DARTMOUTH 35, COLUMBIA 14
Despite the hortatory efforts of the coaches, the Dartmouth team apparently started the Columbia game bemused by the genial illusion that all they had to do was to show up, dressed, on the field to have the enemy roll over and play dead. This Columbia refused to do. In fact, Lou Little's Lions were so rude as to ignore completely their role as underdogs throughout most of the first half, in the course of which they scored the first touchdown and had the Indians in hot water almost continuously until the waning moments of the second quarter. At that point, Dartmouth pulled itself together, scored a couple of quick touch- downs, and left the field at the half leading by the slender margin of one touchdown, with the score 14-7. In the second half, the rampaging boys in Green sewed up the game and went on to win handily, going away. But they will remember the first twenty minutes for some time.
When the Dartmouth cohorts got going, they really rolled, scoring two TDs in the waning minutes of the first half (the second with only 20 seconds to go) and marking up a couple more before the second half was more than five minutes old. Striking with devastating fury, the Green, directed by John Clayton, thus scored four touchdowns in something like six minutes. Which is practically par for the course. The first score came on a short pass from Clayton to Red Rowe, who thereby reentered the scoring column with a bang, after graciously allowing his colleague Dave Beeman to take the spotlight against Harvard and Yale. The big red-head marked up another TD for himself later in the game, for a neat personal total of 12 points. With only 20 seconds to go after the initial Dartmouth tally, Columbia punted to the Green 40-yard line doubtless expecting the latter to employ the next few seconds in some futile fashion. They reckoned without Bill Dey (who played a terrific game both offensively and defensively all day), who gathered in the punt and raced 60 yards into the end zone. This was the one that broke Columbia's back. From then on, it was no contest.
The second half opened with a continued display of offensive power by the Green. Bob Tyler, returned to active duty after several weeks on the bench with a broken arm, ran the opening kickoff back 51 yards. Fitkin, also back in top form, then took over and, assisted by another Clayton-to-Rowe pass and a couple of dashes by Carey, took the ball down to the 1-yard line. From there, Herb Carey plunged over for the score. Not content with this feat, Captain Carey promptly intercepted a wayward Columbia pass and raced 40 yatds to score unmolested. By this time, Columbia was disorganized and the score was 28-7, with Dey kicking all four (and finally the fifth) point after touchdown.
At that juncture, the Green relaxed slightly from its unprecedented scoring exertions and Coach McLaughry decided to give Clayton the rest of the afternoon off. Gil Mueller and Bob McCraney carried on from there, with the former engineering the last Dartmouth touchdown on a jump pass to Red Rowe. This TD had been set up largely by the continued explosive rushes of Bill Roberts, who tore large, gaping holes in the wilting Columbia forward wall. Roberts, incidentally, was the leading ground-gainer in the tvy League, which position he maintained during this brisk afternoon.
The final Columbia score came in the final quarter, when the Dartmouth backfield was manned by subordinates. At that, it took an interference penalty giving Columbia possession on the Green 12, plus a number of plunges at the line, to put it over. Once again the superiority of Dartmouth was evidenced in the aerial department, with 12 completions (two for TDs) out of 19 attempts, as against 5 completions out of 22 attempts for the Light Blue. First downs stood at 20 for Dartmouth and 12 for Columbia, and yards gained rushing were 178 and 111 respectively. And once again the stalwart and relatively unsung heroes of Coach Dell Isola's up front effectively manhandled their opponents to enable the backs to go tearing by.
