Scouting Dartmouth
John Pircon leads a shaky Dartmouth defense (CREDIT: John Risley)
Both Columbia and Dartmouth come in to Saturday's Homecoming matchup at Memorial Field with identical 1-4 records. Looking at wins and losses alone might make you think this would be a close game.
But if you are a believer in the transitive property, you have to be expecting a blowout. Dartmouth defeated Penn a few weeks ago at home, while the Lions are coming off a 59-28 thrashing by those same Quakers last week.
Okay, let me say it: I'm not a big believer in the transitive property, not in sports, and especially not in Ivy League football.
OFFENSE
I am worried. I'm worried because Dartmouth has a good straight-ahead running back this year in junior Milan Williams, and Columbia has been so weak against the run, especially the straight-ahead run, all season.
Williams has 358 yards rushing on just 74 carries for a 4.8 yards per carry average. He would have more carries if it weren't for the fact that the Big Green have been far behind early in their last two big losses to Yale and Holy Cross. He has the potential to absolutely slay the Lions and will at least be a major test of any defensive adjustments the Columbia coaches make up front.
Dartmouth is also getting good production from QB Tom Bennewitz, who is throwing the ball about 23 times a game and still completing 58% of his passes. Bennewitz doesn't run as well as his predecessor Mike Fritz, whose scrambling made the difference in last year's Big Green win over CU, but he can run pretty well too. Bennewitz has been pretty decent on third down passing, going 20 for 37 for 253 yards, 14 1st downs, 4 TD's and just 1 interception, (he's been sacked just once on third down). He was knocked out of the Holy Cross game last weekend because of an injury, but I do expect him to be back this Saturday.
Dartmouth's receiving corps has been banged up, as a result the Big Green's leading receiver has just 15 catches. But senior Brian Evans is emerging as a deep threat, with 13 catches for 269 yards and three TD's.
DEFENSE
Dartmouth's defense has been a different story, but with games against juggernauts like Yale and UNH already behind them, the Big Green will probably show some improvement going forward.
The Lions have to be encouraged by the fact that Dartmouth has registered only ONE SACK through the first half of the season. It would be interesting to see what Craig Hormann and Austin Knowlin can do without having to deal with a massive pass rush every play.
The run defense hasn't been stellar either, leading me to scratch my head a bit about this unit as it seems to have decent talent but is not generating enough results, (sound familiar?).
A Little History
Dartmouth absolutely dominated this series, until about 10 years ago when not only did the teams start trading more wins, but the games became more exciting and close as well. Since 1997, the average winning team in this series has won by fewer than 10 points, and five of the scores have been decided by a touchdown or less.
But with Dartmouth's running power and Columbia's passing attack, I'm thinking that Saturday might be a reminder of one of the wildest shootouts in Ivy League history. That was the 56-41 Big Green win in 1982 during which Lions QB John Witkowski broke several Ivy records, (some of which still stand).
Right now the weather forecast is calling for rain, but I think it would take a major downpour to really make this a low-scoring game.
Expect a "Shootout in the Prairie."
posted by Jake @ 7:43:00 PM
21 comments
21 Comments:
Dartmouth won that Penn game without Sandberg in the lineup-big difference. Both teams coming off horrific losses and are of equal talent. This is where NW earns his keep as this realistically is best shot at Ivy win this year. Let's see if he has them coached up and ready to play. Tired of hearing "this one is on me"...get it done...
I just don't get our team. It seems as if the Princeton loss really took something out of them, because I don't think we even showed up for Lafayette. The Penn game was a huge disappointment to me because we did show the ability to move the ball against them but made some bonehead decisions and never really palyed with intensity on the defensive side of the ball. PS, where is Masorti?
Sandberg did play in the Dartmouth game, he may not have been 100% but he had 80 yards on 20 carries.
my apologies..thought he was injured for that game..
If anything, Princeton should have encouraged, not discouraged. Intensity, fire, and confidence is what I will be looking for when they take the field in Hanover.
I agree that Princeton should have encouraged our guys. But we just never want to play Lafayette. Our guys seem to hate to go to Easton. I don't think we showed up that day. As for Penn, a few critical injuries on the defensive side of the ball (Quinn, Masorti, some other guys nicked, lots of freshmen playing against seniors), and some bonehead mental mistakes, and we have a train wreck.
What front does Dartmouth play on defense? On their website, it looks like a 4 man front. I'm surprised they are weak against the run and have only a couple of sacks this year if they are playing a 4 man front line.
Maybe we can run the ball a little to take some pressure off of the defense. It would be great if we could score first and force them to adjust to us!
We've got to improve this week on special teams to win!
Don't forget we started 6 freshman or sophmores (including 2 freshman) against Penn, and a number of frosh/sophmores where the backup. That guarantees growing pains on defense. This will pay off in a year or 2 when they are juniors and seniors. There is a big jump going to college from HS and now we are paying the price (I think this small of a senior class hurts us on defense).
we should run the ball too - we did it against Marist and everyone else does it against us. It is incredibly frustrating to see the same play calls over and over. Hormann may be completing the passes but if it doesn't put points on the board, we still lose. And the constant passing results in alot of 3 and outs, which puts our defense out on the field for long periods of time.
Any changes expected in the two deep? Any chance that we drop into a five man front? Dartmouth isn't much of a passing team, and we have to try to do something different to stop the run.
The fact that Dartmouth was able to rush for 170 yds vs. UNH (who have already beaten Marshall and Delaware this year) is worisome. Pray for a "sloppy track."
Our O-line and our D-line (and line backers) aren't physically strong enough. Teams are running all over us because we are getting pushed off the line and our tackling is terrible, which is also probably related to the fact that we don't live tackle in practice. Hard to get good at something you don't practice. The O-line hasn't been able to get a push off the line with the exception of the Marist game. These guys need to get stronger and play more physically.
We have been passing a lot for two reasons: we can't run block worth a darn and we are often playing from behind which means we don't have the time to run the ball (if we could run the ball, which we can't).
The O line has spent months in the weight room and is probalby the biggest group we have ever had playing there. We have a 260 pound TE to go with them. We must average 280 tackle to tackle, with no blubberballs in the group. Except for 285 pound Naheem Harris we have been up against smallish D Lines. So what is the problem? Strength? Skill? Desire? Lack of orneryness? Isn't NW capable of coaching an O Line as a former Big Ten tackle? As for the D Line, Mitchell is one of the biggest DEs in the Ivies and is touted by NW as a potential pro player. We are smallish at NT, but we seem to have enough good players to have a swarming defense. As for tackling in practice, that's generally not done after the season starts in ordeer to avoid injuries.
Bottom line: the three man defensive front ain't working and they need to adjust or CU will lose the rest of their games, period. Whoever they have at NT is clearly not getting the job done. Sloppy tackling is one thing, but when you are getting pushed off the line of scrimmage every play it makes it too easy on the offense to just run the ball down your throat. If need be, put nine men in the box (six of them DL or LB) and challenge the other team to beat you with the pass. Just letting people run you ragged all day will never be a winning strategy.
If you are not good a tackling, you need to tackle in practice. Avoiding losses is more important that avoiding injuries. If you don't attack your weaknesses in practice, when will you? You aren't going to learn how to tackle well by live tackling only in the games.
Say what you like about weight rooms, size, etc., we are losing our games at the line of scrimmage. The d is getting pushed around by their opponents and our o-line is not pushing anybody around.
I'd like to see Mitchell at NT.
Let me see if I understand - with a 3 man line, don't the ends get double-teamed every play since you have 5 vs. 3? Or does the NT get double teamed? Who on offense has the job of blocking LB's, the running backs, the offensive tackles?
You are correct. At least ONE of the DEs will get double teamed every time!
I feel like we have a smaller defense but if so, we should be quicker than the offensive lines and fullbacks and tight ends we face blocking our linebackers. Our backers should be shooting gaps to stop ballcarriers before they step through and get a head of steam. They're six yards through with a head of steam before you know what happened. Also, why do I see the smaller spurs always taking on the bigger lead fullback on outside containment. I'm sure they are doing their assignment but why aren't they allowed to use their quickness in space to make the fullback or tight end miss or to draw them out of their lane and shoot behind them. Spurs are 185 to 200 and Penn fullback was 240 with a running start. Suicide.
I think we CAN run the football and this is a week where we'll be successful in that part of our offense. We're big enough and strong enough and we do block well enough to get the run game going. Like all parts of the game, we can vary the run attack to help the guys up front. If we run it a bit, play action will become much more effective for CH. Stoll has been a great lead blocker and would probably love a center screen occasionally. Rangel has stepped up as a runner and will get more carries as the year goes on. Davis needs to hit the hole running like he did against Marist.
We could use some sustained drives to rest our defense and let LF adjust the scheme as needed on the side. For our athletes, I still like the 3 man front, but we need to control the middle of the field. The guys have to get into their gaps with good tackling technique for it to work out.
Several big changes this week in hte two deep. Huge freshman Ben Gaston has the start at one of the guard positions. Nico is now sarting at WR; Jamal Russell is sttartig at TE. On defense we may a few more freshmen. Masorti is running #2. As for the comments about our defense; Abrams was just stronger and tougher than most people gave him credit for at NT. I just don't buy the explanations for the fall off in defensive production, however. Overall our talent level is higher than last year.
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