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Notes on the Loss to Dartmouth

The Bulldogs are currently sitting at 2-2 (1-1 Ivy) after a painful 41-18 loss to the Dartmouth Big Green on Friday.  Yale had chances to hang around, but penalties, missed tackles and mental errors were too much to overcome against a talented squad.

Yale’s opening drive began with a nice pass from Rawlings to Klubnik, but the drive would eventually stall.  Lamar and Dudek were back in action, although Dudek did not look to be 100%.  He just did not have the same burst and cutback ability that we have come to know and love from him.  Lamar had a few nice runs and ended up averaging 5.7 yards per carry.  It’s a shame Yale was playing behind most of the day and couldn’t lean on Lamar to drive the field and burn the clock.  Klubnik had a heck of an outing with 13 catches for 124 yards and a touchdown.  Shohfi had a modest game with 6 catches for 57 yards, but also had a crucial drop and stepped out of bounds on a touchdown.  D. Major Roman had a fantastic catch to keep a drive alive.  Trenton Charles was lethal catching passes out of the backfield and could have had a touchdown if it was not for a missed pass interference penalty.  Dartmouth’s Isiah Swann got away with another two pass interference penalties as he was clearly pulling on our receivers’ arms before the ball arrived.  Despite missing the majority of Dartmouth’s penalties, the officials flagged Yale 8 times for 56 yards erasing two touchdown plays.  The offensive line only allowed 3 sacks, but that figure is low because Rawlings was scrambling for his life.  Aside from two bad throws into coverage, Rawlings had a solid game.  The offensive line was the weakest position offensively with costly penalties on Strother and Warfield as well as several missed blocks by each member of the line on passing and running plays.

The defense had no answers for Dartmouth’s offense.  Dartmouth decided to lean heavily on their Wildcat QB, Jared Gerbino, who absolutely torched the Bulldogs for 169 yards.  Dartmouth would finish the day with 347 yards rushing and had no reason to even throw the ball as we couldn’t contain their ground assault.  Dixon and Henson were back in action, but even with our full starting secondary in the lineup, we couldn’t slow the Big Green.  The linebackers and defensive backs really struggled to get off blocks and make tackles.  Defensive ends such as Moore kept pinching inside on Gerbino runs effectively destroying any containment.  Dean and the safeties were beat on a touchdown from Hagdorn.  We also did not learn how to cover the deep running back route that Maine used as Dartmouth nearly scored on that same play as well.

We’re on to Mercer!

 

16 replies on “Notes on the Loss to Dartmouth”

WHY are we playing Mercer?!! I lost count of the number of fellow Yalies who have asked me where on earth is Mercer? Who ever heard of it? This has got to be the biggest scheduling mistake ever for Yale. They should play the game at Reese Stadium – and they won’t fill it.

Well, this year they played Memphis which was in last year’s Liberty Bowl (tho Mercer lost 66-14). 😀

But would you really want to keep playing Lehigh, Lafayette and Colgate year after year, decade after decade? The old schedule was really stale, and didn’t draw flies either.

Mercer fans are probably asking “Why are we playing Yale.” Last year they played National Champion Alabama and also Auburn and year before lost to Georgia Tech. Despite being huge underdogs their fans more likely prefer playing against Power 5 conference teams than Ivys.

On the contrary, Mercer Fans, including yours truly are quite excited to be playing Yale. Yes, it was exciting to play against Georgia Tech, Alabama, and Auburn (especially with the Bears having the ball & a chance to take the lead fairly late in the 4th quarter against the eventual SEC East Champions), but just 5 years ago, we were playing Marist, Carnegie-Mellon, and Anna Maria. 6 years ago, we didn’t have a Football Team. So, the opportunity to play against an Ivy League Team, the defending IL Champs, and in the historic Yale Bowl is quite attractive to us. Looking forward to the visit!

gentlemen: in an attempt to be gracious after watching a replay safeties and linebackers were chronically out of position and without mentioning any numbers our names safeties and linebackers missed an abundance of tackles. coaching can only be blamed for not having our blue players in the right position coaching cannot be blamed for the lack of tackling skills exhibited against the indians. the game has not changed over last four score when it comes down to blocking and tackling both of which where missing in the indian contest.

The upcoming Mercer and Richmond games serve one purpose, recruiting. OOC games mean nothing to the ivy league, so losing a few of them while gaining a toe hold in SEC recruiting country could mean a lot.

Were on to Mercer.

With all due respect, recruits are not encouraged by watching Yale get their heads handed to them on a mud field in front of 3000 people.

And believe me, the FBS coaches recruiting those kids absolutely let them know about it.

The scholarship kids we want don’t care that we have Mercer or Richmond is on our schedule. They are coming to Yale and turning down FBS scholarships for other reasons.

Haha ?
Exactly! @ Eyes on Eli’s!

I read some of the stuff people post on here like, Wahhh???

Recruits want…
1. To PLAY
2. To PLAY in front of biggest CROWD possible.
3. REALLY NICE FACILITIES and STUFF.

They are 18-19 years old!

#priorities

Queeny, you guys missed my point. Its not the home game in New Haven that puts Yale in front of southern recruits its the away game. At Mercer, at Richmond. It opens doors and also allows current players from or near the area to bring in family / friends to watch them play when otherwise traveling to New Haven really wasn’t an option. Lastly, the Ivy League isn’t selling “playing in front of the biggest crowd possible.” to its recruits. Its more of a 4 for 40 type of hype. Watch ESPN +, it is all over their ads.

I liked your analysis FUBeAR.

The surprising thing for me is how far out the current player weights are vs the published roster. I’m not sure they update them from freshman year. Is this a common phenomenon you see across your team comparisons?

I’m not sure what you mean by “how far out the current player weights are vs the published roster.”

I use the online roster – copied to an excel spreadsheet & then ID the Starters & Backups from the Game Notes depth charts to calculate the averages. I don’t compare the Game Notes HT’s/WT’s (if listed) to the Online info I have previously gathered. So the metrics are derived from the online rosters.

To answer your question about updating, I have been doing (some form) of this since 2011 and I typically see HT/WT online data updated for all Teams/Players every year shortly after they report for Pre-Season practice and weighed/measured ‘in’ as part of their reporting process. In many cases now, Teams will leave their historical rosters online, so you can see the changes over time. Yale doesn’t do that, but prior year rosters can be found with Googling. Without doing a full comparison, I see some changes over time, but not much/many. Also without a thorough comparison, the Game Notes HT/WT’s seem to agree with the online roster. Are you saying that you KNOW that the ACTUAL HT/WT’s of Yale’s Players are substantially different than the posted info? If so…it is what it is…and they are what they are. I would say that Mercer’s are more or less accurate.

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