Big Green Teams

All right, football fans, as you sit by the fire and contemplate the coming of Christmas and peruse these words, have a heart for the author who is trying to make sense out of the most mixed-up, crazy Ivy League football race in history—two weeks before it's over and six teams still have a chance to win the brass ring.

It's really an impossibility—Jimmy the Greek would think twice before posting the odds.

What it really represents is college football at its competitive best and at this juncture Dartmouth is regaining the edge that showed through against Princeton and Brown but then faded for a couple of weeks at Harvard and Yale.

When we last wrote, Dartmouth had won four straight against two outsiders —New Hampshire and Holy Cross— and two insiders—Princeton and Brown. During those four weeks the Green steadily built momentum to a point where Brown was overrun by a 35-point barrage in the second period that paved the way to a 49-20 win.

Then came Harvard and a day of utter frustration that ended in a 21-21 Standoff. The score looks straightforward but when you consider that nine of Dartmouth's points came on three Ted Perry field goals, that Perry missed conversion kicks after both Dartmouth touchdowns and that Harvard scored two of its three touchdowns with fumble recoveries in the Green end zone and at Dartmouth's two-yard line, looks can be deceiving.

That's the way it was on Saturday, October 28. A week later in New Haven, it wasn't even close. Dartmouth found out what happens when a team plays a near-perfect game. More often than not, it's the Green that plays to the brink of perfection but on November 4 it was all Yale as Dartmouth was clobbered 45-14.

That score, 45-14, is the perfect example of what a whacky league the Ivy is this fall. The week before their Dartmouth performance, the Elis went to Cornell and fumbled eight times. Cornell recovered five of them and that helped the Red to a 24-13 win. The week after, as Dartmouth rebounded with a convincing 38-8 romp over Columbia, Yale visited Pennsylvania. Penn built a 41-0 lead and won, 48-30, a most improbable result.

When you think back to the dark ages of this season when Brown gave departing coach Len Jardine one of his few Ivy League wins, 28-20 over Penn, it's hard to imagine what else might happen. About the only thing that seems certain is that Penn has atoned for that loss with wins over Princeton, Harvard, and Yale and appears to be a whisker away from knocking Dartmouth out of the driver's seat.

With two games to play, these were the standings: Dartmouth 3-1-1; Yale, Cornell and Penn 3-2; Harvard and Princeton 2-2-1. It demonstrates what college football should be all about. Francis Rosa, writing in The BostonGlobe, said it this way:

"... what difference does it make if it is the super football played in the Big Eight or the somewhat less than super football played in the Ivy League. It is relative.

"The thing is competition. When any team in a league has a chance to beat another the league has become competive. The Big Eight is competitive. The Ivy League is competitive. Each at its own level.

"Football at Oklahoma is a way of life. Football at Dartmouth is only a part of life. Winning can be just as important, losing can be just as bitter in Norman or in Hanover. And ties are universally frustrating.

"Competition is the thing. The Big Eight has it. So does the Ivy League. To each his own."

That word "competitive" is an understatement this fall. Ask Jake Crouthamel.

Before the season began, Jake said, "It won't be unlikely that a team will lose two games this fall and still tie for the championship. How can it be any more confusing than to be beaten by 30 points one week and win by 30 the next? It just doesn't make sense."

The race is tighter and includes more teams than ever before, including the years when there were triple-ties for the title. What may prove to be Dartmouth's downfall won't be a second loss but rather that frustrating tie at Harvard.

"Count the ways we could have won at Harvard," said Crouthamel. "There were so many different times the game turned our way and we failed to capitalize that it makes me sick to think of them.

"Who would believe that we would— or could (1) fumble in the end zone; (2) fumble on our two-yard line; (3) fumble on the Harvard 26 when we could at least try a field goal; (4) miss a fourth-and-one situation on the Harvard eight or (5) miss two extra points.

"The longest time our offensive unit was on the field was when time out was taken for a 90-second television commercial."

Earlier in the week during the Alumni Hall quarterback luncheon, Crouthamel had remarked that he hoped the game would be won by the better team and not decided by breaks. It wasn't to be.

When Harvard punted after being stopped on its first chance, things turned to worms. Wesley Pugh fielded the punt inside his 10, started left and then surprised Rick Klupchak with a reverse handoff. The ball fell free and rolled to the end zone where Kerry Rifkin, the Harvard center, recovered.

Dartmouth used the bomb, a 59-yard pass from Steve Stetson to Tyrone Byrd, to get back into things but Perry missed the conversion and when Harvard turned a scramble by quarterback Eric Crone that might have been a loss into a 56-yard pass completion, the Crimson were set up for another score.

Perry's first field goal, a 36-yarder, made it 14-9 and then, in the final 64 seconds of the first half, Dartmouth finally jumped ahead.

Stetson passed 14 yards to halfback Doug Lind to make it 15-14 (Perry missed again) and when a blocked punt was covered by Dartmouth at Harvard's 21 with one second left in the half, Perry got another chance and booted a 38-yard field goal that hit the left upright and bounced Dartmouth's way.

Another field goal by Perry, this one from 23 yards away, made it 21-14 in the third period and Dartmouth seemed safe.

No way. Stetson, who had one of his worst days, was nailed on a naked rollout to the left inside Dartmouth's five. He fumbled, Harvard recovered at the two and in one play had tied the score.

Harvard coach Joe Restic second- guessed himself afterward about not trying for a two-point conversion but with more than a full period to play, Crouthamel agreed that he, too, would have settled for a tie at that point. It's about the only time in two years that Crouthamel has agreed with Restic on anything.

The visit to Yale was more numbing than frustrating. The Elis, unveiling a sophomore quarterback named Tom Doyle, scored the first four times they had the ball, a parade that was reminiscent of the 1967 game when Yale ripped a previously unbeaten Dartmouth team, 56-15.

Between Doyle, Dick Jauron (the super halfback) and a couple of sophomore runners named Tyrell Hennings and Rudy Green, Yale unleashed a four-barreled wishbone attack that left Dartmouth dazed.

It was 24-0 a minute into the second period and Dartmouth had to go to the air. Just before halftime, Stetson got it going with passes that set up Klupchak's four-yard scoring run.

When Perry's onside kickoff was recovered by John Potts, a sophomore linebacker, Dartmouth had another light. Stetson completed a quick pass to Lind and then a 24-yard touchdown toss to Chuck Thomas.

Suddenly, it was 24-14 and the momentum had shifted to Dartmouth's side of the field.

That was all. The Green got a break when Jauron's 43-yard run on a faked punt was nullified by a penalty but Dartmouth's last good drive of the day was ended shortly thereafter by a fumble.

"We might have scored again and gotten close but the way Yale played I don't think there's any way we could have won," said Crouthamel. "Yale didn't make an offensive mistake in the game but when one of our players came to me after the game and asked if we were really 'that bad,' I answered without qualification, 'NO!'"

When Columbia came to Memorial Field for the Houseparties Weekend game it wasn't so much that Dartmouth wanted to salve the wounds of last year's 31-29 loss in New York (any more than Columbia wanted to atone for the 55-0 shellacking absorbed here two years ago) as it was a case of the Green wanting to prove they are a good team this fall.

"I thought our defense hit as hard as they could against Princeton but I was wrong," said Crouthamel. "I was wrong. There was some fierce hitting, particularly in the first half, and particularly by Doug Jaeger."

"There isn't a better linebacker in the Ivy League than Doug," said Rick Taylor, who coaches the Green linebackers. Jaeger shared the limelight with Tom Csatari, the end who was worked over by Columbia last year. Between them, Jaeger and Csatari were involved in 15 tackles . . . Jaeger knocked down two Columbia passes and Csatari recovered two of the five Lion fumbles that found their way into Dartmouth hands.

While the defense created opportunities, Stetson & Company took advantage. Columbia entered the game ranked third nationally in pass defense and fifth in scoring defense.

When Stetson was finished with his best passing day (completing 16 of 24 for 186 yards and a touchdown), Dartmouth had annihilated the Lions who were coming off a solid win over Cornell.

Stetson made a shambles of Columbia. He scored the first touchdown on a five-yard run, used efficient passes into the sidelines ("Their coverage scheme left the flats open," he said afterward) to set up Perry's field goal and a one-yard dive by Thomas, and flipped a 10-yard pass to tight end Gregg Brown for another touchdown that made it 24-0 at halftime.

Columbia felt the way Dartmouth had the week before at Yale, especially in the middle of the third period when Klupchak uncorked a run that ranks with the 69-yard run by Ben Bridges against Princeton as the finest individual effort of the season.

Klupchak rolled around right end on a power play, broke two tackles and had great blocking help from Thomas, Byrd and tight end Bill Carpenter as he spun away for 60 yards and a touchdown. "I couldn't see who threw the blocks but all of a sudden I was open," said the junior halfback who barring injury should become Dartmouth's alltime rushing leader (replacing a guy named Crouthamel) by the end of next season.

The Green got some icing on the final play of the game, too, when Jeff Barndt, a sophomore fullback, showed persistence in the face of enemy tacklers and barged 23 yards for his first varsity touchdown.

If there's a comparative sign between this season and last, when Dartmouth came back to win the Ivy crown, it could well be the Columbia game. A year ago, the Green bounced back after losing to Columbia and came through with their two best games against Cornell and Princeton.

They had their backs to the wall, too, after the loss at Yale and proceeded to take the first of three necessary steps toward an unprecedented fourth straight championship by trouncing Columbia.

Should Dartmouth come through again, it will be a most hard-earned crown. It's a situation that should be heeded because there are no more laughers on Dartmouth's schedule. The Green is still a very good football team but so is everyone else. The record and the way this fall's puzzle has developed are testimony to that fact.

There can be a tendency toward smugness whan a team wins 30 of 34 games (which is what Dartmouth has done from the start of the 1969 season until the eve of the Cornell game) but it would seem fair to say that the days of domination are becoming history.

There are thorns ablooming in Dartmouth's gridiron rose garden.

Two ferocious goal-line stands, such as this one in the third quarter, stoppedCornell touchdown bids and helped the Big Green to win at Ithaca, 31-22.

Rick Klupchak, the Big Green's leadingground-gainer, capped his season with a72-yard scoring dash against Cornelland a 50-yarder against Pennsylvania.

A big factor in the lopsided win over Columbia was Dartmouth's outstandingdefensive play, led by linebacker Doug Jaeger (34) who is shown stopping GeorgeGeorges with the help of John Liebert (46), his fellow linebacker.