No. 22 Dartmouth Cruises to a 41-7 Victory Over Cornell in Home Finale

Saturday, November 13

Hanover, N.H.

1:30 PM

Dartmouth College

8-1 , 5-1

Cornell

2-7 , 1-5

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Cornell

Dartmouth

Nick Howard posted career highs of 172 rushing yards and four TDs.

Photo by: Doug Austin

No. 22 Dartmouth Cruises to a 41-7 Victory Over Cornell in Home Finale

11/13/2021 4:28:00 PM | Football

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Nick Howard posted career highs of 172 rushing yards and four touchdowns

By: Rick Bender

HANOVER, N.H. — No. 22 Dartmouth maintained its place atop the Ivy League standings on Saturday afternoon as the Big Green (8-1, 5-1 Ivy) cruised to a 41-7 victory over visiting Cornell (2-7, 1-5 Ivy) at Memorial Field. Junior quarterback Nick Howard ran for 172 yards and four touchdowns while the defense stymied the Big Red, yielding just 181 yards.

Howard galloped for scoring scampers of 5, 2, 20 and 32 yards, but his longest run of the day went for 75 as he needed just 13 carries to amass those 172 yards on the ground, a 13.4-yard average. His tandem teammate behind center, fifth-year Derek Kyler, continued his efficient ways through the air, throwing for 182 yards on a 14-of-18 passes with one touchdown. The other Dartmouth touchdown was provided by junior running back Noah Roper, who spun away from a pair of defenders and sprinted 13 yards for his first score of the season.

As a team, the Big Green amassed 499 yards of offense with a season-high 292 coming on the ground. Cornell, meanwhile, was held to just 192 yards, including a paltry six in the first quarter and 54 by halftime as Dartmouth built up a 28-0 advantage.

The victory avenged a 20-17 defeat to the Big Red on Memorial Field that cost the Big Green a perfect 10-0 season and an outright Ivy League title as Dartmouth shared the 2019 crown with Yale. There may have been concern early that things wouldn't break the Hanoverians' way when the Green marched down the field but were stopped short of the goal line, followed by a 27-yard field goal attempt that hit the right upright.

Any concerns of being snake-bit were quickly put to rest when the defense forced a punt after three plays and Dartmouth ran seven plays to cover 48 yards for the game's first points on Howard's 5-yard jaunt into the end zone. On the first play of the second quarter, Roper finished off a 46-yard drive on the seventh play again with his 13-yard run while senior Connor Davis provided the extra point again for a 14-0 lead.

In the middle of the second quarter, Howard broke loose for his 75-yard run, the longest by a Big Green back in three years. Two plays later, he bullied his way across the goal line from two yards out.

Dartmouth got the ball back with 3:17 remaining before the intermission and went back to work. A 17-yard pass from Kyler to junior Dale Chesson on 3rd-and-20 would have forced Buddy Teevens, the Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coach, to try a 43-yard field goal or go for it on 4th-and-3. But an unnecessary roughness penalty gave the Green a first down, and three plays later Kyler connected with Chesson again, this time from 8 yards out with 13 seconds left in the half. It was the first career touchdown for Chesson and he finished the day with his first 100-yard game as well — seven grabs for 106 yards.

The Big Red came out of the intermission with a burst of energy, covering 75 yards in nine plays for their only score, a 1-yard run by Devon Brewer.

The Dartmouth defense made sure those were the only points against them, allowing just 68 more yards over the final 25 minutes with Cornell only once advancing beyond midfield.

But Howard wasn't done. After a beautiful over-the-shoulder catch for a 19-yard gain by senior running back Zack Bair, Howard gobbled up 41 yards on two rushes, the second his 20-yard score to make it a 35-7 Dartmouth lead.

Early in the fourth quarter, Howard pulled off a quarterback draw on 3rd-and-12 and never stopped, striding 32 yards to conclude the game's scoring.

The Ivy League's leading tackler, linebacker Jalen Mackie, had eight tackles as did senior nickelback John Pupel to lead the Big Green defense while junior end Shane Cokes came up with the team's lone sack. Neither team turned the ball over, save for Cornell on downs in the final few minutes. The Big Red got nine tackles from linebacker Jake Stebbins and eight from safety Demetrius Harris, while Stebbins, Onome Kessington and Holt Fletcher each had a sack.

Dartmouth will play the final game next week with its conference-record 20th Ivy League title on the line when the Big Green play at Brown (2-7, 1-5 Ivy), which lost to Columbia today, 23-17. A win would guarantee Dartmouth at least a share of the crown with Princeton (8-1, 6-1 Ivy), which is also looking to claim at least a share at Penn (3-6, 1-5 Ivy). The Big Green game will be streamed live on ESPN+ on Saturday at noon, and Dartmouth fans can listen to Brett Franklin and Matt Corsetti for free through the official website of Dartmouth Athletics, DartmouthSports.com.

Notes: The last player with a longer run than Howard's 75-yard sprint was Rashaad Cooper, who traversed 81 yards against Harvard in 2018 … Howard is also the first Big Green player with four rushing touchdowns in a game since Jared Gerbino ran for four in a 54-44 victory over Princeton in the final game of the 2017 campaign … Dartmouth has won 11 of the last 12 meetings with Cornell and is 62-41-1 all-time against the Big Red … the two teams had played in 101 consecutive years until the pandemic brought that to an end … Kyler entered the game ninth in the country in completion percentage and boosted it to 70.2 percent with his performance today … Davis made all five of his PATs today to stretch his program record of consecutive makes to 68.