HANOVER – If Dartmouth was going to win just one of three heart-stoppers to open the season, it picked the right one.
Take it from linebacker Cameron Best-Alston, who had 12 tackles in Saturday’s 14-10 victory over Penn in the Big Green’s Ivy League opener.
“This win felt amazing,” he said. “The first two games didn’t go in our favor. But we know to be a good team we have to learn how to win the close game. (Now) that we finally got this close game under our belt, we’ve got to get the snowball rolling.”
Best-Alston, of course, wouldn’t mind if the Big Green put the nail-biters behind it from here on out.
“Our plan isn’t to have any close games,” he said. “We know it’s going to be a dogfight every Ivy League team we face, but we’re not striving to play close games. We’re striving to dominate.”
Although they didn’t dominate on Saturday, coach Sammy McCorkle was happy with the way they responded to the challenge.
“Just super proud of these guys,” he said, surrounded by three of his players at the postgame press conference. “Super proud of the way they battled. It was close down to the end there. I was just telling these guys to have all three phases step up there at the end of that fourth quarter; that was huge.
“The offense going down there scoring. And then the defense making a great stop. And special teams punting the ball out, being backed up, and our cover team getting down there and making a great play to put them in a long situation.”
Added McCorkle: “It wasn’t pretty. They never are. Every time you face an Ivy opponent, you're going to get their best. And that's what we did.”
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
Dartmouth had three players post double-figure tackles with Johnny Stephens having 13 stops, Best-Alston 12, and Steve Simpkins 10.
Uche Odimegwu recorded the Big Green’s first sack of the year for a loss of four yards on the final play of the game to keep Penn quarterback Miles Teodecki from getting off a Hail Mary pass. … Harrison Keith was credited with two pass breakups and eight tackles, including one for a loss.
Coming off by far his career-worst passing game statistically, Dartmouth quarterback Grayson Saunier had one of his best, completing 13-of-15 throws (86.7 percent) for 173 yards and one touchdown. One of the two incompletions perhaps should have been caught.
Saunier’s only game with a higher completion percentage came in last year’s win over Columbia when he hit 12-of-13 throws (92.3 percent) for 162 yards and one score. The big difference is the game against the Lions was a walk-over while Dartmouth needed every last completion this time to survive the Quakers.
Nick Lemon led the receivers with three catches for 56 yards while James Elliott had three for 40 and Ky’Dric Fisher two for 39 including a 16-yard TD. … Myles Craddock again led the run game with 21 carries for 85 yards and a touchdown. Saunier had 36 yards on 10 carries and Chris Roper 20 on just three rushes.
Luke Armistead’s 74-yard punt was a career long, although his 43-yarder at the end was even bigger. His big day raised his season average to 45.14 yards. … While Owen Zalc was 0-for-3 on field goal attempts, one was from 53 yards and one was from 51. The third was from 37. And his extra point on the second touchdown made it impossible for the Quakers to kick a field goal on their final drive to force overtime. … Penn kicker Mason Walters missed a 28-yard field goal in the second quarter and hit a 26-yarder just before the half.
Teodecki, the Penn freshman quarterback, completed 27-of-39 throws for 214 yards without an interception, but he averaged just 5.5 yards per attempt and 7.9 per completion compared to 11.5 yards per attempt and 13.3 per completion for Saunier. … Teodecki led the Quakers with 54 yards rushing.
Penn finished with 360 yards to Dartmouth’s 315 and 22 first downs to the Big Green’s 18. The Quakers averaged 4.3 yards per rush to Dartmouth’s 4.1. … Penn held the ball for 5 minutes, 6 seconds longer than Dartmouth, with most of that coming in the fourth quarter. … For the second game in a row, the Big Green committed just two penalties for 25 yards. Penn was whistled four times for 30 yards.
Dartmouth drives in order (plays/yards/result): 13/80/touchdown; 9/47/missed field goal; 3/9/punt; 1/3/halftime; 7/42/missed field goal; 9/57/missed field goal; 8/75/touchdown; 3/2/punt.
Penn drives in order (plays/yards/result): 7/31/punt; 3/5/punt; 15/54/missed field goal; 10/71/field goal; 10/44/downs; 16/80/touchdown; 12/59/downs; 2/-4/end of game.
THEY SAID IT
(Gently edited for clarity and brevity)
Penn coach Ricky Santos on his freshman quarterback: “I thought he was poised and played extremely well. He hung in against a really good defensive unit. I don’t think the score was an indication of his composure and command. We marched down the field pretty much all day. It was just self-inflicted things in the red zone that got us.”
Santos on a critical missed opportunity: “If we make our field goal, we don’t need a touchdown at the end. We could win it with a field goal, so we need to clean up some things specialty-wise.”
Santos on being back in New Hampshire where he was an all-time great quarterback and later head coach of the Wildcats: “Walking out of here with a win would have made it sweeter, but I have great memories in this state. It was amazing seeing some of my former teammates and high school buddies who now live in New Hampshire here supporting me with their wives and families.”
Dartmouth linebacker Uche Odimegwu: “At halftime, we talked about just being in the moment and playing every play like it’s. Your last play. I think in the third and fourth quarter we started to really live it.”
Receiver James Elliott on winning the 50/50 balls: “When the ball’s in the air, we talk about it all the time – it’s going to be ours. We’re going to come down with it.”
Linebacker Cameron Best-Alston: “We knew it was going to take all four quarters. Shout out to our coaches for the schemes and the crowd. They brought us that extra energy that we really needed. We knew it was going to be blow after blow after blow, but 60 minutes – that’s what the game is.”
Best-Alston: “Winning is tough, but Anything that's easy isn't really worth it. “
Coach Sammy McCorkle on the thought at halftime with the Big Green leading 7-3: “We're down inside their area, the 30-, 35-, 40-yard line, and we couldn't finish those drives. I told them that's on us. Those are the mistakes we made that created that. They made some good plays, yeah. But I said we can't shoot ourselves in the foot, and we’ve just got to finish those drives. That was the big message going into the second half.”
McCorkle on Grayson Saunier bouncing back: “That's him. That's his composure, his resilience. He's a gamer. He went up and down that sideline at the end and got the guys ready to roll. You could see it. They knew we weren't finishing those drives, and they didn't get frustrated. They could easily have been like, oh man, what the heck's going on? Once (the defense) gave us the ball again, they did a good job of going down there and finishing that drive. The most important drive.”
McCorkle on his defense: “We’ve just got to make tackles. There were too many yards after contact that they created. We’ve got to do a better job of running through guys and making those plays, getting off blocks. We improved but not enough.”
McCorkle on kicker Owen Zalc’s struggles: “He’s a professional. He knows what he's doing, and he's good at it. We'll watch the film, and we'll discuss it. … He's better than that, and he will be better.”
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McCorkle on the passing of Yale coach Tony Reno: “I've known Tony a long Tim ... probably almost 18, 20 years. When he was at Yale as an assistant and when he was at Harvard. We both recruited Florida and Georgia, and so we saw each other a lot. Ran into each other and recruited the same guys.
I always had respect for Tony. He was a good football coach. More importantly, he was a good father, a good person. I actually got to meet his wife, Toni, and the kids. Got to know them, Dante and his brother. First-class individuals.
It's horrible. It's that. It really is. Their entire family and the Yale football program are in our thoughts and prayers.”