Football Aims to Brush Off Consecutive OT Defeats on Saturday at Yale

Saturday, October 8

New Haven, Conn. / Yale Bowl

12:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Yale

Braden Mullen (52), Alex Schmidt (95) and Luca Di Leo (5)

Photo by: Gil Talbot

Football Aims to Brush Off Consecutive OT Defeats on Saturday at Yale

10/6/2022 10:52:00 AM | Football

Saturday, Oct. 8 Yale Bowl ESPN+Audio Broadcast Live Stats Teevens Teleteaser @DartmouthFTBL Series History Dartmouth Notes

Dartmouth has beaten the Bulldogs in eight of the last nine meetings

By: Rick Bender

Dartmouth (1-2, 0-1) at Yale (2-1, 1-0)
Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022 | Noon
Yale Bowl | New Haven, Conn.
ESPN+ — John Brickley play-by-play, Jack Siedlecki analyst
Audio — Brett Franklin play-by-play, Matt Corsetti analyst

Little Margin for Error
As Yogi Berra has been credited with saying, "It gets late early around here." With the 23-17 double-overtime defeat last Friday night against Penn, Dartmouth has to find a way to knock off the Yale Bulldogs on the road if it wants to have a good chance of defending its Ivy title. Only twice before has a team won the Ancient Eight title with two losses, the last coming 40 years ago.

The game against the Quakers was a defensive struggle, despite Penn driving the length of the field for a touchdown to start the game. The Big Green defense clamped down from that point, keeping the Quakers off the scoreboard until the final play of regulation knotted the score at 10 apiece on a 35-yard field goal.

After the two teams traded touchdowns in the first overtime, Dartmouth had a 28-yard field goal attempt blocked, and Penn ended the contest on a 1-yard run just over the goal line, handing the Green a second consecutive overtime loss. It was just the second time the Big Green played back-to-back overtime contests, the first instance coming a dozen years ago.

The offense struggled to maintain drives all night, averaging fewer than 4.0 yards a play for just the second time since the start of the 2014 season. Most of the yardage came from the ground game, led by QB Nick Howard with his second straight 100-yard game (108 on 24 carries) and both Dartmouth touchdowns. And RB Zack Bair, who had a season-long 29-yard run on the first Big Green play from scrimmage, became the 31st player in Dartmouth history to run for 1,000 yards in a career with 68 in the game on 11 carries.

Dartmouth did manage to put points on the board as time expired in the first half after a 63-yard drive — longer than the first three of the night combined — with Ryan Bloch booting a 29-yard field goal. Still trailing 7-3 in the fourth quarter, the Big Green covered 62 yards (with a little help from two personal foul penalties) to take a 10-7 lead on Howard's 11-yard scoring scamper, only to have Penn knot the score with its field goal, setting up the fateful overtime.

The defense had a number of heroes, led by LB Macklin Ayers who continued to rack up the tackles. He matched a personal best with 12, and he ranks third in the FCS at 11.7 per game. CB Tyron Herring also had a career-high dozen stops, while DT Shane Cokes, NB Seth Verilus and LB Joe Heffernan each provided big plays on fourth down plays to stop the Quakers.

But the Big Green must now regroup to take on a Yale team that certainly remembers its overtime defeat in Hanover last year. The Bulldogs had taken a 17-14 lead with 2:34 to play, but Dartmouth tied the game with 13 seconds left on a 32-yard field goal. In the extra session, Howard burst through the line for a 7-yard touchdown run and the defense came up with a stop on fourth down to end the game. Although the Green were limited to just 87 rushing yards, they came up with the plays when they needed to beat Yale for the eighth time in the last nine meetings.

Scouting the Bulldogs
Yale is coming off a 34-26 non-conference victory over Howard after building up a 27-6 lead midway through the third quarter. This on the heels of a convincing 38-14 road victory to start Ivy play at Cornell, while the Bulldogs' lone loss came at Holy Cross, a team currently ranked in the top 10 nationally.

The offense features a strong running game and selective passing attack with QB Nolan Grooms at the helm. The junior leads the team in rushing with 243 yards, more than half of which came against Howard. He is completing 53 percent of his passes (33-of-62) for 396 yards with three touchdowns and three picks, but his best effort came against the Big Red (12-of-17, 187 yards, 2 TD).

Grooms has a pair of running backs in Joshua Pitsenberger and Tre Peterson to ease the load on the ground. The former nearly matches Grooms with 230 rushing yards while Peterson just went for 144 on a mere 12 carries against Howard.

The primary targets for Grooms' throws are WRs David Pantelis and Mason Tipton, each of whom has 11 receptions and a combined 338 yards. But the team's four touchdown tosses have gone to four players — Tipton, Pitsenberger, WR Ryan Lindley and TE Jackson Hawes.

The non-conference opponents have averaged nearly 500 yards a game against the Yale defense, but Cornell was limited to under 200 in the 24-point Bulldog victory. DL Osorachukwu Ifesinachukwu has been more than just a mouthful, but a handful as well with four sacks (second in the Ivy League), while fellow DL Reid Nickerson has three of his own. The team's leading tackler is DB Wande Owens with 22, and Yale has two interceptions as a team as well.

Jack Bosman handles the kicking duties, and although he has attempted the fewest punts in the league (7), he averages 40.9 yards. He is also 3-of-4 on his field goal attempts with a long of 42, plus has converted all 11 PATs.

Now in his 11th year as the Joel E. Smilow '54 Head Coach of Football, Tony Reno enters today's game with a 54-39 record with the Bulldogs, including conference titles in 2017 and 2019. He is a 1997 graduate of Worcester State College and was hired at Yale as an assistant in 2003 after a successful five-year stint at his alma mater.

Double OT, Double the Heartbreak
Dartmouth played its second straight overtime game on Sept. 30, but this time it took two extra sessions to determine the victor. But like the previous week, the Big Green were saddled with a loss, 23-17, as Penn scored a touchdown after holding the hosts without a point in the second overtime. Only once before had Dartmouth played consecutive overtime contests, back in 2009 when the Green beat Cornell in double OT, 20-17, before falling at Brown, 14-7. Dartmouth is now 6-8 all-time in overtime games but 0-3 against the Quakers, its most frequent opponent in such games.

Howard Hits 100 Again
With 108 rushing yards against Penn on Sept. 30, Nick Howard topped the century mark for the second straight week. He had set a career high with 185 yards against Sacred Heart six days prior. He also topped 100 against both teams last year in back-to-back contests. If you include the 169 yards Zack Bair ran for in the season opener against Valparaiso, Dartmouth had a player run for 100 yards in three consecutive games for the first time in nine years. Back in 2013, Dalyn Williams had 119 in the season opener against Butler before Dominick Pierre went over 100 in each of the next three games. The only other Big Green players to reach 100 in three straight are Al Rosier in 1991 and Nick Schwieger in 2010-11, both of whom did it in four straight.

1,000 Going Once, Going Twice …
It didn't take long for Nick Howard have company in the prestigious group of Big Green players to rush for 1,000 yards in a career. One week after the senior QB became the 30th player to hit the milestone by posting career highs in rushing attempts (24) and yardage (185) at Sacred Heart, Zack Bair became the 31st with his 68 yards on 11 carries against Penn on Sept. 30. Howard enters the Yale game with 1,156 yards to his name (27th all-time) and Bair with 1,017 (30th). It took Howard just 13 games to reach the milestone, the quickest by any Dartmouth player since Greg Smith '97 did it in 12, just a couple years after Pete Oberle '96 also did it in a dozen. One more thing about Howard: with his two TD runs against Penn, he became the first Big Green player to run for two or more touchdowns in five consecutive games (dating back to last year).

In Memoriam
The Dartmouth football family and entire athletics department was saddened by the passing of Steve Ward, an integral member of the equipment staff for the past 21 years, on Oct. 3. The 65-year-old served in the Marines for 26 years before joining the Big Green staff in 2001, and many a football player from the past two decades appreciated the kind words and sometimes tough love he provided throughout his tenure. I am certain the man is whistling his way to the pearly gates, much like he whistled throughout the halls of the athletic buildings that let you know a friend was passing by.

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 three contests, Ayers has posted double-digit tackles with 11 against Valparaiso and a dozen more against both Sacred Heart and Penn. His 11.7 stops per game ranks third among FCS players.

Turnovers Coming on Downs
In three games this season, Dartmouth has recovered just one turnover, that being an interception at Sacred Heart. But that doesn't mean the defense isn't generating turnovers. Three times against Penn, the Big Green defensive unit came up with fourth-down stops a yard shy of the marker, giving the ball back to the offense on downs. Dartmouth has allowed just two fourth-down conversions in seven attempts.

Kick-Off Switch
What I'm trying to say is that the kickoff return unit has its collective switch turned off thus far this season. Dartmouth is the only FCS teams that has yet to return a kickoff. And it's not for a lack of opportunities; the opposition has kicked off to the Big Green a dozen times, but each has ended with a fair catch or a touchback.

10,000 Points Under the Ivy
You have to be pretty old to get that reference I think, but we're going with it. When Dartmouth scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter against Penn on Sept. 30, it surpassed 10,000 points against its Ancient Eight brethren in 65-plus seasons of Ivy League football. The Big Green are the fourth Ivy team to score at least 10,000 points — Harvard (10,585), Princeton (10,297) and Yale (10,083). Dartmouth is just 70 points behind the Bulldogs with 10,013.