PRINCETON, N.J. — What if!
That’s what Dartmouth coach Sammy McGonigle and his players had to be asking themselves on the loooong ride home to Hanover following their 21-14 loss to Princeton that knocked them out of a share of the Ivy League lead.
What if the defense hadn’t been so porous early, allowing the host Tigers offense to score on long drives their first three possessions, before finally getting its act together?
What if the offense hadn’t been nearly as ineffective in the first half, countering with just one touchdown, before seeing its second-half comeback bid thwarted by two interceptions, one in the end zone?
What if that effort wasn’t negated by two missed field goals, one going wide, the other short-circuited by a botched snap?
And what if the Big Green with its “1-0 Today” sign there for all to see entering the locker room had paid better attention?
The loss not only snapped their three-game winning streak, but enabled Tiger seniors to savor their first win over Dartmouth.
Just as Big Green safety and co-captain Harrison Keith feared it might. “We knew it was going to happen,” said Keith after the Tigers roared out of the gates with scoring drives of 75, 72 and 73 yards to seize a 21-0 lead. “We knew the seniors at Princeton hadn’t beaten us yet, so we knew they were going to come out with everything.
“Your mindset was not to be complacent. We knew what was at stake. As soon as you get a big win like we had (over then-unbeaten Harvard), that target’s right on your back.
“Obviously we got punched in the face early. We weren’t playing the way we can play. It was just about resetting and getting back to our brand of football and I think we did that after the half.
“But I’m disappointed with the way we played the first half.”
So was his coach, who wanted to shoulder all the blame. Yet, incredibly, despite seeing his team down 21-0 early in the second half, he found them in a one-possession game when quarterback Grayson Saunier’s finished off a mammoth 16-play, 75-yard drive that consumed 8:05 with a two-yard run to cut it to 21-14 with 7:23 left.
Then, after the revitalized defense forced a Princeton punt, they got the ball back at their own eight with 5:02 left. They gradually worked it to a first down at the 29 with two minutes left.
Considering it all, McCorkle liked their chances.
“We had an opportunity there,” said McCorkle, after that last chance fizzled after a false start penalty and sack eventually left them 4th and 11 before Saunier’s 9-yard pass to Ky Dric Fisher left two yards short. “We were one score down.
“We had the ball with two minutes, with three time outs left. We were in position to go.”
That was how it ended. But the bottom line was how it began. “They were ready and we weren’t ready,”McCorkle lamented. “It’s very disappointing and very frustrating, and I take responsibility.
They had more energy than us. More sense of urgency than us. They outhit us and put us in a hole.
“We kind of settled down a little bit after that. I think we were just stunned. Once we settled down, we started playing better.”
Better, yes. But not good enough. “Once you get a stop, a turnover, you build that momentum, that confidence,” said Keith, noting Johnny Stephens’ end zone interception moments after freshman Jacob Henry’s two-yard run put Dartmouth on the board. “I think it carried us through the second half.
“We made ’em punt a couple of times and they missed a field goal. We were able to buckle up.”
Now the trick is to shake off the disappointment and get ready for next week’s trip to Cornell. “You want to be the ones controlling your own destiny,” said Keith, whose defense limited the 6-2 Tigers to just 59 yards after intermission after surrendering 288 the first half. “But it’s safe to say we’ve been in this position before.
“As a senior, we’ve had this feeling pretty much every year where you have a tough little bump in the road towards the end of the season.
But we’re still in the hunt. We know that.”
At the same time, they know as horribly as it started they still had their chances. Which is why they must have spent most of the trip home saying one thing to themselves
“What if? “