Looking for a Big Rebound at Big Red on Saturday

Saturday, November 10

Ithaca, N.Y.

1:30 PM

Dartmouth College

Cornell

Photo by: Art Petrosemolo

Looking for a Big Rebound at Big Red on Saturday

11/8/2018 11:00:00 AM | Football

November 10, 2018 Schoellkopf Field ESPN+ Broadcast 94 ESPN Radio Live Stats @DartFootball Dartmouth Notes Cornell Notes

After a hard-fought loss at nationally ranked Princeton, Dartmouth heads to Cornell for final road game

By: Rick Bender

#23 DARTMOUTH (7-1, 4-1)
at CORNELL (3-5, 2-3)
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018 | 1:30 PM | ESPN+
Schoellkopf Stadium | Ithaca, N.Y.

Coming off what some are calling the Ivy League game of the decade, which Dartmouth ended up on the wrong end of a 14-9 score at 14th-ranked Princeton, the 23rd-ranked Big Green will have to guard against a letdown against a dangerous Cornell squad.

This is the 100th consecutive season the two teams have played, the second longest continuous series in the FCS, trailing only the Lafayette-Lehigh series. And on top of that, this is the 300th game for Buddy Teevens as a Division I head coach with 189 of those games over two stints at Dartmouth. He has also spent time leading Maine, Tulane and Stanford.

Many people expected a shootout at Princeton, much like last year's 54-44 Big Green victory on the final day of the season. But after the two teams traded 75-yard touchdown drives on their first possessions, the defenses ruled. The Tigers didn't take the lead until 6:33 remained in the game, then stopped Dartmouth twice to take control of the Ivy League race.

The Big Green offense, which had averaged well over 400 yards per game, was limited to fewer than half of that output with 213. Big plays were rare and relative as the two sides combined to pick up more than 15 yards on just five plays all afternoon, and one of those came on a kickoff return and another on a punt.

Dartmouth's quarterback tandem, Derek Kyler and Jared Gerbino, completed 13-of-21 passes for 103 yards, including a 13-yard scoring strike from Gerbino to tight end Robbie Mangas on the opening drive. While Kyler still leads the FCS in completion percentage (71.5) and is fourth in efficiency, he has not completed more than nine passes in any of the last five contests. A return to his 200-plus-yard games against Holy Cross and Penn would help open up the running lanes.

Speaking of running, the Big Green churned out a mere 110 yards on the ground at Princeton, well below the 260 they were accustomed to amassing. Gerbino was contained to just 29 yards on 14 carries, though leading running back Rashaad Cooper had some success with 60 yards on 12 attempts. Still, those two along with Caylin Parker combine to pick up an average of six yards per rush.

The defense was as good as advertised against the vaunted Tiger offense that was putting up over 50 points a game. A 23-play drive into the fourth quarter was eventually stopped cold at the Big Green 6, but it led to the game-winning drive on the very next possession when Princeton took over at the plus-34.

Dartmouth's leading tackler, Jack Traynor spearheaded the defensive effort with a game-high 14 stops, while safety Ryan Roegge had 10 along with an interception in the end zone to thwart a scoring opportunity. But it was reserve lineman Seth Simmer who came up with some of the biggest plays, droping the Tiger QB in the end zone for a safety (along with LB Jake Moen), plus recovering a fumble near midfield that nearly led to a second Big Green touchdown.

Scouting the Big Red
Cornell will be celebrating its senior class during the final home game of the 2018 season. Since a big 28-24 victory over Harvard on Oct. 6, the last four weeks have been a bit rough for the 3-5 Big Red, getting shut out twice in blowouts by ranked opponents and dropping another to Penn, 20-7, with the lone win a 34-16 affair over last-place Brown.

At home, however, Cornell sports a 3-1 record with the only defeat coming against Yale by six points.

Senior QB Dalton Banks guides the offense, completing 61.6 percent of his passes for 1,106 yards, but only seven touchdowns to go with nine interceptions. He also has some mobility having run for 152 yards and a score this year.

Banks' favorite target has been Owen Peters with 21 catches for 309 yards and two TDs. But five other players have between 10 and 17 receptions, including deep threat Lars Pedersen (13 rec., 202 yards, 2 TDs) and Harold Coles (16-150, 2 TDs).

Coles heads up the ground game, averaging 5.4 yards per carry with a total of 542 yards on 101 rushes. His 67.8 yards per game place him seventh in the league. When he needs a blow, Mike Catanese is more than capable with a 5.7-yard average and two trips to the end zone.

The defense will be a little shorthanded in the first half against the Big Green as two of the Big Red's top four tacklers were ejected last week for targeting, forcing them to sit the first 30 minutes in this contest. Safety Jelani Taylor has a team-best 57 tackles while breaking up six passes, tied for the lead, and linebacker Lance Blass is fourth with 34 tackles, five of which have been for a loss with two sacks.

Cornell will look to LB Reis Seggebruch (47 tackles, 3.5 TFL, 2.5 sacks) along with linemen William Baker (5.5 TFL, 2 sacks) and Cyrus Nolan (4.5 TFL, 2.5 sacks) to pick up the slack until they return after halftime. Cornerback David Jones give the Big Red a solid cover man as he has all three of the squad's interceptions this year to go with six PBUs.

On special teams, Cornell has missed Nicholas Null, an All-Ivy kicker and punter last year, who has not played since the third game of the season. The Big Red are without a field goal since then as well. Koby Kiefer is handling the punting duties, averaging 36.2 yards on 25 boots.

Cornell is led by The Roger J. Weiss '61 Head Coach of Football David Archer, a 2005 graduate of the university. The former Big Red captain was the youngest Division I head coach in the country when hired before the 2013 season and has led the team to a 15-43 record in five-plus seasons. He has had 30 All-Ivy League selections, including the league's Rookie of the Year in each of his first two campaigns, as well as a quartet of All-Americans.

Last Year's Meeting
Dartmouth had all it could handle with Cornell last year with a first-quarter touchdown all the scoring the Big Green could muster until putting the game away with a 33-yard field goal in the final 90 seconds for a 10-0 victory. The Big Red limited Dartmouth to 299 yards, with the Green reciprocated by holding Cornell to 250 with nary a trip to the red zone in the shutout. Hunter Hagdorn caught the lone touchdown of the day from 23 yards out as the teams combined to punt 23 times. Ryder Stone ran for 119 yards for Dartmouth on a career-high 28 carries. Dalton Banks was just 15-of-35 for 184 yards throwing the ball for Cornell with one pick.

Big Milestone Meeting
While the Dartmouth-Cornell matchup will always evoke memories of the famous Fifth-Down Game in 1940 in which the top-ranked Big Red scored on the game's final play — an inadvertent fifth down — only to give up the victory to the Big Green, today's meeting is historic in its own right as the 100th consecutive year that the two teams have met on the gridiron. No other Ivy League teams can lay claim to such a long succession of showdowns, not even Harvard-Yale, which only dates back to 1945 in succession. Only Lehigh-Lafayette at 129 games this year rates as longer in the FCS.

Speaking of Milestones …
The game against Cornell is the 300th for Buddy Teevens as a Division I head coach. Though that is an impressive number, he only ranks third in the Ivy League in games as a head coach, but second at the Division I level. His boyhood and current friend, Tim Murphy at Harvard, will coach his 326th game this weekend, while Al Bagnoli at Columbia is coaching his 372nd game, though only 267 of those are at the helm of a Division I program.

Unbeaten Rarity in Ivy League
The 14-9 loss at 14th-ranked Princeton was just the sixth game in Ivy League history between two teams that were undefeated at least seven games into the season. The only other time Dartmouth played in one of these games came in 1965, coincidentally at Princeton, which the Big Green won, 28-14, to close out a perfect 9-0 season and take the outright conference crown. Here are the games between Ivy undefeated teams:

1964 — Princeton (7-0) def. Yale (6-0-1), 35-14
1965 — Dartmouth (8-0) def. Princeton (8-0), 28-14
1968 — Harvard (8-0) and Yale (8-0) tied, 29-29
1993 — Penn (7-0) def. Princeton (7-0), 30-14
2001 — Harvard (7-0) def. Penn (7-0), 28-21
2018 — Princeton (7-0) def. Dartmouth (7-0), 14-9

Nationally Ranked
Even with the 14-9 loss at Princeton on Nov. 3, Dartmouth maintained its place among the top 25 teams in the country in both the STATS and AFCA FCS Coaches' polls. The Big Green dropped from No. 20 to 23 in the AFCA poll to remain ranked for a fourth consecutive week, while STATS lowered the team just one spot to No. 25 after debuting last week at 24. Prior to this stretch, Dartmouth had not been ranked since the end of the 2015 campaign when they were 23rd by STATS and 24th by the coaches.
The game with Princeton (14th coaches, 18th STATS) was the first game for the Big Green with both teams nationally ranked since the epic 14-13 loss at Harvard three years ago. Dartmouth entered that game 22nd in the rankings while the Crimson were 15th. Harvard scored two touchdowns in the final seven minutes to steal the win from the Green.

Defensive Battle
Going up against an offense that was leading the nation in scoring (over 50 ppg) and yards (nearly 550 per game), the Dartmouth defense was more than up to the challenge at Princeton on Nov. 3. The Big Green contained the potent attack to 310 yards and a mere 14 points. No team has scored more than 18 points against Dartmouth this season, and the team ranks fourth nationally at 11.1 points allowed per game. All aspects of the defense ranks among the top 20 in the FCS — total defense (7th), rushing (6th) and passing (15th). But Princeton was just a little better, holding the Green to nine points, just the second time over the last seven seasons Dartmouth failed to reach double digits.
This defensive delight (and last year's 10-0 win over Cornell) got me to thinking about games in which neither team scored 10 points. Going back to Bob Blackman's first year at the helm in 1955 (a year before the start of Ivy play), the Big Green are 9-13-2 in such games but just 1-5 over the last 40 years.

Double-Digit Win Streak Ends
With the loss at Princeton, Dartmouth had its 10-game winning streak snapped. It was the longest winning streak for the Big Green since ripping off 15 in a row during the 1996-97 campaigns, and just the eighth that stretched into double digits in program history. Below are the longest win streaks (not simply unbeaten streaks):

15 — 1924-26
15 — 1961-63
15 — 1970-71
15 — 1996-97
11 — 1964-66
10 — 1907-08
10 — 1920-21
10 — 2017-18

Simmer-ing Big Plays
Reserve defensive lineman Seth Simmer came up with some of the game's biggest plays at 14th-ranked Princeton. First, he broke through the line and helped Jake Moen drop the quarterback in the end zone for a safety early in the second quarter for his first career sack, the first Big Green safety in seven years and a 9-7 lead. Later in the quarter, he pounced on a loose ball for a fumble recovery near midfield. That allowed Dartmouth to drive down to the Tiger 2 for a golden scoring opportunity, but the Green failed to come away with any points when a 28-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right.

Picking Your Spots
If Dartmouth was going to pick off just one pass at No. 14 Princeton on Nov. 3, Ryan Roegge sure picked a pretty good time for it. The junior safety stepped in front of a pass in the end zone to deny Princeton a touchdown during the second quarter with the Big Green clinging to a 9-7 lead. It was the 13th interception of the season for the Dartmouth defense, which leads the Ivy League and ranks 10th nationally. It would take quite a bit of work to match the program record of 24 set in 1935, however …

Taking Care of the Ball
Dartmouth has been picked off just once all season, and that came in the season opener against Georgetown when a Derek Kyler pass was tipped by a receiver into the arms of a Hoya. But since then, no one has intercepted a Big Green pass, spanning 143 passes, 113 of which have been thrown Kyler. In the last 50 years, Dartmouth has not had as long a streak of games without throwing an interception (7). The Green have the best turnover margin in the country (+2.13), and only one other team has given the ball away as few times (4) as Dartmouth — Indiana State.

Rejoice! Emanuels Plays
Two years ago when Dartmouth traveled to Ithaca, there was an Emanuels playing in the game — Cornell starting center Alex Emanuels. Fast forward to this season and Dartmouth LB David Emanuels, the team's third-leading tackler, figures to play a prominent role in this contest as well.

Cross Traynor
After ranking second in the Ivy League in tackles a year ago, LB Jack Traynor hasn't had nearly the opportunity to put up such large numbers with the Dartmouth defense limiting opponents so much. But at Princeton, the senior flexed his tackling muscles once again, bringing down 14 Tigers, the most by a Big Green player all season. Traynor now leads Dartmouth with 56 tackles and is second with 6.5 TFL.