PENN 39, DARTMOUTH 6
The next week, the honeymoon was over. Before a crowd of 70,000 at Franklin Field, the roof fell in on a game but hopelessly outclassed Dartmouth team which had apparently been reading the papers and hence were afflicted with a severe case of the jitters before the Penn juggernaut even rolled on the field. The consensus of players and other interested persons seems to be that Penn was definitely better than we were (say a couple of touchdowns) but not that much better (five touchdowns). The gallant little band which went down to Philadelphia last year, led by the great Meryll Frost, did not have either the depth or the know-how of this Dartmouth team, but they nevertheless held the mighty Penn to a measly 12-0 win and had two touchdowns called back (Dartmouth, I mean) in the bargain. But this year the Green just didn't have it this particular day. Very little went completely right and little more went comparatively right. Penn was too good for us.
To give you the good news first. The Dartmouth passing attack, engineered largely by Pensavalle, was successful in 8 out of 15 attempts for a total of 89 yards. One of these attempts brought about the lone Dartmouth touchdown, with Bob Poet making a remarkable catch a few yards from the Penn goal line and bulling over for the score shortly after the start of the second quarter. Early in the third quarter, another pass from the same source but to a different receiver (Carl Tracy) might have produced another score since the would-be catcher was completely in the clear when he ignominiously dropped a perfect strike in his hands. Still another pass from Gostello to Russell was good for 26 yards late in the game, but this was not only too little but definitely too late.
The Dartmouth running attack was largely shackled by the massive Penn line, led by Ail-American George Savitsky, whose 260 pounds were like the Rock of Gibralter on defense and a bulldozer on offense. The combined efforts of the Green in the running department netted a modest 94 yards, against the 302 yards from, the same source by the Penns. The latter were led by Tony Minisi, who retired from the Naval Academy this fall just before the opening of the football season and in plenty of time to make three touchdowns against Dartmouth. Minisi was practically unstoppable every time he had his hands on the ball, running for some 189 yards in four carries, which is not a bad record in any league. The downfield blocking of the Red and Blue was particularly devastating for the Green, with the big fast Penn backs running wild once they were past the line of scrimmage.
By one of those curious statistical quirks, only in the matter of first downs did the Green look reasonably formidable, with a total of 10 to the 11 run up by Pennsylvania. The only difficulty in this form of comparison, however, was that instead of bothering about first downs, the home town boys on six occasions went all the way to a TD. First downs are fun, but they pay off in touchdowns. The real statistical clue to the disparity' between the teams, on this mild October afternoon at least, appeared in the above-mentioned total of yards gained by rushing, with 302 for Penn and 94 for Dartmouth. We were bothered again by the kicking in the continued absence of Tom Douglas, for not only were the Dartmouth ventures in this direction very abbreviated, but at least one was completely and several others partially blocked by a raging Penn line which brushed aside the Dartmouth protectors as though they outweighed them 25 pounds to the man. Which they did.
The team came out of this game badly battered in body as well as spirit. The two most serious casualities were in the tackle department, which was expected to be the most vulnerable spot at the start of the season. Both Gus Clucas, the first-string left tackle, and Hal Lewis, the second-string ditto, emerged from this game with leg ailments which incapacitated them for the Brown game the following week. Art Young was moved from guard to tackle, thus depleting a none-too-strong guard squard, to plug the resultant gap. The other starting guard, Don Alvarez, was so severely shaken up by the relentless mauling of the gargantuan Pennsylvania operatives that his usefulness the following week was limited. All in all, this was a dismal afternoon for Dartmouth.
