Dartmouth Looks to Spoil Harvard's Homecoming and Stay Atop the Ivy Standings

Dartmouth (3-3, 2-1) at RV/#23 Harvard (5-1, 2-1)
Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023 | 4 PM
Harvard Stadium | Cambridge, Mass.
NESN / ESPN+ — Alex Vispoli play-by-play, Tyler Davey analyst, Amanda Keane sideline
Audio — Brett Franklin play-by-play, Matt Corsetti analyst

Logjam Atop Ivy Standings
For followers of Ivy League football, you have likely heard a coach state more than once about how much parity there is across the conference. If you didn't believe it before, it is hard to deny it now with five teams tied atop the Ancient Eight standings, including Dartmouth and Harvard. And when you consider that there have been just two seasons in which the champions lost twice, this game is crucial to their title hopes.

This past week, the Big Green snapped a two-game skid by delighting a homecoming crowd with a 20-9 victory over Columbia. Special teams played a big role in the Dartmouth win with Patrick Campbell blocking and recovering a punt for a touchdown and Owen Zalc booting a pair of 47-yard field goals. Only seven teams have blocked more kicks than the Big Green's three this season, and only two have blocked more punts. And the rookie Zalc is among the top 10 among FCS kickers in field goals per game (1.5).

After allowing an opening-drive touchdown to start the game, the Dartmouth defense put the clamps on and did not allow another point. The Lions were held to under 300 yards of offense — only 45 on the ground — and even when a big play got them down to the 1-yard line, the Big Green bowed up and got stops on four straight plays to preserve a 20-9 lead in the fourth quarter.

Campbell showed up in the stats on just two plays outside of his blocked punt, but those were big plays as well, making an acrobatic, leaping interception that led to the final field goal and breaking up a fourth-down pass in the end zone to end the aforementioned scoring threat. Macklin Ayers, fourth in the Ivy League in tackles, led the defense with 11 stops, Leonard St. Gourdin had eight of his own to go with a pair of pass breakups, and Cam Maddox, making his first start of the year, picked off a pass as well.

The offense didn't bother much with an air attack with a steady rain falling throughout the day, winning for just the third time in the last 25 years when posting no more than 61 passing yards. But the ground game was in good form with Q Jones going for 73 yards on 17 carries, Tevita Moimoi totaling 48 on 11 rushes (including a go-ahead, 2-yard touchdown) and Nick Howard 44 more on 11 runs.

But in order to knock off a nationally ranked Harvard team that suffered its first loss of the season at Princeton last week, the offense is going to need to keep pace with a squad that is 12th in the FCS at over 36 points a game, even with a season-low 14 against the Tigers. If there is a defensive unit up to the challenge, however, it is this one at Dartmouth.

Scouting the Crimson
Harvard was flying high with an unblemished record at the midpoint of the season, including a road victory over a then-top-10 team in Holy Cross. Then along came Princeton, which sent the Crimson back home with a 21-14 defeat.

The most surprising aspect of the loss was the low scoring output; Harvard had put up at least 34 points in each of its first five games and more than 40 on three occasions. Nearly 60 percent of its yards have come on the ground thanks to the combination of QB Charles DePrima (77 rushes, 6.8-yard average, 5 TD) and RB Shane McLaughlin (73 carries, 6.1-yard average, 4 TD). As a team, the Crimson average 6 yards per run.

DePrima has had his moments as a passer with 12 touchdown tosses, third in the league. But he is also sixth in the conference in completion percentage as well as yardage, and has thrown the second most interceptions (5), three of which were thrown last week.

Ten different players have been on the receiving end of DePrima's passes, led by Connor Barkate with 24 grabs for 290 yards and two scores. Tyler Neville has the most TD catches with three among his 15 receptions for 201 yards.

The Crimson defense has been good against the run, yielding just over 100 yards a game. Opponents have had the best luck moving the football through the air with more than 250 yards a game.

Safety Ty Bartrum has been a leader of the defensive unit with a team-best 46 tackles to go with a league-leading three interceptions, one of which he returned 96 yards to the house in the season opener. And DL Thor Griffith has a team-high 4.0 tackles for a loss while fellow linemen Nick Yagodich and Tyler Huenemann each have 2.5 sacks.

Cali Canaval has been reliable kicking the ball (4-of-5 on field goals) with a long of 43 yards, and Sebastien Tasko is a steady punter averaging 38.2 yards per boot.

Harvard is coached by Tim Murphy (Springfield '78), now in his 30th year in Cambridge and 37th overall as a collegiate head coach. During his tenure with the Crimson, Murphy is 197-88 with nine Ivy championships to his credit, and 229-133-1 in a career that included stints at Maine and Cincinnati. In 2007, he was inducted into his alma mater's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Last Year Against the Crimson …
In front of a Dartmouth homecoming crowd, the two teams traded touchdowns in the first half, but a blocked PAT on the second Big Green TD left the hosts down a point at the intermission. The second half was all Harvard, which scored a touchown in the third and fourth quarters to pull away for a 28-13 victory. Dylan Cadwallader threw for 212 yards while Nick Howard and Zack Bair each ran for a Dartmouth TD. But that was not enough to overcome 179 rushing yards and two TDs by Crimson RB Aidan Borguet.

Homecoming Heaven
Not much tops a win on homecoming, and Dartmouth achieved that with a 20-9 victory over Columbia on Oct. 21. The Big Green have won five of their last six homecoming contests and 10 of the last 14; all four losses have come against today's opponent, Harvard, which is hosting its homecoming game. It would be nice to return the favor …

Howard Among Top 10 Rushers
With a modest 44 yards on the ground in the 20-9 victory over Columbia, Nick Howard climbed into Dartmouth's top 10 for career rushing yards with 1,695 (ninth). And the most recent alumnus he surpassed also happens to be on the Big Green staff — Curt Oberg '78, the special assistant to the head coach. Of the players in the top 10 (found on page four of these notes), only one — Rick Klupchak '74 — has a higher average per carry (6.06) than Howard (5.31). Howard is also second at Dartmouth in both career multi-TD games (13) and career rushing touchdowns (31, Myles Lane '28 had 33 TDs on the ground) plus is tied with place kicker Foley Schmidt '12 for fifth in scoring with 186 points.

Blocked Punt Déjà Vu
One play turned the tide against Columbia in the 20-9 victory on Oct. 21, and that was a blocked punt and recover in the end zone by Patrick Campbell. It was the team's third blocked punt this season; only two FCS teams have more. It was also the second straight season in which Dartmouth blocked a punt against Columbia and recovered it for a touchdown. Last year, Robert Crockett III rejected the kick and Tevita Moimoi scooped it up in the end zone for the score.

Zalc It Up
Zalc kind of rhymes with chalk, so go with it. First-year place kicker Owen Zalc continues to produce, and against Columbia, he booted not one but two field goals from 47 yards out, the longest conversions of his life. No Dartmouth kicker had ever made two kicks of at least that length in a game previously, and only four others have made two kicks from at least 40 yards in one contest — Tyler Lavin '05 vs. UNH in 2002 (43, 45), Dave Regula '98 at Yale in 1995 (42, 40), Dennis Durkin '93 vs. Bucknell in 1991 (44, 43) and Craig Saltzgaber '86 at Cornell in 1985 (48, 41). Zalc is among the top 10 in the FCS in field goals made per game (1.5).

Who Needs Passes?
Dartmouth demonstrated that a team doesn't need to rely on passing the ball much to win a game. The Big Green threw for only 61 yards on 7-of-15 completions in the contest in its 20-9 defeat of Columbia on Oct. 21. Over the past 25 years, Dartmouth has had just six games in which it threw for fewer than 65 yards and has gone 4-2 in those contests. And since 1969, the Green are 25-8-1 when passing for no more than 65 yards. If you look at total yards, however, gaining just 222 yards as Dartmouth did is generally not a recipe for success. The team is only 5-25 over the last 25 years in those games.

Top-20 Defense
The Dartmouth defense has been terrific this season, ranking 16th among FCS schools in yards allowed per game (304.5). Against the run, the Big Green rank fourth (84.2) after yielding just 45 to the Lions, and they are allowing opponents to convert third downs just 30.1 percent of the time, the eighth-lowest figure in the nation.

No Sack For You
No FCS team has been more protective of its quarterbacks than Dartmouth this year. Big Green QBs have been sacked just twice all year, the lowest total in the country.

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