Battle for the Granite Bowl Trophy Comes to Memorial Field

Saturday, October 15

Hanover, N.H.

1:30 PM

Dartmouth College

New Hampshire

Senior Jonny Barrett

Photo by: Brian Foley

Battle for the Granite Bowl Trophy Comes to Memorial Field

10/13/2022 1:42:00 PM | Football

Saturday, Oct. 15 Memorial Field ESPN+Audio Broadcast Live Stats Teevens Teleteaser @DartmouthFTBL Series History Dartmouth Notes UNH Notes

Dartmouth has won the last two meetings with New Hampshire on the gridiron

By: Rick Bender

Dartmouth (1-3) vs. New Hampshire (4-2)
Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022 | 1:30 PM
Memorial Field | Hanover, N.H.
ESPN+ — Matt Corsetti play-by-play, Steve Goldberg analyst
Audio — Brett Franklin play-by-play, Wayne Young '72 analyst

Granite Bowl Trophy on the Line
Bragging rights for the state of New Hampshire are up for grabs in the Granite Bowl, featuring the only two Division I football teams in the ninth state of the Union. Dartmouth has won the last two meetings, ending a 40-year drought against New Hampshire spanning 20 games in 2016. But the Wildcats come to town with a 4-2 record while Dartmouth is 1-3 after dropping three straight close games.

The Big Green had to reinvent their offense last week at Yale without the services of QB Nick Howard. So the team ranked second in the FCS in rushing and next-to-last in passing flipped the script with QB Dylan Cadwallader behind center, throwing for 248 yards while running for only 20, the team's fewest in a decade.

Cadwallader, making his first career start, played with composure while completing 28-of-45 passes, two going for touchdowns, and he ran one across the goal line himself. With Dartmouth trailing by 17 points entering the fourth quarter, he nearly brought the Green all the way back before time ran out in the 24-21 defeat.

With his performance, Cadwallader will likely split time at quarterback with Howard in a tandem role that Dartmouth has utilized so well since 2017. But Howard may sit out one more week to ensure he is completely healthy for the stretch run in the Ivy League.

The beneficiaries of Cadwallader's accuracy were senior Jonny Barrett and junior Paxton Scott. Entering the game with 16 career receptions, Barrett hauled in a dozen throws for a career-high 132 yards and a TD, while Scott nabbed the other scoring strike amongst his seven catches for 76 yards.

As in the previous two losses, Dartmouth was left thinking about what could have been. With the score tied at seven in the second quarter, the Big Green were knocking on the door of the end zone, but a fumble at the one kept them from putting points on the board. And in the fourth quarter, freshman SS Sean Williams picked off a pass at the Dartmouth 7 and nearly returned it for a touchdown. Only a slap of his heel by the last defender kept him from scoring, and the Green failed to move the ball from the Yale 37 before punting.

Williams was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week as he also contributed seven tackles while three of his teammates hit double digits, led by LB Macklin Ayers' career-high 16; the junior is second in the FCS with 12.8 tackles per game. Also hitting personal bests on the day were LB Joe Heffernan (13) and FS Quinten Arello (10).

Looking back at last year's game, Dartmouth exploded for 604 total yards — its third-biggest output of the last 50 years — in handing the Wildcats a 38-21 defeat, the Big Green's first win in Durham since 1969. Derek Kyler threw for a career-high 325 yards and two touchdowns while Howard ran for three more scores. The loss was the third of seven straight to end UNH's season.

Scouting the Wildcats
Like Dartmouth, UNH is playing its final non-conference game, but it also sits atop its league standings with a perfect 4-0 mark. The only two blemishes on its record came against North Carolina Central (45-27) and Western Michigan of the FBS (44-7).

Most recently, the Wildcats squeaked past winless Stony Brook, 24-14, only securing the victory with a touchdown to extend their lead to 10 with 2:21 to play. QB Max Brosmer was 23-of-36 for 291 yards and two scores. The sophomore has completed 62.6 percent of his throws for 1,287 yards and 11 touchdowns this season with four interceptions.

The running game is the realm of Dylan Laube, who victimized the Dartmouth defense last year with two long touchdown runs of 75 and 53 yards. A 5-10, 204-pound junior is averaging over 95 yards on the ground, topping out at 202 with three TDs in a 28-23 win over Albany. No one else on the team has amassed even 45 yards on the ground.

The receiving corps is led by Joey Corcoran, he of the 27 catches for 300 yards and two scores. But there are several targets that Brosmer likes, including Kyle Lepkowski (18 catches for 262 yards) and Laube out of the backfield (23 for 219 yards). The top deep threat is Heron Maurisseau, averaging 21.5 yards on six catches with two TDs.

Defensively, UNH has had good success against the run, though no one player has put up big numbers. Safety Pop Bush leads the team with 27 tackles with LB Bryce Shaw close behind with 25. The pass rush, however, features a pair of threats to the quarterback in DEs Dylan Ruiz and Josiah Silver (the CAA Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2021) with 12.5 sacks between them.

One couldn't ask for much more from the kicking game with Sean Lehane averaging over 41 yards a punt and Nick Mazzie perfect in five field goals attempts with a long of 42. The only blemish is a missed PAT out of 20.

Rick Santos (UNH '08) is in his second season as the head coach, though his first was on an interim basis for the 2019 season. In that campaign, he led his alma mater to a 6-5 overall record and 5-3 mark in the CAA. As a player, Santos set numerous program records as the quarterback, throwing for over 12,000 yards, and earned the 2006 Walter Payton Award as the top FCS offensive player.

First Three-Game Skid in 11 Years
With the 24-21 defeat at Yale, Dartmouth has dropped three straight games for the first time since the 2011 campaign. The Big Green won their season opener that year, then actually lost four in a row before righting the ship and finishing with a .500 record at 5-5. Oddly enough, the first three losses were to the same teams Dartmouth lost to this year — Sacred Heart (24-21), Penn (22-20) and Yale (30-0). The fourth opponent was not New Hampshire, however, so perhaps history will not repeat itself this week.

Ivy Rookie of the Week
The first Big Green player to win a weekly award from the Ivy League office is SS Sean Williams. The freshman from Nolensville, Tennessee, had seven tackles and a big interception in the fourth quarter at Yale, returning it 56 yards to the Bulldog 37 and very nearly went the distance. The last Dartmouth player to win the rookie honor was Paxton Scott after last year's season opener. For the last freshman to win the honor (Scott was a sophomore and didn't get to play in 2020 due to the pandemic), you have to go back to PK Connor Davis in 2018. Williams also earned honorable mention from Stats Perform for its FCS National Rookie of the Week award.

Cadwallader Gets the Call
With Nick Howard unavailable for the Yale game, Dartmouth turned to Dylan Cadwallader, he of the six pass attempts and 16 rushing yards in his career, to take the reins of the offense. The coaching staff's confidence in the junior was rewarded as he completed more passes in a game (28) than any Big Green QB since Jack Heneghan in the 2016 season finale (30) against Princeton. Cadwallader also briefly did his best Howard impersonation when he scrambled for a 7-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Grin and Barrett
Someone had to catch those passes thrown by Cadwallader, and Jonny Barrett was more than happy to oblige. The senior, who entered the game with 16 catches in his career, hauled in 12 throws for 132 yards and a touchdown. It was his first 100-yard game, the first for a Big Green receiver since Dale Chesson against Cornell last year and the most yards since Drew Estrada and Hunter Hagdorn both had more than 150 against Brown in 2019. Barrett is also just the 10th player with a dozen or more receptions in a game.

Putting on Ayers
Junior LB Macklin Ayers had seen limited game action entering this season, but he earned a starting job and has been a great addition to the defense. In each of the first four contests, Ayers has posted double-digit tackles with 11 against Valparaiso and a dozen more against both Sacred Heart and Penn before adding a career-best 16 at Yale. His 12.8 stops per game ranks second among FCS players. The last Dartmouth player with 16 or more tackles in a game was Jack Traynor '20 with 17 at Harvard in 2017.

Heffernan Overcomes
Joe Heffernan patiently bided his time on a team known for great linebackers of late, including Bushnell Cup winners Folarin Orimolade (2016) and Jack Traynor (2020). Like all Ivy Leaguers, he also had to bide his time during COVID with the 2020 season wiped out by the pandemic. Yet here he is, an integral starter among the linebackers as a fifth-year senior, piling up a career-high 13 tackles at Yale, giving him 33 on the season, second most on the club. All while managing his Type-1 diabetes without a hitch.

Kick Off-Switch Back to On
Dartmouth was the last team to return a kickoff this year after signaling for a fair catch or taking a touchback on each of the first 14 kickoffs of the season. It wasn't until 16 seconds remained in the first half at Yale that the Big Green returned one with Jamal Cooney picking up 19 yards. But that is the only one out of 17 this season thus far.

Rushing Role Reversal
Entering the Yale game, Dartmouth ranked among the top 25 in both rushing offense (second) and rushing defense (25th). Had the game been played the previous day, this note might be called Freaky Friday for the Big Green ran for just 20 yards (nearly 280 below their season average and fewest in 10 years) and surrendered 270 on the ground (more than 150 above the season average and most allowed in 11 years). No Dartmouth opponent had topped even 200 rushing yards since Princeton in 2016.

Semifinalist for Campbell Trophy
Dartmouth senior QB Nick Howard was announced as one of 156 football players from all college levels — NCAA and NAIA — to be selected as semfinalists for the 2022 William V. Campbell Trophy, which recognizes the top scholar-athlete in the nation. Of those 156 players, 37 come from the FCS ranks, seven of whom are Ivy Leaguers. A government major modified with economics, Howard entered the fall with a 3.41 GPA and was an All-Ivy League First Team pick a year ago after tying the program record for rushing touchdowns in a season (15), ranking sixth in the country. He also was 14th in the FCS in rushing yards per carry (6.3) and was third in the Ancient Eight with 787 rushing yards.