HANOVER – Here are a few Monday thoughts and observations after Saturday’s 31-10 loss at Harvard.
1) Ky’Dric Fisher caught a season-high five passes for 51 yards against Harvard and no fewer than four of the receptions went for first downs. He had seven catches in the first five games combined and eight over the past two. The 6-foot, 175-pound sophomore who caught the game-winning 50-yard touchdown pass against Central Connecticut is turning into a weapon before our eyes.
2) Dartmouth quarterback Grayson Saunier ran a season-high 15 times against Harvard, although you need to keep in mind that for some bizarre reason the NCAA official statistics count sacks as rushing attempts. That being the case, sack yardage is deducted from the quarterback’s running total. Saunier was credited with only 16 yards against Harvard when he actually ran for a team-high 48 yards. Each year there are people pushing for the NCAA to change how sack yardage is accounted for, and one of these years it will be changed. It can’t be soon enough.
3) Chris Corbo caught three passes for a team-high 56 yards at Harvard and is now second on the team in receptions (28) and yards (314), while leading the Big Green with two touchdown catches. Harvard, which has made turning tight ends into pro prospects an art form, had two tight ends combine for seven catches for 107 yards and three touchdowns Saturday. Corbo is more than capable of that kind of production all by himself and it will be interesting after seeing how Harvard used its tight ends if he’ll get a little more action over the final three games.
4) Senior safety Sean Williams continues to be a ballhawk in the secondary. His interception Saturday was his Ivy League-leading fourth of the season and 11th of his career. Those are excellent numbers but no need to go online to to see if he’s on pace to challenge the Dartmouth records. Isiah Swann ’20 has put both marks out of reach with nine interceptions in a season and 17 in a career.
5) Harvard’s Jaden Craig showed why he’s arguably the top pro prospect among FCS quarterbacks while completing 32-of-32 passes for 322 yards and four touchdowns with two interceptions. He hasn’t run much since the early games of his career, but that has been largely by choice. He showed both the ability to get out of trouble and the speed to get to the edge when he needed to against the Big Green.
6) I’m not sure if the promotions at Harvard Stadium Saturday were a one-time deal for their “Fall Fest,” but I certainly hope so. The announcers for the contests conducted during TV timeouts, etc., were too loud and beyond over-the-top. It sounded as if you were at the midway at Old Orchard Beach. I can’t imagine how that played with the “seasoned” Harvard alumni who attended the game. Not that there were all that many of them there. Dartmouth fans were a significant portion of a crowd of 11,334, a disappointing number considering the game was between 6-0 team and 5-1 teams.
And a final thought that might be a little inside baseball football:
7) After years and years of post-game press conferences, Harvard left the media to fend for itself Saturday. The Dartmouth media had to conduct interviews under the grandstand in the dark while the band played music nearby and crowds of people milled about just a few feet away. There was no chance to ask Harvard coach Andrew Aurich what the Crimson’s approach was to try to slow down the Dartmouth offense, or what he thought when the Big Green closed to within a touchdown in the third quarter. Ivy League football can use all the publicity it can get and making it hard – or in the case of getting comments from both coaches impossible – for the media to do its job is disappointing. This isn't high school football. The Ivy League can do better.