Find Morgan's bio HERE and his list of team superlatives from the Spotlight below:
Fastest runner on the team: Drew Estrada
Best hands: Darren Stanley
Hardest hitter: Niko Mermigas
Spends most time reviewing film: Nate Boone
Strongest teammate: Seth Walter
Strongest teammate pound for pound: Mac Battle
Most intense: Jack Traynor
Best instincts on the field: Isiah Johnson
Most likely to become a Division I head coach: Thomas Hennessy
Best dancer: Jamal Cooney
Best singer: DeWayne Terry Jr.
Funniest teammate: Caylin Parker
Most outgoing: Robert Crockett III
Best dresser: Dakari Falconer
Best impression of Coach Teevens: N/A
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Following up on yesterday's Woods Watch Party stream of Dartmouth's 2017 win over Princeton featuring commentary from quarterback Jared Gerbino, offensive lineman Matt Kaskey, defensive coordinator Don Dobes and offensive coordinator Kevin Daft, here's the BGA Premium game story as it appeared the night of the game.
Nov. 18 – Dartmouth Finishes With A Win For All Time
HANOVER – With the Dartmouth-Princeton game that has finished off so many seasons in dramatic fashion being moved up two weeks starting next year the Big Green and Tigers closed out the 2017 edition of the series with a game for the ages.
Given Yale clinching the outright Ivy League title in the afternoon there was no championship at stake, as there so often has been in the Dartmouth-Princeton game. Yet the final finale between the teams is one that the Big Green’s Buddy Teevens will remember for as long as he coaches. And it’s one that may haunt Bob Surace, his counterpart from Princeton, until he hangs up his whistle.
The Tigers led on five separate occasions, the score was tied twice in the second half, and the Big Green had to come from behind four times, the last on a two-yard Jared Gerbino run with five seconds left, to clinch the victory. For good measure, Dartmouth added a TD on a kick return turnover with no time remaining to end the craziness with the improbable score of 54-44.
The 98 points are the most in a Dartmouth game since 1888. Never before in 136 years of football has the Big Green allowed so many points and won. The Big Green registered 34 points in the fourth quarter alone and the teams combined for a whopping 51 points in the period.
Dartmouth closes out a remarkable season of last-second decisions at 8-2 overall and tied with Columbia for second in the Ivy League at 5-2. Yale finished 9-1 and 6-1 with the only blemish on its schedule a last-second, 28-27 loss in Hanover on Oct. 7.
Princeton, which had taken a three-point lead over the Big Green on a 29-yard touchdown pass from Chad Kanoff to Jesper Horsted on its final possession, slipped to 5-5 overall and 2-5 with its fourth loss in a row.
The teams combined for 59 first downs and 1,046 yards of total offense while going a combined 12-for-12 on red zone scoring opportunities. Princeton punted just once all day and Dartmouth had just one three-and-out.
“It was probably one of the most unusual football games I have been in and this year we have been in like eight of them,” said Teevens. “The last man that had the ball was probably going to win the game.”
After the last of the three touchdown passes thrown by Kanoff gave the Tigers their 44-41 lead with 3:02 remaining Dartmouth faced a dilemma.
It needed a score to touchdown to win the game but it couldn’t score too quickly because Kanoff (37-of-46 for 444 yards) had been picking apart the Big Green’s usually stout defense all afternoon.
But while Dartmouth needed to use up the clock the Green had to be careful not to run out of time as it had in last month’s loss to Columbia.
“I am looking at the clock and thinking, OK, we want to go down and score but we don’t want to score too fast,” said Teevens. “And can we move it down quickly enough, not using timeouts and trying to hold timeouts?
“People are yelling from the stands. I can hear them. Timeout. Timeout. If we have to kick a field goal with one second left, OK.”
What would turn out to be Dartmouth’s winning drive began at its own 30 after the Princeton kickoff following its final TD went out of bounds.
Gerbino, the Big Green’s 230-pound battering ram wildcat quarterback, carried five times and Jack Heneghan completed a 22-yard pass to Drew Estrada as Dartmouth inexorably marched to the Princeton 27 before calling its first timeout of the second half with 58 seconds left.
After an incompletion Heneghan (20-of-31 for 208 yards) found Emory Thompson at the sticks for a first down on third-and-five. Nine-yard, and two-yard completions to Estrada set the Big Green up with a first down at the Princeton 11 with 21 seconds left.
Heneghan then hit Hunter Hagdorn at the side of the end zone for the apparent go-ahead touchdown only to have the play nullified by an ineligible receiver penalty that pushed the line of scrimmage back to the 16 with 17 seconds to go.
Heneghan went right back to Hagdorn on consecutive snaps, with the first attempt going incomplete and the second resulting in a pass interference penalty that moved the ball half the distance to the goal line, setting Dartmouth up at the eight.
On second-and-seven with 12 seconds now left, it was Princeton’s turn to take a timeout to survey the Dartmouth personnel on the field and set its defense.
Once again Heneghan looked for Hagdorn. A flag for pass interference in the end zone saw the officials by rule spot the ball at the two with five seconds now left.
Trailing by three points, the Big Green could have kicked the field goal and taken its chances in overtime. But with a timeout still remaining after using his second, Teevens thought there was time for two more plays.
He would need just one.
After a Princeton timeout, Gerbino took the snap and, like he had in the last second win at Penn, buried himself in back of his offensive line, veered a little left and burrowed over the line for the winning points.
Gerbino, who nearly matched his nine-game total of 226 rushing yards by running 31 times for 202 yards, admitted afterward he kind of jumped the gun on the final touchdown, his fourth of the game.
“I actually forgot to let the guard pull,” he said a bit sheepishly. “So I kind of just rushed it. I figured I would get low and get in there."
Teevens figured the same thing – that he would get in there – with the decision to put the ball in hands of the big sophomore, the first Dartmouth player to run for four scores in a game since Al Rosier in 1991.
“The last call was,” the coach said, “he got us down here, let’s give it a ride.”
While a celebration was starting on the Dartmouth sideline it was quickly replaced by confusion as the officials gathered and then instructed the scoreboard operator to put a second back on the clock.
The game would not be over without a kickoff.
Needing a miracle return, the Tigers tried a couple of laterals with Ivy sprint champion Charlie Volker ending up with the ball. Under pressure he tried a behind-the-back pass that landed directly in the arms of hard-charging Dartmouth senior Darius George, who had two options.
He could fall to the turf and the game would be over. Or he could high tail it 10 yards to the end zone.
He picked option two.
“In my mind I was like, a touchdown seems pretty nice,” he said. “I could have took a knee. Coach Teevens was like, get down.”
Not really, according to the Big Green mentor, who could afford to laugh when it was over.
“Coach Teevens had no idea what was happening,” Teevens said. “I just see this rocket going into the end zone.”
Added George, ““My last game ever, my last play ever and it’s a touchdown. (When) this 2017 team reminisces on different moments, that will be one of the moments that is the capstone to our whole season.”
It was a fitting end to a truly zany game.
“It was entertaining, if nothing else,” an excited Teevens said in the aftermath. “We talked about team football during the course of the year. I thought today guys came out and played. That is an outstanding offensive group that we faced. We did enough from a defensive standpoint, held them to a field goal situation, got them off on another.
“Offensively, we had to control the football and did a pretty good job mixing it up. I thought the offensive staff did a great job in terms of game planning. Special teams had to be perfect with our execution. We did a pretty good job with that. We got a turnover on special teams, a big return situation. . . . I’m just very, very proud of the guys. It has been a fun group to coach and I’m just really happy for them to end on a note like this.”
As was the hero of the day.
“It was really exciting but I can’t take the credit,” he said. “The O- line was pushing people around and the holes were just opening up.
“It was exciting for me and I think really exciting for the older guys. I’m glad we could pull out a W for all the seniors.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: After seeing Penn State blow yesterday's game against Indiana by scoring a touchdown when the Nittany Lions tailback should have fallen down at the goal line to allow his team to run out (or at least run down) the clock, I found myself wondering if the Hoosiers considered – or did – let him go into the end zone largely unimpeded. And that got me wondering again if that's a ploy Princeton might have wanted to try three years ago. I can tell you as I watched the Dartmouth march down the field at the end I had no doubt if I had been coaching that it's what I would have tried. Of course, my job wasn't on the line ;-)
Here's what I wrote the next day:
Nov. 19 – Princeton Could Have Tried Something Strange
HANOVER – Watching the waning minutes of Dartmouth’s 54-44 win over Princeton in the gloaming Saturday visiting fans had to be wondering if their favorite team was marching down the field a little too fast on its way to the go-ahead touchdown with 3:02 remaining.
Dartmouth had scored on seven of its 10 possessions and there was little reason to believe the struggling Princeton defense was going to suddenly discover the magic potion needed to stop the Big Green if it left too much time on the board.
And “too much” didn’t have to be “that much” given Dartmouth had already put together scoring drives of 1:42, 2:01, 2:11 and 3:06.
As a Big Green offense that had shown a knack all season for last-minute drives marched relentlessly down the field it seemed a foregone conclusion to those who have been along for the ride this fall that it would arrive on the doorstep of the goal line with just seconds remaining.
Which, of course, is exactly how it worked out with Jared Gerbino scoring the winning touchdown with five seconds on the clock.
After the teams were a combined 12-for-12 in the red zone the opposing head coached offered variations on the same theme.
“Literally, nobody could stop anybody,” said Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens. “I don’t say that with any maliciousness. It was two executing offenses. … There was confidence on both sides. It was really, who has the ball last.”
Was there a way that might have been Princeton?
Yes, although it would have been unorthodox.
When Jack Heneghan hit Drew Estrada for a 22-yard gain to the Princeton 44 on the winning drive the Tiger secondary could have been intentionally slow to get there, allowing the receiver to sprint down the sideline for a touchdown with about 2:30 remaining. Or Gerbino’s run up the middle on the next snap might have gone 41 yards instead of just three with a little sloppy tackling.
Intentionally letting Dartmouth score would have been a huge risk. Yes, it would have given Dartmouth the lead, but it also would have given the ball back to the Ivy League’s most dynamic offense with enough time to score the winning touchdown.
Did Princeton coach Bob Surace even consider that strategy?
“No, we didn’t,” he said.
But they did think about another possible option, one that might have had the same effect. “We considered onside kicking after that score,” Surace said.
Would Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens have let the Tigers score if he were in Princeton’s situation?
“It probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind,” he said. “I would just hope that my defense steps up. A tipped pass. A knockdown thing. A sack.”
Then again . . .
“It probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind, but in retrospect,” Teevens said, leaving the idea hanging.
While some would buy into the idea of allowing Dartmouth to score, the Big Green player who scored the winning touchdown most assuredly wasn’t one of them.
“That would have been ridiculous,” Gerbino said. “I think our defense would’ve stepped up in that situation anyway. So I think that would’ve been a pretty stupid decision.”
Sitting a few feet away Teevens was able to laugh at that, cracking, "Tell them how you really feel."
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EXTRA POINT
One of my original BGA Premium subscribers was an alum from the 1960s who thanked legendary coach Bob Blackman for bringing him to Dartmouth, and as retirement approached moved back to the Upper Valley. He was such a devoted fan of the Big Green that he kept notebooks with information on the incoming recruits each year.
But here's the thing. He was so invested in the team that while he'd go to occasional practices when his health allowed, he did not go to the games. Nor did he watch when they were on TV. He told me many times he wasn't sure his heart could handle it.
He did, however, read my stuff. I know this because I'd hear from him – in a gentle way – when I made a mistake.
Sadly, my friend passed away several years ago.
I thought about him last night because when it comes to Penn State football I take the opposite approach. I do watch the games. And when they blow one – which they most certainly did yesterday – I don't read about them so I won't be spending any time reliving the meltdown in Bloomington this morning.
