The Raiders (3-0, 0-0 Patriot) looted Dartmouth's game, as Colgate rushed for 292 yards and passed for 172 yards. The Big Green gained only 173 yards on the day over its 44 offensive plays.
Dartmouth (0-1, 0-0 Ivy) did show promise, however, holding Colgate's preseason All-American wide receiver Pat Simonds to three receptions for 64 yards and a touchdown. Simonds, a senior, averaged 5.4 catches and 94.7 yards per game last season.
Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens said that the team showed some encouraging signs and played better than it had against Harvard in the team's recent preseason scrimmage, but admitted that he was still disappointed with the outcome of the game.
"We were sporadic offensively, but had chances to make some plays," he said. "The mistakes specifically on the offensive side really hampered our productivity."
These mental errors, which the team calls "missed assignments," seemed to be the Big Green's major stumbling block against Colgate's experienced defense.
Veteran safety Tony Pastoors '10 led Dartmouth's defense with 16 tackles, and four other defenders posted 10 or more tackles on the day.
The Big Green defense has a new mentality this season, Pastoors said, which helped them slow down Colgate's tough offense including Simonds.
"We have a new defensive coordinator, coach [Sammy] McCorkle, who's trying to teach us a mentality that we're going to play together as 11," he said. "It's not an individual thing, and we're going to try to carry that outlook through the season."
On the offensive side, quarterback Alex Jenny '10 completed just 11 out of 28 passes for 147 yards and a single touchdown.
The Raiders got on the board first, setting the tone for the rest of the game. Colgate notched its first score with 3:44 remaining in the first quarter, after a drive that lasted over five minutes.
Seven out of Dartmouth's 11 drives lasted less than one minute.
The combination of Colgate's time-consuming "grind-it-out" offense and Dartmouth's control problems was a major impediment to Dartmouth's success, Teevens said.
"[Colgate] works the run game heavily, and we didn't get them off the field with regularity," he said. "Coupled with our offense not maintaining drives and too many three-and-outs, we didn't control the ball."
The Big Green gave a quick answer to the Raiders' initial score, however, as Shawn Abuhoff '12 returned the kickoff to the Dartmouth 43-yard line.
After a Colgate penalty, Jenny connected with Michael Reilly '12 for a 57-yard touchdown that knotted the score at 7-7, and marked the Big Green's first touchdown of the season the first of Reilly's collegiate career.
After a Colgate touchdown with 7:44 left in the second quarter, the Raiders' extra-point attempt was blocked by defensive tackle Eddie Smith '12. Abuhoff ran the ball back down the field for a defensive two-point conversion, Dartmouth's first in 16 years, making the score 13-9.
The rest of Dartmouth's points came from two field goals delivered by kicker Foley Schmidt '12.
Dartmouth tied the game up in the first quarter and even held a 15-13 lead for several minutes in the third quarter the Big Green's first lead since an early field goal put the team ahead of Holy Cross 3-0 on Oct. 18, 2008. But Dartmouth did not control of the ball enough to create many scoring opportunities. Over the game's 60 minutes, the Big Green was only in possession for 15:30.
The team made use of its few chances, however, scoring on both of its red zone opportunities.
Greg Sullivan, Colgate's quarterback, was an offensive force on Saturday. In addition to a touchdown pass, the junior rushed for 51 yards, running in two scores himself.
Pastoors said that, although he believes the Big Green defense played well this weekend, the players know they can do better in the future.
"The Colgate offense isn't complicated it's pretty simple, but very good," he said. "It's tough to stop, and I wouldn't say we really stopped them, but we slowed them down at times."
The Big Green will head south to face off against in-state foe University of New Hampshire in the annual Granite Bowl match-up next weekend. Dartmouth will do well, Teevens said, if the team can limit its mistakes.
"[New Hampshire is] a very good football team, and we need to play strong in all facets," he said. "We need to be strong defensively and carry the load offensively."
The game kicks off at noon on Saturday in Manchester, N.H.
