they have been a big reason why his record in one-possession games has been sterling. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see McCorkle more involved with special teams after several breakdowns at Penn in the punt game and punt return coverage.
3) The Dartmouth playbook heading into the date with the Quakers was to not let their best player beat them. He didn’t. For the third year in a row, Dartmouth did a good job on dangerous wide receiver Jared Richardson, limiting him this time to three catches for 37 yards. But Penn ripped a page out of the same playbook by focusing on the Big Green’s Grayson O’Bara. The senior wide receiver had topped 100 yards receiving in three consecutive wins, dating back to last year, but the Quakers held him to 16 yards on two catches Saturday.
4) Easy to overlook given his back-breaking 99 yards rushing, Penn quarterback Liam O’Brien completed a healthy 16-of-21 passes for 147 yards and two touchdowns against the Big Green. McCorkle last week said the surprising completion percentage by frequently inaccurate Central Connecticut quarterback Brady Olson wasn’t a concern because so many of his passes were of the dink-and-dunk variety. This felt different, but was it really?
Average Yards Gained Per Completion
Olson vs. Dartmouth: 8.9
O’Brien vs. Dartmouth: 9.2
Grayson Saunier vs. Penn: 8.9
Average Yards Gained Per Attempt
Olson vs. Dartmouth: 7.1
O’Brien vs. Dartmouth: 7.0
Saunier vs. Penn: 4.7
Whether what Dartmouth has faced is actually dinking-and-dunking is open to debate. What’s not is that Penn and Central Connecticut had similar approaches and similar success through the air, and the goal this week against Yale and its transfer quarterback from South Carolina has to be to bring the completion percentage down.
5) A huge Penn offensive line that features five returning starters all weighing at least 300 pounds, and a nimble quarterback who got the ball out of his hands in a hurry deserve a lot of the credit. But the fact remains that Dartmouth did not record a sack against Penn, and after three games this fall the Big Green has just five sacks total. The only sack credited to a defensive lineman so far this year was recorded by Bruce Williams in the win over Central Connecticut. Quarterbacks have been hurried, but they haven’t yet been taken to the ground as frequently as they have in recent years. That puts a lot more pressure on the secondary.
6) Punter Luke Armistead hasn’t seen much action, but he has been a bright spot this fall, averaging 41.8 yards per punt. Against Penn, his lone punt that counted was 52 yards, and the punt that was nullified by penalty covered 59 yards.
And the bonus you know is coming each week . . .
7) How critical is this Saturday’s game in the big picture? The BGA Overtime story What They Did & What They Said earlier this week pointed out that Dartmouth has rebounded from an opening Ivy League loss to win at least a share of the title three times. And that Yale and Harvard turned the trick the last two years. But none of those teams lost its first two conference games before going on to finish the season as Ivy League champion. (Yale, however, started 1-2 in conference and earned a ring in 2023.)
