HANOVER, N.H. — The New England Football Writers Association announced its 2014 Division I All-New England Team this week, and Dartmouth had three players selected for the prestigious honor — senior
Scotty Whitmore, and juniors
Will McNamara and
A.J. Zuttah.
A total of 29 players representing 12 teams were chosen for the team, led by Harvard and Boston College with five apiece. Yale had four honored while Dartmouth and top-ranked New Hampshire each had three. The Ivy League had 13 players in all on the team, FBS teams had eight, and the Colonial Athletic Association and the Northeast Conference both had four.
Whitmore, Dartmouth's right tackle, was a key figure in Dartmouth ranking third in the Ivy League in scoring and total offense with 416.6 yards per game. A native of Spring, Texas, the 6-6, 310-pound Whitmore was a first-team All-Ivy selection the last two years as well. Thanks in part to his protection, quarterback
Dalyn Williams became the sixth quarterback in Dartmouth history to throw for 2,000 yards and the second with 20 or more touchdown tosses while setting a school record for completion percentage (.675, third in the FCS). Whitmore also helped the Big Green post their second best average per rush (4.47 yards) over the last 23 seasons.
The league's leading tackler was the Big Green's weak-side linebacker in McNamara. After missing the first game of the year with an injury, he still had 87 tackles (9.7 per game), four of which went for a loss. The 6-0, 235-pound native of Chicago, Illinois, recorded at least 10 tackles in six of the nine games that he appeared in with a career-high 15 in the thrilling win at Yale. He also picked off passes in wins over Columbia — earning Ivy Defensive Player of the Week honors — and Brown, plus broke up two other passes during the season.
Zuttah, a 6-2, 285-pound tackle from Edison, New Jersey, ranked third among the league's defensive linemen with 48 tackles with three going for a loss and one sack as he started every game. Against Harvard, he recorded a career-high 10 tackles, and he posted eight on two other occasions. With Zuttah in the trenches, Dartmouth ranked third in the league in yards allowed and second in points allowed.
Notes: Dartmouth had three players selected to the team last year as well, all of whom were seniors: OL
Cohle Fowler, RB
Dominick Pierre and LB
Michael Runger … the Big Green have had at least two players on the team for five straight seasons, including four in 2010.