Hanover
“It’s been just such an unusual year,” said Teevens, whose 2015 squad was much more healthy, en route to claiming a share of its 18th Ivy title. “Thankfully, we have a lot of depth and some young guys are really stepping up.”
One of them is sophomore center Phil Berton, who has become the season’s third starter at that position. The Illinois native began the fall at guard, but first-stringer Patrick Kilcommons badly hurt a big toe and backup Jack Friedman also was injured last week against No. 23 Harvard.
Suddenly, Berton became vital to the game plan. At the risk of being obvious, every offensive play has to start with a snap, and if they’re not smooth, even under extreme duress, serious problems arise.
It seems that Berton has gotten those mechanics down, so now it’s on to reading the defense and making assertive blocking calls, then doing his part against a foe whose helmet is practically touching his own before the action begins.
“I was preparing the last three weeks for something like this happening,” said Berton, a tackle in high school. “We try to have at least three guys (practicing) at center, and I’ve been specially watching film for this week, so I’m decently prepared.”
Berton’s father, Joe, is best known as having posed, face away from the camera, for photos that accompanied Sports Illustrated’s legendary April Fool’s Day issue in 1985. The George Plimpton story claimed the New York Mets had discovered a pitcher, Sidd Finch, who could throw a baseball at unprecedented speeds and did so while going bare on one foot and wearing a work boot on the other.
“That might help with my snaps,” Phil Berton joked. “Shooting them back 160 miles per hour.”
Moving Forward: Dartmouth’s attempts at running the football continue to come up short. The Big Green produced just 69 yards that way against Harvard and the trend is allowing opposing pass rushers to tee off.
“Averaging “2.1, 1.8, 2.0 (yards per attempt), you can’t do that,” Teevens said. “We keep preaching and pushing, but calling plays and being successful is difficult when you’re always coming from behind.”
Compounding the problem is that Dartmouth hasn’t done well when it’s had to punt. The Big Green is averaging 36 yards per punt and 33 yards net, which subtracts return yardage, both of which are last in the Ivies.
Senior Ben Kepley is a four-year starter who made the All-Ivy second team each of the last two years.
“Kep is a very talented punter, but he’s been frustrated because he’s been inconsistent,” Teevens said. “Things he hasn’t done before, the proverbial shank, we’ve had too many of those. That’s really it.
“It’s like the yips in putting; it gets in your head. I’ve told him, ‘You’re our punter. Don’t worry about it and just relax and execute.’ ”
Teevens is hoping a Saturday matchup against Cornell’s 6-foot-2 Chris Fraser, an NFL prospect, will motivate Kepley.
Fraser is “the best punter in the league, and whomever wins that field position and yardage deal is most helping their team,” the coach said, noting that Kepley has been solid this season at having punts die inside opponents’ 20-yard lines.
Robots in a Row: Having visitors at practice has become commonplace for Dartmouth. If it’s not NFL scouts, it’s film crews and others interested in the Big Green’s use of the Mobile Virtual Player robotic tackling dummy.
Tuesday, 11 folks from Michigan sporting good company Rogers Athletic showed up, milling about the sidelines and taking photos and videos with their smart phones. Rogers helps build and sell the MVP, and Nathan Rogers, head of the company, brought a slew of his salesmen to see it in action.
“They’re here just to get maybe a little more insight,” Teevens said. “We use the MVP more than anybody. I think we’re fairly imaginative with it, and it was a chance to share what we do with it. Some of them may not have seen it in use … in practice.”
Curt Oberg, a former Dartmouth teammate of Teevens who is now an assistant to him, has progressed from tentative “driving” of the robots earlier this year to being able to propel and steer them with one hand via a joystick-like device. Wednesday, he brought three of them onto Memorial Field, accelerating and bobbing in his wake.
“It’s like (the children’s book) Make Way For Ducklings,” Oberg said with a laugh.
Sticky Fingers: Dartmouth is atop the Ivies in pass offense at 258 yards per game, but that’s partly because it doesn’t have much alternative. That number would also be higher if its receivers hadn’t repeatedly dropped throws, including three Teevens said would have produced first downs against Harvard.
Freshman Hunter Hagdorn leads the team with 32 catches for 420 yards and a touchdown, but he’s also dropped roughly a dozen passes this fall.
“All you can do is practice,” receivers coach Jerry Taylor said. “When we have deep balls, the ball is in the air for maybe three seconds and you have to focus that whole time.
“Hunter may catch 11 balls in a game and drop one or two, and for a young guy like that, it’s all about the plays you don’t make versus the ones that you do.”
Taylor recruited Hagdorn out of Manvel, Texas, which is located about 20 miles south of Houston. The youngster turned down Harvard and Cornell, as well as scholarship offers from Illinois and Colorado State.
“Older guys have the repetitions and the experience, but you can’t put talent like that on the bench,” Taylor said of a player who’s not just fast when running straight ahead, but is also as agile and elusive as any player in the Ivies.
“The thing someone like him has to learn is not just how quickly throws are made, but how quickly the defense converges on you once you catch the ball. In high school you feel like you could run for days, but in college it’s about getting upfield as quickly as possible.”
Notes: Saturday’s game is the 100th between Dartmouth and Cornell, which was 1-9 last season and lost in Hanover, 21-3. … The NFL is expected to begin airing a short clip featuring the MVP in use at a Dartmouth practice during upcoming game broadcasts. A segment filmed for HBO’s Real Sports show on the same topic is scheduled to air Nov. 22. … Dartmouth has yet to score on its first drive during an Ivy game this season.