Hanover
“I could get used to this chilling out in the fourth quarter,” Sammartino said, his team about to finish off a 37-14 spanking of Pennsylvania in the teams’ Ivy League opener. “Doing nothing is kind of nice.”
The Big Green had done plenty already, mauling its third consecutive opponent to open the season and dispatching a foe that’s won 17 Ivy titles during the last 35 years. Dartmouth, the 2015 co-champions, tumbled to the Ancient Eight basement the next year before rebounding to second place last fall.
This season? It’s far too early to tell, but there are murmurs that the Big Green might have its best team in more than two decades.
“We’re pursuing perfection,” said head coach Buddy Teevens, whose team is 3-0. “I don’t know if we’ll get there, but that’s the plan.”
Dartmouth’s starting defense, which entered the game ranked first in fewest yards allowed among NCAA Football Championship Subdivision teams, has allowed two touchdowns in three games. The backups surrendered another during each of the last two contests.
“They’re smart and poised and dare you to inch the ball down the field and don’t allow big plays,” said Penn coach Ray Priore, in his fourth year as the boss after 16 years as the Quakers’ defensive coordinator. “They’re very different than the defenses of today, all blitzing like crazy and playing man-to-man. They wait for people to make mistakes in front of them.”
Dartmouth’s defense is also teeth-rattlingly physical, led by senior lineman Jackson Perry. The Las Vegas native is 6-foot-2 and more than 300 pounds and turned down a Vanderbilt scholarship to play with the Big Green. Out most of the last two seasons with injuries, No. 5 is a wrecking ball, leading the hosts with seven tackles and a sack Saturday.
“He’s got a little bit of an edge and swagger to him, but that helps our defense across the board,” Teevens said of a player whose high-pitched, braying voice can be heard from sideline to sideline. “He loves to play and a lot of guys don’t like to see him coming.”
Said Perry: “We just flat-out beat them and dominated them like we should.”
Dartmouth opened the scoring on its second possession, Wildcat-formation quarterback Jared Gerbino slashing into the end zone from 5 yards and Connor Davis adding the first of his four extra points. Gerbino, who carried nine times for 37 yards and a score, played for the first time this season after recovering from a leg injury.
Dartmouth went up 13-0 early in the second quarter, running on nine of 10 plays while marching 61 yards. Rashaad Cooper crashed into a scrum around the goal line from a yard and fumbled, but right tackle Phil Berton dove on the ball and was credited with the score. Davis, a freshman, missed the extra-point attempt.
Penn (2-1) pulled within 13-7 on a 7-yard run by Karekin Brooks and Jack Soslow’s extra point a minute before halftime. The Big Green regrouped inside Leverone Field House, the collective feeling being that it had missed on multiple chances to widen its lead.
“We went soft in the second quarter and thought ‘We’ve got this,’ ” Teevens said. “I got on them pretty bad and they came back out and competed.”
Dartmouth received the second-half kickoff and scored four plays later on Derek Kyler’s 59-yard pass to Drew Hunnicutt, who was wide open down the middle. Penn went three-and-out and the Big Green moved 66 yards in 11 plays, nine of them handoffs, and scored on a 19-yard Kyler pass to a leaping Hunter Hagdorn.
Up 27-7, Dartmouth got the ball back when safety Bun Stratton intercepted a pass and moved 26 yards in six plays, scoring when Kyler threw 4 yards to Jake Guidone, a lineman turned tight end. Although the sophomore had been specifically instructed by Teevens not to spike the ball, he did so anyway, earning a penalty for excessive celebration.
The Big Green also committed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the play and a personal foul on Davis’ extra point. The hosts kicked off from their 12-yard line, but Penn couldn’t score with the resulting field position.
Davis, who missed a 49-yard field-goal attempt shortly before halftime, redeemed himself with a 44-yard boot that gave Dartmouth its last points with 10 minutes remaining. Penn’s Trey Flowers scored on a 1-yard run with 17 seconds to play.
Kyler completed 18 of 21 passes for 221 yards and three touchdowns and has completed an astounding 75 percent of his throws this season. Cooper gained 37 yards in eight carries and Hunnicutt caught five passes for 100 yards and a touchdown.
Next up is a Friday night showdown at defending Ivy League champion Yale, a contest that will be televised on ESPNU. The Bulldogs (2-1, 1-0) beat No. 16 Maine on Saturday, piling up 306 passing yards, but Perry is not likely to be impressed.
“If we both play our best games, they shouldn’t even be close to us,” he said.
Notes: The victory was Dartmouth’s 700th in its 137th season, the sixth-most among FCS teams. … Attendance on a gorgeous autumn day was listed as 3,692. … Guidone endured a tongue-lashing from defensive coordinator Don Dobes after his touchdown catch and acknowledged he knew he shouldn’t have spiked the ball. However, the Massachusetts native pointed out, it was the first time he’s ever scored in an organized football game. … Davis, a touted prospect from Florida, has made 5 of 9 field-goal attempts and 13 of 14 extra points. … Judging by video of Saturday’s Yale game, the grass footing at the Bulldogs’ den is already in poor shape. The Yale Bowl’s turf, scheduled for replacement by an artificial surface before next season, has historically been shoddy.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.