HANOVER – Dartmouth tailback DJ Crowther had to wait for his turn in the spotlight, but now that he's in it, he is making the most of his opportunity.
The Big Green senior, who had more carries in his last two games (51) than he had in his entire junior year (48), ran 31 times for a career-high 197 yards in Saturday’s 24-14 win over Cornell. His single-game total was the 10th best showing by a true running back in Dartmouth history, and 12th overall (adding in big games by wildcat quarterbacks Greg Patton and Jared Gerbino).
Crowther is second in the Ivy League in rushing by more than 300 yards this fall and needs 111 yards against Brown’s struggling run defense Saturday to become just the seventh player in Dartmouth history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
Big Green coach Sammy McCorkle expected big things this fall from the 5-foot-11, 215-pound product of Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento and didn’t sound at all surprised with his performance Saturday afternoon.
“It's just his mentality,” McCorkle said. “I think that's the biggest thing with DJ. Honestly, physically, he's a strong guy. He's a powerful runner. He's got great speed, great quickness, great vision. He's a guy that wants to play at his best all the time.
“And it's not about just him. He wants to get those yards, get those first downs, for the team. I just can't say enough about him.”
Crowther’s big game was his third this fall over 100 yards (103 against Columbia and 143 against New Hampshire) and marked the seventh time in nine games this year that he has topped 85 yards. Highlighting his performance against the Big Red was a 67-yard touchdown run (aided by a key block from quarterback Grayson Saunier), a 26-yard TD burst, and carrying on six of Dartmouth’s final eight plays to help the Big Green run out the clock on Cornell at game’s end.
If not for a holding call that cost him a 23-yard gain in the final series, Crowther would have easily topped the 200-yard mark.
When it was pointed out how close he was to getting to the magical 200-yard mark, he just laughed about the near miss.
“That would be great,” he said before quickly redirecting the spotlight elsewhere. “That was definitely a great game. It was nice to have the guys back on the O-line, Vasean (Washington) and Delby (Lemieux). I know they missed being out there, and I missed them, too. Those are my guys.
“It was just a great game. Coach talked about it all week. We needed to be physical. That was the mindset going into it, to run and be physical, and that’s what we did.”
Cornell coach Dan Swanstrom knew his team faced a challenge trying to slow down Crowther with Saunier more than able to carry the load if they kept the tailback in check.
“We were very concerned going into this game,” he said. “Fifteen (Crowther) is a tremendous player. He leads the conference in rushing (sic), which we were very aware of. But the scariest thing with him is getting his shoulders downhill on your defense, and we allowed him to do that today.
“We had a plan to try to bounce some runs and try to get him more on the perimeter and get those shoulders turned, and just weren’t able to do that. You’ve got a choice to make. Do you take the tailback or do you take the quarterback and let his speed get on the perimeter? It’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.”
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Chris Corbo led Dartmouth with five catches for 53 yards, including a long of 29. Grayson O’Bara had three grabs for 27 yards, and Ky’Dric Fisher two for 23 on a team-high eight targets.
Saunier finished 13-of-23 for 122 yards through the air and had 11 carries for 43 yards. Myles Craddock was the only other ballcarrier with three runs for 14 yards.
Luke Armisted had another strong game punting with three punts for a 43.0 average. Two of his punts pinned Cornell inside the 20. ... Niquis Ratcliffe had a team-high seven solo tackles and tied with Zyion Freer-Brown with 10 stops total. Ratcliffe also ripped the ball away from a receiver and recovered it to give the Big Green possession. Tyson Grimm deserved an an assist on the play by holding up the receiver while Ratcliffe went to work.
Joe Onuwabhagbe had two tackles for loss, including a sack. … Safety Sean Williams was credited with two pass breakups and had a couple of good opportunities to add to his total of four interceptions this fall.
Cornell finished with 21 first downs to Dartmouth’s 20. The Big Red piled up 328 yards through the air but managed just 41 on the ground. ... Dartmouth’s 254 yards rushing were a season high, easily surpassing the 209 in the win over Yale. . . . The Big Green was a healthy 11-of-18 on third down conversions and 2-of-2 on fourth down.
Dartmouth drives in order (plays/yards/result): 7/27/punt; 11/68/field goal; 8/22/punt; 3/75/touchdown; 3/1/punt; 11/72/touchdown; 12/63/touchdown; 5/24/missed field goal; 10/38/end of game.
Cornell drives in order (plays/yards/result): 7/26/punt; 9/54/fumble; 14/96/touchdown; 3/8/punt; 6/39/missed field goal; 3/5/punt; 6/38/downs; 7/29/downs; 8/77/touchdown.
THEY SAID IT (gently edited for brevity and clarity)
Cornell coach Dan Swanstrom on the costly turnover at the start of the second quarter with the Big Red on the move: “That’s a massive play, and Dartmouth never put the ball in jeopardy once. And that’s a huge difference. That’s literally a massive win in the game.”
Swanstrom on why he had confidence in his team's chance to come from behind down the stretch: “We’ve been down multiple scores. We came back multiple scores against Princeton. We came back multiple scores against Brown. We were down at Penn at halftime. So there’s a very common theme here. We don’t start fast, but this group is tough. They really compete, and it’s actually one of the more competitive groups that I’ve coached. We’re not overly talented. There’s not a lot of massive playmaking on this team. But their special talent is their ability to compete and fight through adversity. That’s something I can live with.”
Niquis Ratcliff on the two defensive stops that led to touchdowns: “I just have got to credit that to the whole defense, honestly. From the D line to the linebackers to the secondary. We all just came together. Coach is always talking about '11 as one,' and we made a big emphasis all week to get off the field on third and fourth down. So I think we just did a good job of executing. And then talking about the offense, hats off to those guys, keeping us out of sticky situations and keeping the pressure on them.”
DJ Crowther on the Senior Day win: “It’s a little bittersweet because Coach T(eevens), the stadium got named after him, and we’re the last class that really got to be coached (by) him. We knew what the assignment was, and we knew how to execute. At the end of the day, we wouldn’t be beat and just had to leave it out on the field for our last home game.”
Sammy McCorkle on whether the return of two starting offensive linemen and a blocking tight end played into the way Dartmouth came out throwing the ball in the first quarter: “It had a lot to do with it, having some guys back. It was nice to have them back. . . . If they are going to load the box up, you’ve got to loosen them up a little bit. … We don’t want to be predictable. That helped us be able to run the ball as the game went on.”
McCorkle: “Our staff did a great preparing this week. I told the guys, we're not going to play on our heels. You're prepared. You're ready. Play on your toes and let’s get ready to go out there and be in attack mode. Make mistakes? Just wipe it. Wipe it. Forget about it. And we had guys who made mistakes and they did a good job of responding, and bouncing back and ended up making big plays for us.”
McCorkle after being told that Cornell seems as if it is going to be a solid team next year: “So are we.”
McCorkle on the approach for this week against Brown with the Ivy League title no longer in play: “Like we say all the time. We are going to enjoy this one. As I said to the team after the game, tomorrow we come back here and we prepare for Brown. One day at a time. That’s what we’re going to do.”