Editor's Note: Each day while Team BGA is soaking up some warm weather this site will repost game stories that appeared on the BGA Premium site last fall. Typos have been fixed and minor editing has cleaned up what was deadline writing ;-)
ITHACA, N.Y. – Dartmouth’s game at winless Cornell, coach Buddy Teevens said during the week, was all about “taking care of business.”
Although the Big Green punched the clock a little late, it took care of business with alacrity Saturday afternoon before a chilled crowd of 4,212 at Schoellkopf Field.
Dalyn Williams threw for 381 yards and four touchdowns while running for 62 yards and another score as Dartmouth kept its Ivy League title hopes alive with an overpowering 42-7 win.
The Big Green improved to 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the Ivy League with its sixth consecutive triumph in the series while Cornell stumbled to 0-8 overall and 0-5 in the conference.
The Big Green piled up 583 yards of total offense and recorded a season-high points total despite Williams and much of the starting cast watching the final five and a half minutes of the third quarter and the entire fourth from the sidelines.
“The guys played hard,” Teevens said. “We made some mistakes but we were able to overcome them. It is a long bus ride back, and at least we will be smiling on the trip.”
There weren’t many smiles in the early going as a Cornell team that had managed just one first-quarter touchdown in seven games drove 75 yards for a TD on its opening drive. The Big Red would have had another one just two minutes later if quarterback Robert Somborn hadn’t overthrown a wide-open receiver in the end zone following a rare Williams interception.
“We could have been down 14-zip without blinking our eyes,” Teevens said. “Then we kind of kicked into gear and started to make some plays on both sides of the football.”
Kind of kicked it into gear? Dartmouth went into overdrive starting with its second possession of the game. In order the Big Green:
• Marched 78 yards in nine plays for a touchdown. Kyle Bramble got the points when he took a swing pass from Williams 24 yards down the left sideline and into the end zone with help from a nice block at the end by receiver Bo Patterson.
• Marched 83 yards in nine plays for a touchdown. Williams capped the drive by running nine yards to the left pylon.
• Marched 69 yards in eight plays, the last a 32-yard strike to Victor Williams.
• Marched 77 yards in nine plays before Cornell finally made a stop on a fourth-and-one option pitch from the Big Red 1 to keep it 21-7 at the half. (Teevens: “I should have kicked the field goal.”)
After the only real marching band in the Ivy League left the field following its halftime show Dartmouth went right back to work. The Big Green took the opening kickoff of the second half and:
• Marched 75 yards in nine plays, the last a 30-yard strike to a well-covered Ryan McManus on the left side of the end zone.
• Marched 48 yards in three plays with Bramble sprinting 39 yards through a gaping hole in the middle of the Cornell defense to make it 35-7 just 5:08 into the third quarter.
Even when things finally went right for the Big Red they went wrong.
Two plays after Cornell blocked Alex Gakenheimer’s 40-yard field goal attempt Vernon Harris intercepted a Somborn pass at the Dartmouth 37. Abrm McQuarters then rambled 60 yards with a screen pass and scored his first career touchdown escorted most of the way by lineman Jacob Flores.
With the Big Green’s backup offense sputtering in the fourth quarter, Cornell three times had the ball in the red zone in the final period and all three times Dartmouth slammed the door as it surrendered just seven points for the second time in three games.
“We came out a little flatter than usual but after that we stepped it up,” said Big Green defensive end Sawyer Whalen, who tied for the team lead with six tackles, including a sack. “We would have loved to get a shutout, but we bowed up after they scored and didn’t let them get anything else.”
Cornell finished with 308 yards of total offense but managed just 188 yards until its final two drives with the outcome long-since decided.
“I thought our defense responded well,” said Teevens. “We didn’t tackle well in the first half. We allowed some big plays. We got after the quarterback a little bit more in the second half. I thought we had more success pressuring the QB in the second half. We need to play like that for four quarters.”
They looked pretty good from second-year Cornell coach David Archer’s vantage point. “Obviously, Dartmouth is a really good team,” he said. “They have one loss in this league for a reason. They beat Yale at Yale for a reason.”
Five different players recorded touchdowns for Dartmouth with only Bramble scoring twice. After rushing just two times for three yards in the first half, he carried six times for 86 yards in the second, twice making a nifty shuffle step to the side to be able to duck into a hole and take off.
Victor Williams led Dartmouth with seven catches for 101 yards while Patterson caught five balls for 47 yards and Bramble four for 50. Nine different Big Green players caught passes.
“We did a good job spreading the ball around,” said Dalyn Williams. “It is fun when you’re throwing to many different receivers and the defense is unable to key on one guy. It’s extremely hard to defend. … It is fun to spread the ball around and see everybody have fun. It’s the reason I play the position. Trying to feed everybody.”
Williams finished 24-for-34 for 381 yards, just seven yards short of his career-high of 388 yards set in last month’s win over Yale. It was on Schoellkopf Field two years ago that he made his first career start in place of the injured Alex Park, leading Dartmouth to a 44-28 win.
“I would put him up there in terms of special offensive weapons in the Ivy League,” said Archer. “You’ve got (tailback Tyler) Varga and (receiver Deon) Randall at Yale that are very tough. Harvard’s tailback (Paul Stanton, Jr.), (quarterback Quinn) Epperly at Princeton and then Dalyn Williams at Dartmouth. Because he can extend plays, even if you have him, when you call exactly what you think should. He’s a kind of an X factor that way.
“The faster they can get him to graduate, that would be great.”
Williams still has another year left but he’s not looking any further ahead than Saturday’s game against Brown when the Big Green will be back at the business of taking care of business. Which the quarterback feels it accomplished Saturday.
“I would say that we did,” he said. “Offensively we hurt ourselves more than we should have with two interceptions. We left some yards out there, some points off the board…
“We’ve got two more games and it’s two crucial games. We’ve got to stay prepared and go out there expecting to win and playing well. We did what we needed to do. We came away with a victory, and now it’s time to go home and do some homework.”
Smiling the whole way.
