HANOVER – As a junior, free safety Harrison Keith has known nothing in his Dartmouth football career other than playing for an Ivy League championship. That’s true for most of his teammates as well.
Although last week’s loss at Harvard did serious damage to the Big Green's championship hopes, Keith was confident about how his team would approach the Princeton game.
“There’s one thing about Dartmouth football that I know: it’s that it’s a group of guys that loves playing with each other,” he said. “Obviously, last week didn’t go the way we wanted it to. But I guarantee you every single guy on this team cherishes every moment we get on that field. That’s kind of the mindset we had going into this week and for the rest of the season. Who knows how much time we have left together, but we're going out there giving everything we’ve got because it's a group of guys that truly love each other.”
Senior Chris Corbo was equally confident before Dartmouth’s 20-17 win over the Tigers.
“We come every day ready to work,” the tight end said. “We’re business-like at practice, getting things done. We’re excited to have as many opportunities as possible to work with each other for the rest of the season.”
Added Keith, “It’s a group of guys that love to come to work every single day, and thankfully we have a coaching staff that has our back no matter what, and we have their back no matter what. . . . A culture like that, it's very special because you can't say that for every school. And so I know we're all thankful to be in the position we are. And, again, just cherishing every moment we have together. It's really special.”
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
DJ Crowther led both teams in rushing with 20 carries for 96 yards and one touchdown with a long of 36 yards. At 692 yards on the season, he’s second to only Yale’s Josh Pitsenberger (989 yards) in Ivy rushing and has more than a 200-yard edge over Harvard’s Xaviah Bascon, who is third in the conference with 468 yards this fall.
Grayson Saunier was 12-for-15 passing. His 80-percent completion rate is second only to his 12-for-13 (92.3 percent) showing against Columbia. With two games remaining in the season, he’s leading the Ivies with a 67.9 percent mark on the year.
The Dartmouth single-season record is 70.7 percent by Derek Kyler in 2021. For perspective, Dalyn Williams’s best percentage was 67.5 in 2014, and Jay Fiedler’s best was 64.1 in 1992.
Chris Corbo’s team-high four catches give him 32 receptions on the season, second on the team to Grayson O’Bara’s 34. His 25-yard touchdown catch against Princeton was his third of the year. With six, the Big Green has the fewest TD passes in the Ivy League this fall. Cornell is next with eight. Harvard leads the way with 19.
Luke Armistead punted four times for a 43.2-yard average. He’s now at 42.4 yards on 20 punts this fall. The Dartmouth record of 42.9 was set in 2001 by Alex Ware, who punted 39 times.
Teddy Gianaris led the defensive charge with a season-high 11 tackles. He had one sack and two quarterback hurries. Harrison Keith had seven tackles, while Tyson Grimm, Nico Schwikal, and Cameron Best-Alston had six apiece. Dakota Quiñonez and Joe Onuwabhagbe each had a sack. Despite playing without two starters, Dartmouth surrendered just one sack for a loss of four yards.
As noted in the game story, Princeton dominated the team stats with more first downs (26-13), more total yards (408-289), and more than seven minutes of extra possession time. Dartmouth was 6-of-12 on third-down conversions, while Princeton was 8-of-15. . . . Dartmouth had two three-and-outs, while the Tigers had none.
Dartmouth drives in order (plays/yards/result): 5/35/touchdown; 15/88/touchdown; 6/43/punt; 3/9/punt; 7/75/touchdown; 3/9/punt; 5/16/punt; 6/28/punt; 3/-4/end of game.
Princeton drives in order (plays/yards/result): 4/17/interception; 7/45/interception; 13/60/missed field goal/ 8/38/punt; 6/37/field goal; 17/73/downs; 8/52/touchdown; 9/31/downs; 11/80/touchdown.
THEY SAID IT (gently edited for clarity)
Princeton coach Bob Surace: “The margins are small. Starting with me, we all have got to be a little better. It’s three games in a row that I can take a dozen plays, and if we just do a little better, the outcomes change. That’s just where we are.
"That’s the way our league is. There’s parity, and sometimes the ball bounces well, and you’re fine. Sometimes it doesn’t. Right now, we are in a little rut, and we’ll stick together and come back and give our best effort.”
Surace: “We kept fighting, but it just wasn’t enough. Errors happen. . . . The (Keith) interception on tip was an incredible play. That happens, and you tip your cap. We had a lot of good plays and they did the same.”
Keith on the onside kick: “I'm back there with Chris (Corbo) on the onside kick recovery, so it's us two in the back end. That was my first time. There are nerves a little bit, but nerves are good. It shows you care, and it means a lot. Me and Chris talked to each other right before going out there, and he said, ‘Let's do this thing.’ Going out with a guy like that, you know, the nerves kind of go away.”
Corbo on winning despite not reaching 300 yards in total offense: “I think we had to do a better job towards the end of the game continuing to move the ball and focus, and not lessening our sense of urgency. And just keep going at it. But when you have a defense like ours, it makes it a lot easier on us.”
Keith: “Coach McCorkle talks about it all the time, a sense of urgency. Last week didn't go the way we wanted to and as a DB room, we take pride in doing our job the right way. We felt like we didn't have our best effort the week before. And so we came out with kind of a different edge to just do our job.”
Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle: “We made plays when we needed to make plays, and I think the guys came out, especially from the very get-go, ready to play. They came out with good energy. They were excited to get out there and start fast, and I think we definitely were in more of an attack mode. We jumped out there and did what we needed to, and I'm really happy we came away with a win.”
McCorkle on the play of the defensive line: “Our guys up front did a good job of getting pressure and making that quarterback have to get out of that pocket. And any time you force a quarterback to have to move out of the pocket, you cut the field in half. And so you're taking away some of his reads, his receivers, and opportunities.”
McCorkle on opening the second half with six consecutive run plays leading to a touchdown after struggling on the ground in the first half: “That was our point of emphasis the entire game, to establish the run. And I thought DJ and Des (Jackson) did a good job. And the guys we had on the offensive line did a really good job, tight ends and all. And good reads by Grayson, putting us in the right run game. Those guys played hard. We wanted to make sure we came out and ran downhill and that's what we did. That was a huge, huge momentum swing for us starting the second half.”
McCorkle on struggling to throw a knockout punch after going up 20-3: “Bob and that staff do a great job. You can't allow them to hang around. He's been around a long time and they'll do that. You let them hang around (and) you give them life, you give them some energy, and then you never know what's going to happen. So we've got to make sure going forward, we don't allow that.”
McCorkle on what needs to be cleaned up heading into the final two weeks of the season: “I think the biggest thing is just making sure we close the deal. We’ve got to get off the field defensively. And offensively we had opportunities to keep the drives going. We’ve got to know the situation and be able to get vertical and move those chains.
“I think that's the biggest thing is the critical downs, and the third downs are the big ones. And I think too, we’ve got to do a better job on first down. You talk about third down. Well, (a good) first down, and all of a sudden now, it's second-and-four. It’s tough to call coverages and call defenses against second-and-four. We call it dealer's choice. They can pick what they want to do.
“Offensively, we’ve got to be in those short yardage situations on second down. So, offensively and defensively, we’ve got to make sure on first down that we have the success rate that we need.”