Notes on the Win over Maine

The Bulldogs came out fired up for their home opener on Saturday with Kurt Rawlings leading Yale on a gutsy scoring drive on the first possession.  Long passes to Shohfi and Howland set Yale up in good position before Rawlings finished it off with a one yard scamper into the end zone.  Rawlings sported an elbow brace on his left elbow (in addition to his usual knee brace) and the nagging injury appeared to cause him some pain on that initial drive.

Shofi and Klubnik were no match for the Black Bears’ secondary.  Shohfi finished with ten catches for 124 yards, while Klubnik added six catches for 85 yards and three touchdowns.  Garrett White and CJ McCord saw extended action at the third wide receiver position.  At the tight end spot, Howland had three catches for 69 yards and Roman made his first career catch for 23 yards on a crucial drive.

Aside from Charles’ touchdown run, the offensive line struggled with run blocking.  Alston was only able to average 2.4 yards per carry with his longest run being just 11 yards.  Dudek and Lamar did not suit up.  High snaps plagued the Bulldogs in the first half, but Cepalia was able to clean it up for the second half.  Pass blocking was hit or miss, yet for the most part, Rawlings had a couple of seconds on each play to get rid of the ball.  Rawlings has great awareness of where pressure is coming from and can often escape from the first pass rusher.  The player of the game was easily Rawlings who threw for 306 yards and three touchdowns.

The defense had their best outing of the year on Saturday.  Two big scoring plays from the Black Bears kept the contest close in the second half.  Tackling and pursuit were much improved from a week ago, although poor tackling did lead to one of the long scoring plays.  On the other Maine touchdown, the running back ran by Awodiran for a long reception as Awodiran was caught peeking back to the quarterback.  Rodney Thomas had his best career game with five solo tackles and two passes defended that were nearly interceptions.  Dathan Hickey made solid improvements from a week ago.  Dixon and Henson were not seen in the secondary.  Hunter Roman was stellar once again and Matthaie, Keeler and Moore performed well along the defensive line.

Galland was 5/5 on extra points and averaged 40.4 yards per punt.  He also handled much of the kickoff duty and we’re unsure if Blake Horn was hurt or if Reno simply wanted to squib it to throw off the Maine kick return team.  The Yale Bowl’s grass was in poor shape and several young players without much experience playing on the surface were slipping.

Yale faces off against the Dartmouth Big Green at 6 PM ET on Friday at the Bowl.