Penn 10, Dartmouth 24 – Ellie Clark, Sports editor
Penn football couldn’t weather the storm against Lehigh last Saturday, and Dartmouth will be no different.
Last season, the Quakers and the Big Green tied for third place in the conference. Now, they’re entering Ivy play under very different circumstances. Penn has a new coach in Rick Santos, a starting offensive lineup full of underclassmen, and a struggling special teams room. Dartmouth, on the other hand, has a deep squad with a returning All-Ivy punter and quarterback, as well as a head coach who’s in his 22nd year with the program.
The Big Green is familiar with a Santos team – last season, the unranked Big Green upset then-No. 23 New Hampshire 27-20 on home turf. If Santos continues to employ Wildcat strategies on the gridiron, the Quakers will play right into Dartmouth’s hands, and fall to the bottom of the conference standings.
Penn 20, Dartmouth 16 – Daniel Obstgarten, Sports reporter
The Red and Blue seems pretty accurate: a red-hot defense and an icy-blue offense have dominated conversation heading into Penn’s first Ivy gameday. The Quakers’ situation creates an interesting contrast with the Big Green – Dartmouth is gaining a lot of turf, but giving it up just as quickly.
Dartmouth is coming in with a high-flying offense that’s putting up just over 350 yards per game with a clear preference for passing. However, Penn has the best passing defense in the FCS, leading the way in opponent passing yards, opponent yards per attempt, and opponent yards per completion. I’d expect Dartmouth to struggle against this dominant Quaker defense, just as Lehigh was well below its typical output in last week’s game.
The most interesting matchup of the day comes on third downs. Dartmouth is the best third-down team in the nation, while Penn’s defense allows the lowest third-down conversion rate in the nation, letting teams get a fresh set of downs just 17% of the time.
On the other side of the ball, Penn has an abysmal conversion rate while Dartmouth allows opponents to convert at historically-awful levels. I’d place higher stock on Penn’s defense holding and the offense getting less dreadful than the alternative in Dartmouth’s favor.
Penn’s offense has been struggling, but they get another opportunity to gain experience against another weak defense. Fortunately, Penn’s defense is anything but weak, and I have faith in the Quaker defensemen to derail a desperate Dartmouth squad in this low-scoring open to Ivy play.
Penn 13, Dartmouth 21 – Glen Finnie, Sports reporter
The Quakers open conference play against Dartmouth hoping to rebound from a tough loss, but the Big Green will provide a greater obstacle than they may appear at first glance.
Dartmouth is still winless this season after starting the year 0-2 with losses to Lehigh and Monmouth. Although the record may seem unintimidating, the Big Green are still sure to be a dangerous opponent. Both losses came down to the wire, and Dartmouth still only has a negative seven point difference after keeping both games close.
In the first home game of the football program’s 150th year, Penn struggled significantly against a strong Lehigh team. Despite offensive struggles, the defense limited the Mountain Hawks to 3-0 by halftime. Still, Lehigh managed to put together back-to-back touchdown drives in the third quarter, finishing up with a decisive 20-7 victory. The Quakers struggled heavily to move the ball on offense. By the second half, defensive stops became rare as well.
The main point that seems to favor Dartmouth is their much stronger performance against the common opponent, Lehigh. The Big Green were only a few first downs away from beating the Mountain Hawks outright, and have been the only team to give them a real challenge. Meanwhile, Penn exhibited many of the struggles typical of a young team adjusting to a new system, and Lehigh handled business against the Quakers quite comfortably.
This game will almost certainly be a close one between two competitive programs that were picked right next to each other in preseason polls. I still have faith in Penn’s defense, but unless the offense takes a big leap going into Ivy League play, I suspect Dartmouth will hand the Quakers their second loss of the year.
Penn 17, Dartmouth 13 – Grant Han, Sports reporter
A disappointing result against Lehigh last week showed that there are many cracks that need to be addressed in the Quakers’ system. Luckily for the Red and Blue, I predict that they’ll storm into Hanover this Saturday and leave with a statement victory.
Let’s analyze this Dartmouth team. Their biggest strength is their well-rounded attack, which has carved up Lehigh through the air and overwhelmed Monmouth on the ground so far this season. The Big Green defense, on the other hand, has struggled mightily, giving up 24 and 31 points respectively in their past two games. More specifically, it has been their run defense letting them down, giving up 388 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns in only two games.
The Quakers will be lining up against a strong team this Saturday, but they should be well-equipped to deal with anything that comes their way. Penn’s defense has been consistent – they stuffed Bucknell and held Lehigh to well below their season rushing average. On the other side of the ball, Penn’s offense has shown to flow very smoothly when the run game gets going, matching them up very nicely against Dartmouth’s fragile run defense.
Assuming we don’t have the two worst punts in history again, I feel pretty comfortable picking the Quakers to bounce back.
