Football Looks to Top Ivy League Against Dartmouth

Ivy League football has neither an end-of-season playoff nor a championship game, which means that all regular season matchups mean something. If you lose, you risk dropping off the map; if you win, you come one weekend closer to an Ancient Eight title.

This Friday night at home, the Harvard football team (6-0, 3-0 Ivy) will play the most important 60 minutes of its season, squaring off against Dartmouth (6-0, 3-0 Ivy) in a matchup that seems destined to decide the Ivy League champion.

“Every game is important because we know that we get every team’s best shot,” said senior offensive lineman Cole Toner. “But this is the big one.”

The stakes have been building ever since August, when media pundits picked the Crimson and the Big Green to finish one-two in the Ivy League. Since then the two sides have fulfilled those preseason expectations, largely speeding from blowout to blowout in advance of Friday’s showdown.

Forget Harvard-Yale. In the 2015 football season, this is the Game.

“Your senior year, every game, especially in conference, is a championship game,” senior safety Scott Peters said. “[If] you can’t get excited for this one, then something’s wrong with you.”

Last season, in Hanover, N.H., Harvard dealt the Big Green its only league loss—a 23-12 defeat in which Crimson running back Paul Stanton, then a junior, rushed for 180 yards. That result left Dartmouth’s hopes in limbo until the final weekend of play, when Harvard beat Yale to take the Ancient Eight Championship and leave the Big Green alone in second place.

Old grudges die hard, and Dartmouth will take the field this weekend with lingering resentment from 2014, not to mention the emotional baggage of 11 straight losses to the Crimson.

This long winless streak reflects the historical mediocrity of the Big Green, but all signs indicate that this year is different. Dartmouth has not started a season 6-0 since 1996, and the 2015 team boasts NFL-caliber skill, deep experience, and undeniable hunger.

Senior quarterback Dalyn Williams possesses all three traits. The dual-threat play-caller has averaged 318 yards of total offense a game and thrown 14 touchdowns compared to one pick-in short: nearly flawless.

Along with Williams, the Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, the Big Green has the Preseason Defensive Player of the year in linebacker Will McNamara. He anchors a defense that ranks second in all of college football with nine points allowed per game.

The Crimson ranks first with seven.

On these steely defenses, both teams return enviable depth. Exactly half of the Preseason All-Ivy Defense hails from Dartmouth, and all seven of these players are seniors.

“They’ve had kids playing on that defense since my freshman year,” Toner said. “They’re the most physical defense we play for sure, but I think we’re ready.”

Meanwhile Harvard returns seven of 11 starters from a 2014 unit that led the country in scoring defense.

Were it not for high-powered offenses, Friday’s matchup might seem fate for a 0-0 draw. But the Big Green and the Crimson also have the two highest -scoring attacks in the Ancient Eight at 34 and 44 points a game, respectively.

While Dalyn Williams reigns as the best quarterback in the conference, the Crimson’s senior starter Scott Hosch has never lost a college game.

On the ground, Stanton has returned with a fury, putting up 103 yards a game and nearly two touchdowns a game.

But the same depth defines the Dartmouth attack. A committee of runners has totaled 147 yards per outing, and senior wide receiver Victor Williams has almost matched this productivity on his own, accumulating 655 total receiving yards for the Big Green.

In a bizarre twist, neither team’s offensive scheme will be entirely novel because the two teams scrimmaged each other during preseason. This Dartmouth-Harvard tune-up is an annual tradition—and according to Peters, the score is always close.

However, preseason snaps can hardly serve to prepare players for the 60-minute battle that will take place on Friday—a battle in which bitterness is in the background, perfection is in peril, and the Ivy League title is on the line.

“We know that this is our Ivy League championship basically,” Peters said. “This is why we do all the winter workouts and all the spring ball.... It’s for games like this.”

Staff writer Sam Danello can be reached at sdanello@thecrimson.com.