Five wins, no losses. Unbeaten in Ivy League play. After their 21-7 win at Yale on Saturday, the Big Green sit in much the same position as last year's squad did after five games. However, this team claims that they want their own reputation to stand on, that they don't want to be compared to last year's team. Fortunately for Dartmouth, the comparison to last year's perfect team rages only in the standings.
The fact is is that this year's Big Green squad has rarely played a complete game, often losing focus in one half and relying on just 30 minutes of football to provide them with the victory. This was the case once more on Saturday.
Dartmouth's victory over Yale was ugly and its performance was barely good enough to defeat the worst team in the Ivy League, although Yale is a team on the rise. The most obvious flaw was the six personal fouls committed by the Big Green, just some of the stupid penalties on the afternoon.
The other chink in the armor was that the Big Green got manhandled in the second half, getting outmuscled and outhustled. Between the penalties and being dominated physically on both sides of the ball, this is not the type of football Head Coach John Lyons preaches to his team.
Sure, Dartmouth jumped out to a 21-0 lead by taking advantage of numerous Yale mistakes. But good teams put weaker teams away, and in the second half, Dartmouth continually left the door open and the light on for the Bulldogs, a deficiency that would have cost them against any team that didn't rank last in the league in total defense and last in passing offense.
As it turns out, the Big Green's only solid scoring drive of the afternoon was their first scoring drive. Although the running game was stuffed, as it would be all afternoon, quarterback Pete Sellers '98 connected with wide receiver Ken Bollens '98 on two key third down passes to continue the drive. First, on third and 15, Sellers threaded the needle to Bollens across the middle for a gain of 16. Dartmouth would catch a break on the next pass as Sellers floated the ball towards the goal line only to watch the Yale defender fall down, allowing Bollens to haul in the ball at the one-yard line. Two plays later, Sellers followed a line surge to give Dartmouth a touchdown and the 7-0 lead.
For the rest of the half, Dartmouth managed to dominate the Bulldogs by winning the field position war. Consistently backed inside their own 10-yard line, the Bulldogs failed to muster any kind of charge against the Big Green defense, which played the most inspired defense to date, a kind of intensity that would completely disappear in the second half.
The Big Green's second touchdown, once again courtesy of Bollens and Sellers, will go down as one of the odder sequences this season. After being backed up into another third-and-long situation, Sellers hit Bollens with a 65-yard bomb for an apparent touchdown. Unfortunately for Dartmouth, one of their stupid penalites occurred on that play in the form of illegal motion. So Dartmouth went back to the well and ran the same play with the same result, a 70-yard touchdown to Bollens from Sellers to put Dartmouth ahead 14-0.
"The first play I saw Ken break and fired him the ball," Sellers said. "On the second play, the guy in the flat wasn't open so I just threw it down the field and their safety got beat again."
The Big Green's special teams helped the offense tack on the final score of the half . Tom Reusser '00 hauled in a Bulldog punt and sprinted 55 yards up the middle of the field towards the end zone before being hauled down at the three-yard line.
Tailback Dylan Karczewski '99 took care of business from there, as he took an option pitch from Sellers and sliced through a crowd on his way to the end zone and a 21-0 Dartmouth lead.
To their credit, Dartmoouth played an extremely strong first half, holding the Bulldogs to 41 yards total while recording five sacks.
Unfortunately for the Big Green, their second half looked much like Yale's first half. Yale was able to run the ball into the heart of the Dartmouth defense while continually stopping the Big Green running game. Dartmouth finished with only 26 yards on the ground, a stat which Lyons called a "big concern."
The Big Green defense held up in the end, allowing Yale only one first down in the third quarter. While the Bulldogs moved the ball with success in the final period, they could only find the end zone once, a 10-yard pass to wideout James Borden.
Yale would threaten once more, but linebacker Zach Walz '98 took away any doubt when he smothered Bulldog quarterback Joe Walland from his blind side for his second sack and forced fumble of the day. Walz finished with 13 stops on the day. Walz was also the first to praise the play of the upstart Bulldogs. "Give them credit, they are a better team than their record," Walz said.
"We didn't come out flat at halftime,"Sellers said. "They just were playing harder than us for the most part."
"They threw the ball over our head and returned a punt to set up a touchdown." Yale coach Jack Siedlecki said of the difference in the outcome.
But since Dartmouth was the better team, the difference should have been more than that -- despite Yale's strong second-half effort.
