In a season where there has been little to cheer about, the winless Dartmouth football team will have a unique opportunity to ruin another team's season when it faces Brown this weekend.
Brown (5-3, 4-1 Ivy) is tied for the Ivy League lead with Harvard (7-1, 4-1 Ivy) and the University of Pennsylvania (5-3, 4-1 Ivy). Each team has just one conference loss this year with just two games remaining on each team's schedule.
Brown is just two wins away from its first league championship since 2005, when it tied with Princeton for a share of the title.
Interestingly enough, four years ago, Dartmouth and Brown found themselves in a similar situation. Heading into their game in 2004, both teams had the same records as this year; Dartmouth had an 0-8 record, and the Bears were 5-3. Dartmouth won that game, 20-7, to post their first win of the year and avoid a winless season.
Four years later, the Big Green has the same opportunity and hopes to repeat its success. An upset would take Brown out of the running for the 2008 championship.
Despite the failure to execute on both sides of the ball, Dartmouth still has a chance in this game -- it is catching Brown at a weak point in its season. The Bears lost their first league game of the year last week to Yale (5-3, 3-2 Ivy), 13-3, falling into a tie atop the Ivy League standings.
Brown's success this year is largely due to the team's strong passing attack, led by quarterback Michael Dougherty, who has amassed 2,178 passing yards -- good enough for third in the Ivy League -- 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions through the air, with a 56.9% completion percentage and a 120.84 QB rating.
Brown's receivers have also been impressive. Bobby Sewall leads the team with 58 catches for 789 yards and six touchdowns, while Buddy Farnham has 53 catches for 671 yards and five touchdowns.
Sewall and Farnham are first and second in the Ancient Eight in receptions per game, and second and fourth in receiving yards per game, respectively. Tight end Colin Cloherty is also a legitimate threat, with 37 catches for 375 yards and two touchdowns for the year.
Despite their record, however, the Bears have been anything but dominant this season. The team is averaging just 22.9 points a game and has only beaten its opponents by an average of 2.5 points. Like Dartmouth, Brown's running game has also been weak, gaining just 676 yards on the season, comparable to the Big Green's 438.
On the offensive side, Dartmouth has improved as of late, particularly through its passing game, as freshman quarterback Conner Kempe '12 has taken over the team. Playing in his first start last week, Kempe amassed 256 yards through the air on his way to an Ivy League Rookie of the Week honor. While he had three interceptions and a low completion percentage, the sheer volume of yards gained bodes well for the Big Green, who gained only 204 passing yards over the last two games.
On the defensive side, while the rush defense has been inconsistent at best, the secondary, led by Ian Wilson '08, has made a stand against a number of strong air attacks. Most notably, the Big Green defense stopped Harvard's league-leading passing game cold two weeks ago. The Big Green held league-leading quarterback Chris Pizzotti to under 100 yards, a season low, while freshman standout cornerback Shawn Abuhoff '12 shut down the Ivy League's top wide receiver, Matt Luft, holding him to just 27 yards receiving.
The Big Green seems tailored to beat Brown: A strong pass defense and an improving offense could force the Bears to rely on their weak running to win.
Dartmouth is yet to prove anything this season, however. They have lost easily winnable games to Penn and Columbia (1-7, 1-4 Ivy) and have suffered more blow outs than any fan wants to remember.
This Saturday's game, however, presents the perfect opportunity for the team to redeem its season by knocking a conference leader out of the running for the Ivy League championship.
In another crucial game this weekend, Penn and Harvard, the other two league-leading teams, will face off on Saturday in Philadelphia. Whichever wins that game will either tie with Brown or take the outright lead in the Ivies, depending on the outcome at Memorial Field this weekend.
Dartmouth kicks off against Brown this Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Memorial Field.
