By Steve Conn
 |
| The 6-1 Yale Bulldogs will host Brown Friday night in a nationally televised game at the Yale Bowl. |
NEW HAVEN–Friday
night football returns to the Yale Bowl this week when the Yale Bulldogs, 6-1
overall (3-1 Ivy), riding a three-game winning streak, look to avoid a
post-Halloween scare when Brown (2-5, 0-4) visits the Bowl Friday night for a
nationally televised contest. Yale, riding a three-game winning streak, is in a
three-way tie for first place in the Ivy League with Columbia and Cornell. The
Brown game will air live on NBC Sports Network and WELI Radio (960 AM).
SERIES
So much for home
field advantage; the visiting team has won 14 of the last 21 meetings heading
into the 122nd between Yale and Brown. The Bulldogs may be up 81-35-5, but the
Bears have won 10 of the last 17. Of the 121 meetings, only 33 have come at
Brown Stadium, where the Blue is 20-10-3. The two rivals met in New Haven 32
consecutive years (1926-57), and Yale has a 61-25-2 advantage at New Haven.
LAST MEETING
RB Alan Lamar,
who is out this fall with an injury, rushed for two touchdowns and Alex Galland
booted a pair of field goals, but Yale fell short in its comeback attempt at
Brown a year ago. The Bears led all the way to a 27-22 decision.
THE ELIS
Yale, with wins
over the two other teams tied for first, is 6-1 for the first time since 2014,
when the Bulldogs won eight of their first nine games. The Bulldogs won all
three 2017 non-league games by an average of 28 points. The league games have
been more of a mix: a blowout against Cornell, a one-point loss to Dartmouth, a
comeback, close win at Penn and a dominating 23-6 win last week against
Columbia.
LAST WEEK AT THE BOWL
Yale’s defense,
which had four sacks and two interceptions, held Columbia to 206 yards of offense
and dealt the visitors their first loss of the season in a 23-6 decision at the
Bowl. QB Kurt Rawlings threw for a TD and ran for another while Zane Dudek
rushed for 173 yards and caught four passes. Backup QB Andrew Johnson threw a
10-yard, fourth-down scoring pass to TE Jaeden Graham and WR Michael Siragusa
Jr. hauled in a nine-yard TD pass while Alex Galland split the uprights on a
37-yarder.
BEARS
Brown, which has
lost four straight games, is looking for its first road win of 2017. The Bruins
earned victories in week’s one and three, going 2-1 in out of league action.
BROWN EDGED BY PENN
The Bears forced
three Quaker turnovers in their best defensive effort of the year but fell 17-7
at home. Senior All-Ivy defensive end Richard Jarvis made 10 total tackles,
while senior safety Connor Coughlin had five tackles and an interception.
Junior Daniel Aidman and sophomore Brendan Pyne (forced fumble) each registered
five tackles and a sack from their linebacker spots. Bears’ junior quarterback
Nick Duncan completed 13-of-25 passes for 86 yards, with sophomore Jakob Prall
making five catches for 35 yards.
HOME COOKING
Yale is 3-0 at
the Bowl, outscoring opponents 104-30. The Elis allowed just six points in
their last two games on the Class of 1954 Field.
BROWN-YALE MEMORIES
Chris Smith ‘13
became the first Ivy player to return two kickoffs for TDs in a game during
Yale’s 27-24 win at Providence in 2010… The Elis played spoiler in 2008 against
league unbeaten Brown and won 13-3 on the road. The clincher was a 78-yard pass
play from Brook Hart ‘11 to Peter Balsam ‘11... Ralph Plumb ‘05 set a Yale
record with 258 receiving yards in 2004 at Providence... The Bears and Bulldogs
combined for a series-record 99 points in the 2003 game at Yale Bowl, a 55-44
Brown victory that included four TD grabs for Bear WR Lonnie Hill... DB Ben
Blake ‘00 blocked Brown’s PAT attempt in the closing seconds of the 1999 game
as the visitors attempted to tie the game. However, Bear TB Mike Powell picked
up the loose ball and lateraled to FB Rob Scholl, who rambled into the end zone
for the two-point conversion and a 25-24 victory... WR Jake Borden ‘00 hauled
in a 27-yard TD pass from Joe Walland ‘00 with six seconds left as Yale pulled
out a 30-28 game at Providence in 1998... Chris Hetherington ‘96, a Yale QB who
later became an NFL fullback, rushed for 166 yards and passed for 223 in a win
over Brown in 1995... In a matchup of defending co-champions, Yale’s goal-line
stand prevented the Bruins from converting a first-and-goal from the two-yard
line with under a minute to play in a 10-9 Eli victory at the Bowl in 1977...
The two teams combined for 37 punts in a 1941 Brown (7-0) win.
900
Yale gained its
900th win last week, a total that is third among all Division I teams. Michigan
leads college football with 941 wins, while Notre Dame is second with 903. The
Bulldogs’ total includes a 1997 forfeit (ineligible player) victory against
Penn that was legislated by the Ivy League but not recognized by the NCAA. Yale
is 900-374-55 (.694) all time.
TOPS IN IVY
The Elis lead the
Ancient Eight in 14 team and six individual statistical categories as listed by
the NCAA.
FRIDAY
Yale is 1-2 on
Friday nights against Ivy schools. The Elis lost at Penn in 2015, fell to the
Quakers a year ago at the Bowl’s first true night game and then beat Columbia
at New York a week later. The only other Yale Friday night game was a 1997 win
over Valparaiso at Chicago’s Soldier Field, which was also the first victory
for Jack Siedlecki as head coach of the Bulldogs. Siedlecki is in the WELI
Radio Booth this Friday doing color commentary.
BULLDOG BACKS
RBs Deshawn
Salter (Syracuse, N.Y.) and Zane Dudek (Kittanning, Pa.) have accounted for 15
of Yale’s 18 rushing TDs while serving as one of the best combos in FCS play this
fall.
SALTER
The team’s active
career TD leader with 15, Salter is 7th in the FCS with a 6.5 average per carry
and had two straight games with three TDs, the most for an Eli back since Mike
McLeod had consecutive triple TD games in 2007.
DUDEK
Ranking second
among all Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) ball carriers with an 8.4
yards per carry mark, Dudek, who ran for 10 first downs against Columbia, has
been placed on the STATS FCS Jerry Rice Award Watch List for the top rookie in
the FCS. He owns the Yale freshman record (9) for touchdowns in a varsity
season and has been Ivy Rookie of the Week three times with four games over 100
yards. He was STATS FCS National Rookie of the Week and both Ivy offensive
player and rookie of the week after going for 173 yards against Columbia.
Dudek’s Western Pennsylvania high school game rushing record (492 yards) was
broken while he was making his collegiate debut at Lehigh.
Salter &
Dudek in 2017
Game
Salter
Dudek
Lehigh:
13-42, 1
TD
9-131, 2 TD
Cornell:
12-143, 3
TD
16-173, 1 TD
Fordham:
8-118, 3
TD
10-56, 2 TD
Dartmouth:
16-73, 0 TD
10-43, 0 TD (1 rec TD)
Holy
Cross: 12-31, 0
TD
4-45, 2 TD
Penn:
11-77, 0
TD
12-103, 1 TD
Columbia:
12-60, 0
TD
25-174, 0 TD
SACK ATTACK
Yale leads the
FCS in sacks with a 4.4 average and have now surpassed its 2016 total with 30
this fall. Senior LB Matthew Oplinger (Summit, NJ) leads the FCS averaging
better than one per game and has 9.5 on the year. Three (including a safety) of
those came against Holy Cross, the most sacks in a game for a Bulldog in 15
years. Sophomore defensive end Charles Callender (Cutler Bay, Fla.) is second
with five, while junior DE Kyle Mullen (Manalapan, NJ) has 3.5. Some of the
team success in getting to QBs can be attributed to senior All-Ivy League DL
Copache Tyler (Springfield, Ill.), who can require multiple blockers. Yale had
a season-best six sacks against both Penn and Cornell.
SACKS, POINTS
Matthew Oplinger,
Yale’s All-Ivy linebacker, leads the FCS in sacks per game and now has a
team-high 9.5 this year. His season total is 4th best at Yale, which is 4.5 shy
of record holder Kevin Czinger (14.0, 1980). His 19.5 career sacks are also 4th
(Czinger is No 1 with 27). Oplinger has also helped put points on the board. He
tackled the Holy Cross QB for a safety and caught a conversion pass against
Penn.
D-RANKS
The Yale defense
is No. 1 in the FCS sacks (4.4) and third in red zone effectiveness (.579),
while it is 6th in stopping the rush (77.3) and 9th in scoring (16.4). One of
the major contributors all season has been senior LB Foyesade Oluokun (St.
Louis, Mo.), who earned the team’s first Ivy Defensive Player of the Week honor
after making 10 tackles, including two sacks and a forced fumble at Penn.
CAPTAIN SPENCE
Spencer
Rymiszewski (West Chester, Pa.), who was voted captain by his teammates despite
missing last season with an injury, has started all 31 games (152 tackles, 6
interceptions) in the defensive backfield that he’s been available for. He
earned freshman MVP honors in 2013 and was team MVP and a first-team All-Ivy
pick in 2015. An injury slowed him in 2014, and he elected to have surgery over
competing in 2016. Rymiszewski, whose busiest day was 11 solos and one
interception vs. Dartmouth in 2014, leads the current squad in pass breakups.
ALESSI
He’s the only
player in school history to return two punts for TDs of 80 yards or more. Jason
Alessi (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), the dual-sport standout who has been a
starter on defense for most of his career, has 154 career tackles and six
interceptions over 35 games, while his 392 career punt return yards are 5th
best at Yale. His work as a midfielder on the lacrosse team has helped the
defending Ivy champs win three straight league tournament titles.
CARLSON
Senior DB Hayden
Carlson (Glen Ellyn, Ill.), Yale’s active career leader with 254 tackles, is
15th on the school’s career list after jumping over former Dallas Cowboys
linebacker Jeff Rohrer ’82 (253). Carlson, who scored his first TD on his
seventh career interception vs. Cornell this fall, now has eight picks overall.
He led the Ivy League in tackles in 2015 with 92 and was third in 2016 with 95.
SCI-GUYS
Seniors Jon
Bezney and Karl Marback, two starters on the offensive line, are science guys.
They have helped the Elis rank among the best in the nation in total offense
and scoring, but they are equally impressive off the field.
BEZNEY, a
molecular, cellular and developmental biology major, worked in Yale’s Bindra
Laboratory this summer in the department of therapeutic radiology. The
laboratory focuses on novel therapeutics for brain cancer and specifically
focuses on the biology of DNA repair. His project aimed to distinguish how
certain drugs react in the presence and absence of key proteins involved in DNA
repair, hoping to translate the findings into a clinical setting. Bezney
(Cincinnati), a tackle who missed last year with an injury, plans to attend
medical school and become a physician.
MARBACK, a
biomedical engineering major and the team’s rocket scientist, has been sending
devices into space as part of the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association
(YUAA). He helped build a rocket (sophomore year) that climbed to 10,000 feet
and collected microbes from the air to learn more about what is living in the
atmosphere. Marback (Birmingham, Mich.), a semifinalist for the 2017 William
Campbell Trophy (nation’s top football student-athlete), moved from the defense
as a sophomore and then started every game at center last year.
LEGAL GUARD
Anders Huizenga,
a guard, is a political science major who spent 8 weeks last summer in the
legal department at Mercy Health, a Catholic non-profit hospital system in
Ohio. He also spent 4 weeks interning for The Cooper Law Group in Colorado
Springs, Colo. Huizenga (Trophy Club, Texas), who is known for his Yoga
interests, plans to intern with the firm again next year and then go to law
school.
BLIKSEM BULLDOG
Bliksem, in South
Africa, is slang for hitting, which is what Dieter Eiselen does very well on
the Yale offensive line. The South African native, who played rugby from ages 7
to 16 before switching to Olympic weightlifting, was fascinated by the American
gridiron and wanted to find a way to play after graduating from his local high
school. He attended a football camp in Washington, D.C., and immediately
garnered interest from colleges. He got in as a PG at Choate Rosemary Hall and
then attended the Yale camp to get ready for his first season of football.
Eiselen, who worked his way into the starting lineup as a rookie last fall, is
the starter at guard this fall.
STERLING CENTER
Sterling Strother
(Moraga, Calif.), who earned a starting job at tackle last fall as a newcomer,
is now Yale’s center, playing the position for the first time. He learned to
snap while staying at QB Kurt Rawlings’ house the summer before their first
season in New Haven. (Rawlings’ father is a high school football coach, but
Strother also learned from his own father, who played football in high school.
Strother, who is considering a major in psychology and has played all five
spots on the Yale o-line, became a starter early in the 2016 campaign.
RAWLINGS
The name may
remind you of baseball (gloves), and his brother is a college baseball player,
but Kurt Rawlings, who is 11th in the FCS (2nd, Ivy) with a .656 completion
percentage, is all about the gridiron, having grown into the game as the son of
a high school football coach (Yale’s first since Dean Loucks ’57). The
sophomore from Bel Air, Md., got the last three starts of 2016, including a win
at Harvard, and picked up where he left off last fall. Rawlings completed 20 of
26 passes at Lehigh for 308 yards and four TDs to earn Ivy League Offensive
Player of the Week, College Sports Madness Ivy Player of the Week, honorable
mention STATS FCS Offensive Player of Week and College Football Performance
honorable mention national performer of the week. Rawlings established a
Yale record for completion percentage with 18 connections (including the first
14 straight) on 20 attempts at Fordham. He has 19 TD passes in 14 career games
(9 starts).
Rawlings in 2017
at Lehigh:
20-26, 308 yards,
4 TD, 0 int.
vs Cornell:
10-17, 123 yards, 1 TD,
1 int.
at Fordham:
18-20, 189 yards, 1 TD, 1 int.
at Dartmouth:
24-39, 283 yards, 3 TDs, 2 int.
vs. Holy Cross:
27-39, 316 yards, 2 TDs, 0 int.
at Penn:
19-27, 199 yards, 2 TDs, 0 int.
vs. Columbia:
10-27, 127 yards, 1 TD, 1 int.
C-LO
Christopher
Williams-Lopez (Duluth, Ga.), nicknamed “C-Lo,” is Yale’s active career leader
in receptions with 115 in an injury-shortened, 18-game career. He is currently
tied with Yale tight end coach Chandler Henley ’06 for 7th on the Yale career
receptions list. His 6.50 average per game is among the top 3 in the nation,
but the NCAA does not include anyone with fewer than 125 career catches. The
senior WR leads the team this fall with 40 catches. He led the Blue with 60
catches in 2015. C-Lo had a season-high 10 grabs with one score at Dartmouth in
2017. The former Greater Atlanta Christian High School football and track
captain came to New Haven as a Spanish Honor Society and National Honor Society
member. He was also on the GACS President’s list and won the school’s
citizenship award.
BULLDOG BITES
Yale got 40 votes
in this week’s STATS FCS National Poll... Sophomore CB Malcolm Dixon leads the
team with 9 PBUs… Senior TE Jaeden Graham now has 3 TD catches this season…
Yale has dominated the first three quarters on the scoreboard, including 72-17
in the first, but are being outscored 51-48 in the fourth… The Elis have
converted seven of eight fourth-down attempts.
BLOWING HIS OWN HORN
Junior Alex
Galland (Bakersfield, Calif.) is handling the punting and place kicks this
season. He is 5th in the Ivy with a 39.6-yard punt average, but his value to
the team is field position control. Galland has landed 18 of his 32 punts
inside the 20 while limiting opponent returns. Last summer, in addition to
working out, Galland interned as a mechanical engineer, helping design facilities
for Hess Oil. The mechanical engineering major in Pauli Murray College was
building 3D models and making sure they were compliant with state laws.
Galland, who plays the trumpet in the Yale Band and has played the national
anthem at the Bowl before his own game, is 13-18 on FGs and 47-51 on PATs.
HEFTY LEFTY
Sophomore lefty
PK Sam Tuckerman (Bexley, Ohio) takes the Yale kickoffs and has six touchbacks
this fall, though the Elis are not always trying to knock it through the end
zone. He and a teammate did a 6-week, intensive Spanish immersion program last
summer through IES Madrid in order to test out of Yale’s language requirement.
Tuckerman embraces the nicknames his high school friends use for him: The Hefty
Lefty, The Hebrew Hammer.
LONG SNAP
Junior Hunter
Simino (Portage, Mich.) has been the top long snapper in every game since he
arrived at Yale. When Simino was in fourth grade, his neighborhood friend (the
offensive line coach at the rival high school) brought him to the rival
school’s football camp and spent the day teaching him to snap. He missed the
second half at Lehigh this year with an injury, and the emergency snapper, TE
Jaeden Graham, had to snap for kicks and punts.
IVY RACE
School
Conf CPct. Overall Pct.
Streak This Week
YALE
3-1 0.750
6-1
0.857
W3 vs. Brown, Friday on
NBCSN
Columbia
3-1
0.750
6-1 0.857
L1
vs. Harvard
Cornell
3-1 0.750
3-4
0.429
W2 at Dartmouth
Dartmouth
2-2
0.500
5-2 0.714
L2
vs. Cornell
Princeton
2-2
0.500
5-2 0.714
L1
at Penn
Harvard
2-2 0.500
4-3
0.571
W1 at Columbia
Penn
1-3 0.250
3-4
0.429
W1 vs. Princeton
Brown
0-4 0.000
2-5
0.286
L4 at Yale
2017 YALE TEAM
The current
roster includes the following:
·
87 High School
football captains
·
53 High School
captains of an additional sport
·
61 National Honor
Society members
·
7 High School
Class Presidents
·
3 High School
Student Body Presidents
3 High School
Valedictorians
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