Image courtesy of @HarvardFootball
By Jake Hamilton
NEFJ Correspondent
CAMBRIDGE – It was a low-scoring affair Saturday afternoon as the Harvard Crimson took down the Dartmouth Big Green 17-9.
While Harvard notched its third Ivy League win this season and remained in a tie atop the standings, the most notable thing about the game was who was not on the sideline for Dartmouth.
The late and long-time Dartmouth Head Coach Buddy Teevens was not on the sideline for the first time at Harvard, passing away following complications due to a biking accident back in September of this year. Emotions ran high for both teams, particularly Harvard head coach Tim Murphy, a childhood friend and colleague of Teevens. Murphy became the league’s all-time wins leader with 136 thanks to the victory, but spoke about Teevens following the game.
“(It was) strange, surreal, sad,” he said. “It wasn’t just that he was “my buddy,” “my friend,” anyone who knew Buddy as I did for fifty-five years would tell you he was special. There’s a thousand people who would tell you the same. To be able to meet someone like that when you’re 12 years old… I didn’t know much when I was 12 years old, but I knew I wanted that guy to be my wingman.”
The Crimson deferred to the second half after winning the opening toss and the defense started the game with a quick three-and-out. But, things became interesting for the Crimson early on, as a pair of interceptions led to a quarterback change as Charles DePrima was pulled for sophomore quarterback Jaden Craig. DePrima finished the game with 16 yards on 3-8 passing with the pair of picks.
“Charles had gotten dinged up in the last game. And we didn’t think he could play. He didn’t practice much. He wasn’t 100%. The second part of the equation was that we trust Jaden,” Murphy explained.
Without DePrima at the helm, the Crimson offense struggled, mustering only 264 total yards and only 29 through the air. Craig finished the game with a mere 13 yards passing and failed to complete his first collegiate pass until late in the third quarter on a dump off to wideout Ledger Hatch.
But, the Crimson offense was not the only one to struggle Saturday evening. It was tough sledding for the Big Green all afternoon. Incapable of stringing together long drives, Dartmouth narrowly surpassed 100 yards of total offense in the first half. Unable to find the end zone on multiple trips to the red zone, the Big Green’s offense couldn’t keep pace, even if that pace wasn’t very fast. Despite a few chunk plays, quarterback Dylan Cadwallader struggled to avoid the Crimson rush and was sacked twice.
After the game, Dartmouth Head Coach Sammy McCorkle noted that the Big Green offense did not do enough to win despite their defense intercepting DePrima twice. On both occasions, the Big Green garnered zero points off the turnovers.
“We got turnovers, but we need to capitalize on that,” McCorkle stated. “We can’t put ourselves in a situation where we can’t get three points. We’ll continue to work on that. We will work on that. We need to improve that for sure.”
When it mattered the most, the Crimson leaned on junior running back Shane McLaughlin to do it all. With little success through the air, McLaughlin took matters into his own hands, leading the way on a nice block for Craig, who took it in from three yards out. The score would put the Crimson up 14-6 with 20 seconds remaining in the third.
On Harvard’s final drive of the game leading up to a 22-yard Cali Canaval field goal, McLaughlin touched the ball five times and marched the offense down the field, bleeding the clock. McLaughlin finished with 156 yards on the ground on 24 rushes against the fourth-ranked rush defense in all of FCS. McLaughlin complimented both the defense and the offensive line following the contest.
“Speaking for the offense, the first thing I can say is that the defense kept us in the game. We owe everything to them. And, just trusting the offensive line. Those guys know what they’re doing. They stayed poised even when the passing game wasn’t doing that well.”
Down 11 with 3:26 remaining in the game, the Big Green needed a miracle. Cadwallader led Dartmouth 60-yards, showing off his Dan Marino impression along the way with a fake spike attempt, all the Big Green could come away with was three points. A failed onside kick moments later sealed the deal and Craig took a snap in victory formation.
“The first thing was just trusting my coaches,” Craig said. “All I can do is trust my coaches, my O-Line, my running backs and just piggyback off them.”
Harvard’s victory puts the Crimson back atop the Ivy League standings at 3-1 in the conference tied with Princeton. But, notably, five teams in the Ivy League sit at 2-2 in league play. The race for the conference title remains wide open and with less than a handful of games remaining in the season, these last few weeks will be crucial for both Harvard and Dartmouth’s chances at taking home the Ivy League Title.
As for Murphy’s big accomplishment on an emotional day, in typical Murphy fashion, he credited a long line of players and coached for all the success.
“The people who won those victories, they are 1,000-plus kids that lined up here for the last 30 years and the 66 assistant coaches who lined up here the last 30 years,” he added. “We’re all shareholders of that. It’s as simple as that. You’re only as good as the people around you. We’ve just had a lot of good people around us and that’s how it happened, truly.”
