With the Ivy League championship on the line, Dartmouth football traveled down to Providence on Saturday to face off against the Brown University Bears. The Big Green took over in a dominant second half, cruising to a 52-31 victory and claiming a share of the 2021 Ivy League title.
Princeton University likewise defeated the University of Pennsylvania Saturday afternoon 34-14, giving the Tigers and the Big Green identical 6-1 conference records on the season and making them Ivy League co-champions. Both teams went 9-1 overall. Princeton’s lone loss came at the hands of the Big Green on Nov. 5, when Dartmouth trounced them in a 31-7 rout. Dartmouth’s only blemish came against Columbia University on Oct. 22 in a 19-0 clunker, the Big Green’s first time putting no points on the board in a decade.
This win marks Dartmouth football’s 20th Ivy League championship, the most of any program. It is also their second-consecutive Ivy title — before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the suspension of the 2020 season, the Big Green were coming off a 2019 campaign that saw them finish with a 6-1 conference record and split the crown with Yale University.
In his last game for the Big Green, longtime quarterback Derek Kyler ’21 put on a masterclass throwing the ball: 18-for-24 passing for 215 yards and three touchdowns to three different receivers. He also added 73 yards and a score on the ground on just six carries.
Dartmouth’s varied rushing attack also made its impact felt throughout this matchup. Nick Howard ’23, the Ivy League’s third-leading rusher by yardage and first by touchdowns entering play, added 80 yards and two scores to his tally, while three other rushers, including Kyler, crossed the 60-yard mark.
Howard scored the first touchdown of the game in the first quarter, but early on it looked as if Brown would give Dartmouth a competitive game. The Bears answered quickly, tying the game with a one-yard touchdown run of their own. Brown scored the next touchdown as well, taking a 14-7 lead, its first and only of the contest.
Following that score, Dartmouth needed to answer to avoid a potential spoiler. Noah Roper ’23 provided the spark, taking a short pass from Kyler 60 yards to the house to tie the game. The Big Green defense forced a turnover on downs on the next possession and capitalized on its advantageous field position with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Jonny Barrett ’23.
Still, Brown kept it close, nailing a field goal late in the half to cut Dartmouth’s lead to 21-17. Connor Davis ’22 added a field goal of his own as the half wound down, giving the Big Green a 7-point advantage at halftime, 24-17.
The Big Green came out in the second half looking determined to extend the lead. With two more touchdowns in the third — a Kyler strike to J.J. Jones III ’21 Th’22 for 24 yards put the Big Green up 31-17, and a seven-yard run from the quarterback made it 38-17 — Dartmouth started to put the game away. A third straight touchdown, this time a one-yard score from Howard, gave the Big Green a four-score lead and put a Bears victory well out of reach.
Brown’s offense then showed some signs of life — the 31 points Dartmouth gave up to Brown was the highest-scoring performance against the Big Green defense this season — but it was far too little, too late. The deficit proved too much to surmount, and Dartmouth claimed its share of the 2021 title in comfortable fashion.
A full story with more information will be published in the near future.
