Green Defense Beat Crimson--Valpey

Harvard couldn't stop Dartmouth, and couldn't start itself. Nobody can win a game if he can't score, and the Crimson couldn't--for the following reasons:

1. Inexperience. Neither Duke Sedgwick nor Will Davis had over played guard before in a game, and Davis had never even scrimmaged at running guard. When injured Howie Houston came in to take over at left guard, he was hampered by a lack of speed and timing.

2. Blocking, of which there was none too much. Though most of the missed blocks can be attributed to a baffling Dartmouth defense which clouded the offensive assignments, there were still numerous examples of blocks, especially in the open field, which were missed cold.

3. Lack of backfield speed. What holes in the line there were usually waned by the time the back arrived at the line of scrimmage. In this respect, it was like the Columbia game.

Green Defense

4. The excellent Dartmouth defense, about which Art Valpey said, "That is what beat us." On a technical level, it was a "stunted" defense, wherein the Green backerups charged right into the holes even before the play opened, mangling the blocking assignments and wreaking havoc on the slow-opening Crimson offense. An excellent set of defensive halfbacks and a good safety man permitted Tuss McLaughry to treat the traditional concept of line backing this cavalierly.

On the other side of the scrimmage line, Dartmouth exhibited a steady though short-gaining ground offense, and a very successful passing attack. Whenever a crucial play came up, quarterback Clayton usually relied on the passing game. Three times he pulled the optional bootleg pass and run. When the halfbacks didn't come up, he ran; when they did, he passed to the unprotected receivers they had abandoned. The really tragic part of it all was that on each occasion either all the defending backs, or none of them, came up to deal with Mr. Clayton.

Nose Tackle

Fortunately, nobody for a change was permanently put out of action. Early in the first quarter, Davis tackled Dartmouth fullback Carey with what amounted to his face, and Carey's cleats broke his nose. But a specialist was called out of the stands, and set the bone in the record time of four minutes, just about as fast as it took to hook a nose guard onto his helmet. He played the rest of the game.

At the post-game press conference, Valpey looked just about as sad as he did after the 1948 Dartmouth contest, another game they could have won, but didn't.