For nine minutes in the first quarter on Saturday, Dartmouth football fans, starved for a product reminiscent of the early 1990s, saw their Big Green outplay and outmatch the second ranked school in Division I-AA. No one could blame Dartmouth enthusiasts for letting their imaginations run wild as their recently impoverished heroes looked to build on a surprising 1-0 start. Indeed, thoughts of "wouldn't it be amazing" and "what if" surged through their heads as the Big Green grabbed a 10-7 lead against No. 2 New Hampshire in Saturday's locally televised Granite Bowl.
Unfortunately, dreams sometimes are just that, nine minutes is not 60, and a half-quarter of first-class football does not a season make. Soon enough, Dartmouth found itself down 32, using its third quarterback of the game.
The 49-20 loss to the Wildcats at first glance fits perfectly with the results of the teams' past two meetings (45-24 in '04, 42-17 in '03). However, one needs only to look at the Big Green's performance seven days earlier to understand that this team is not the same one that went 1-9 in 2004. UNH was able to painfully reveal flaws in Dartmouth's newly designed defense and seemingly tenderfoot offense.
The combination of a defensive collapse on the part of Dartmouth and offensive explosion by New Hampshire doomed the Big Green in the second quarter. Propelled by the arm and decision making of sophomore stud Ricky Santos, UNH blew the game wide open before halftime with 21 unanswered points. Simple fundamentals seemed to escape many on the Dartmouth defensive squad as missed tackles and flawed coverages led to a 35-10 deficit heading into the third quarter.
Santos, who is an early favorite for the Walter Payton Award, given to the most outstanding offensive player in Division I-AA, was 24 for 32, amassing 267 yards and three passing touchdowns along the way. The Massachusetts native even rushed for nearly 50 yards and scored the go-ahead touchdown in the first quarter himself.
The game was not always a blowout, as Dartmouth countered an early strike by UNH receiver Jon Williams with an impressive 44-yard field goal by Erik Hinterbichler '06. On the following UNH possession, Joe Scola '07 capitalized on a rare mistake by Santos, intercepting the second-year quarterback and returning the football 44-yards in the other direction. The Big Green took the lead 10-7 two plays later on a 24-yard score thrown by quarterback Charlie Rittgers '06 to wide-out Ryan Fuselier '06.
Fuselier caught eight balls on the day for 90 yards. He leads the team with 116 yards on the season, averaging 10.5 per reception.
Yet Fuselier was not the only Dartmouth player worth noting, as the team received some nice production from two rookies as well. Milan Williams '09 carried the ball five times, the first five of his career, for a pleasantly surprising 45 yards. His average of 8.8 yards per carry puts him atop the team's leaderboard in that category.
Josh Cohen, who was the second quarterback to replace Rittgers, went five for eight in the fourth quarter for 63 yards and one touchdown. A three-yard connection with tight end Brett Lowe '08 was the first of the rookie's young collegiate career.
According to team co-captain Josh Dooley '06, the team was never intimidated by New Hampshire's high rank coming into the game and the loss should be chalked up to something else entirely. "It doesn't matter who you line up against or what they are ranked, as long as you execute what you are coached to do, good things will happen. We executed well in the beginning of the game, but we didn't maintain it for four quarters," he said.
Rittgers agrees that his team didn't help its cause with so many mistakes, but believes that, "Most of the mistakes that we did make, are easily correctable, so in that respect you can look at the game in a more positive way."
Dartmouth will be back at Memorial field next weekend to open the Ivy League season against Penn. A perennial Ivy League power, the Quakers are coming off a close loss to Villanova and stand 1-1 on the season. The Penn offense is led by quarterback Patrick McDermott, a passer with whom the Dartmouth defense could have their hands full. The game is scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. kick-off.
