Football: Dartmouth ends 7-game skid vs. Old Nassau

Those aware of the Orange and Black tradition know that this was no small accomplishment. Princeton boasts the nation’s oldest football team, dating back to the first-ever intercollegiate gridiron game, a 6-4 loss at Rutgers in 1869. In their first 141 seasons, the Tigers never finished with a record as poor as this year’s 1-9 mark, and only once before did they lose every Ivy League game (1973).

Dartmouth players emptied a cooler over head coach Buddy Teevens, celebrating the end of a long run of futility. This marked the Big Green’s first winning season in 13 years, and the first time in seven years that it beat Princeton to earn the Governor’s Cup.

Meanwhile, the Tigers were forced to deal with the end of a disappointing season, capped by an eight-game losing streak. The defeat was especially hard on the senior class, which played its last game of college football. That group became the first since the Class of 1979 to finish below .500 in all four of its seasons.

“Our team was focused on sending our seniors out the right way, coming together as a team one last time on our field,” sophomore linebacker Andrew Starks said. “Seeing the guys come together was somewhat nice after a bitter defeat.”

The Tigers could, however, draw some hope from their joyous counterparts. The last team to go winless in the Ivy League, coincidentally, was Dartmouth, during a 0-10 season in 2008. Two years later, the Big Green took Penn, the eventual league champion, to overtime, and Dartmouth outscored its opponents by more than five points per game, losing only one game by more than a touchdown.

Head coach Bob Surace ’90 said his team is capable of making the same jump in the coming years. “The record is what it is, and you can’t change that,” he said. “But in my freshman year, we were 2-8, and they were building blocks for what went on to be a very successful decade. These guys have many of the same characteristics.” Princeton won a share of the Ivy League championship when Surace was a senior.

Princeton already did not have much margin for error in a strong Ivy League, and a slew of injuries fully derailed its season. Eight members of the opening-day lineup did not start on Saturday — including two of the three senior captains, linebacker Steven Cody and running back Jordan Culbreath, as well as junior quarterback Tommy Wornham — and several other regular players missed time. The Tigers’ inexperience was evident in Saturday’s game: The offense committed six pre-snap penalties, likely because players were on the field with unfamiliar teammates.

Statistically, the game did not seem like a blowout: Princeton was outgained by only 60 yards, earned more first downs and held a potent Big Green rushing attack to just 3.7 yards per carry. But the Tigers struggled in critical situations. They converted just three of 13 third-down attempts — and two of six on fourth down — while Dartmouth was nine of 15.

More astounding was Princeton’s inability to finish drives. The Tigers reached the red zone three times yet always came away empty. Early in the second quarter, Surace elected to go for it on fourth-and-5 from the Dartmouth 15-yard line, but freshman quarterback Connor Kelley’s pass was tipped at the line and fell incomplete. Facing a similar situation near the end of the half, junior kicker Pat Jacob came on to get three points, but the snap was too low for the holder, Kelley, to handle.

Princeton again moved the ball well on its final series, driving to the Dartmouth 8-yard line. But Kelley’s pass to senior receiver Trey Peacock was intercepted by Shawn Abuhoff, sealing the Big Green’s first shutout in 14 years.

The visitors, on the other hand, scored on each of their four trips to the red zone. Running back Nick Schwieger put Dartmouth on the board with a 6-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, capping a seven-minute drive. Schwieger, who finished with 105 yards, found the end zone twice more on short runs and set up a third-quarter field goal by Foley Schmidt with a pair of receptions.

Early in the fourth quarter, backup quarterback Dan Rooney hit receiver Tim McManus with a deep pass, and McManus scampered for a 69-yard score, providing the final margin.

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Senior linebacker Jon Olofsson made a team-high 13 tackles on Saturday, pushing him over the century mark for the season. Peacock entered the game just 68 yards shy of 1,000, but he could not reach his milestone, managing just two receptions for 23 yards.

Neither player will be a Tiger when the team resumes play in 10 months, but many of this year’s other key performers will return.

“Every team in this league will return its starting quarterback, which is much different than this year was,” Surace said. “Our lack of depth came back to hurt us in some places, so we have to go and recruit fuller classes, because there will be injuries.”

Hopefully for the Tigers, there will be fewer than there were this year, and Princeton can start making its way back up the Ivy League standings.