Haynes named first team All-Ivy

Senior linebacker Jordan Haynes was Yale's lone representative on the All-Ivy League first team.

Haynes, the team captain, led Yale with 81 tackles while sharing for the team lead with five tackles for losses and two fumble recoveries.

Chris Smith, who was honored as a receiver and returnman, offensive guard Gabe Fernandez, running back Alex Thomas, defensive tackle Jake Stoller, linebacker Will McHale, cornerback Drew Baldwin and return specialist were second-team selections.

Quarterback Patrick Witt and receiver Deon Randall were honorable mention selections.

Princeton running back Chuck Dibilio was named the league's rookie of the year while Penn offensive tackle Greg Van Roten and linebacker Erik Rask, Dartmouth running back Nick Schwieger and Harvard defensive tackle Josue Ortiz and defensive back Matthew Hanson were unanimous All-Ivy selections.

Alex Thomas on pace to return to field

Senior running back Alex Thomas was not ruled out of Saturday's game against Brown until about an hour before kickoff. But he was back at practice on Tuesday and Yale coach Tom Williams believes he will be good to go after missing the last two games with a knee injury.
 
"He got some reps early in practice and then we shut it down," Williams said. "I talked to him right after and he said it felt.. I fully expect to have him on Saturday. I thought we would have him on last Saturday but he said when he was warming up, it didn't feel good.  He came out ready to go, he went through all the motions and wasn't ready."
 
The news isn't as positive on junior receiver Chris Smith, who had a walking boot on his right foot after injuring his ankle on Saturday.


"I don't know if he will have him on Saturday," Williams said. "The walking boot on Tuesday is a precaution. Tomorrow we will reevaluate it and see if he can get some reps. I would anticipate him not being available this weekend.. That was kind of a freak deal.

"He made that one-handed catch and the guy fell on the back of his leg and rolled him up. Totally different injury. He is tough and if there is a way he can go, he will go."


Yale used both Philippe Panico and Kyle Cazzetta on field-goal tries on Tuesday and Williams didn't rule out making a change this week.
"The placekicking thing, we have to find a guy to get points when we have to go out and get points and do it when it is a big game," Williams said. "Competition always but we are always making a bigger emphasis of it this week. He's been great as a punter but he can also do that. When he kicks the ball, it goes (up). He has a nice little lob wedge but we have to get his timing a little quicker, He is coming. I would like him not to have to focus on that (field goals and extra points) but if we have to..

Williams has not ruled out making a switch at punt returner either Gio Christodoulou lost fumbles in the fourth quarter in each of the last two games. Christodoulou is Yale's all-time leader in punt return yardage but when the team works on punt returns tomorrow, both Christodoulou and Deon Randall will get looks.

"We are competing there. We will give a chance to give him and Deon back there and the best guy is going to play on Saturday," Williams said.

Mistakes prove costly in Yale's loss to Brown

As stunning as it was to believe, had a Yale player recovered the ball on Brown's final offensive play, the Bulldogs may have been able to walk out of the Yale Bowl with an Ivy League championship still within their grasps.

In a mistake-prone game, Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero fumbled the ball when all the Bears needed to do was take a knee and let the final seconds tick off the clock. After a wild scramble, it was ruled that Brown maintained possession and as a result, earned a 34-28 victory.

Capitalizing on three Patrick Witt interceptions and a key fumble by punt returner Gio Christodoulou, the Bears had a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter before the Bulldogs mounted a frantic comeback.

Patrick Witt, who passed for two scores and ran for two more, had a 2-yard touchdown run and an 18-yard TD pass to Mordecai Cargill to pull within 34-28 with 1:28 to play. That set the stage for the final fumble in the game. Yale senior defensive tackle Reed Spiller came out of the pile with the ball but the officials ruled that Brown had already been awarded possession.

"I know we had our hands on it, they had their hands on it," Williams said. "The officials said that he ruled simultaneous possession to them, that is what he told me on the sideline."

The fact of the matter is that the Bulldogs were fortunate to even be within six points at game's end. Yale had enough miscues to last a season and those mistakes mean the Bulldogs would need all sorts of help to be able to go into the season-ending Harvard game in position to earn a share of the Ivy League title.


"We were playing until the last second, we had guys grabbing trying to get the ball but the fact of the matter is that we didn't play well enough to win in a game of that magnitude," Williams said. "We turned the ball over too many times, we didn't take advantage of good field position to score and we gave up a couple of easy touchdowns defensively. We had a punt blocked for no reason at all. If you do things in a game of this magnitude against a good team like Brown, you are going to lose the game. We had plenty of opportunities to have a good day and we didn't do it.


"It starts with me. I have to figure out the right buttons ti push with my football team so that we can execute with poise in a game of this magnitude. This is the point in the season with a team that has been around for at least three years with our staff that we felt confident that we would be able to finish these types of games and to have those things pop up in the biggest game of the year is a head scratcher to me."

Speaking of head scratchers, I asked Williams about the curious play call of having Deon Randall run the ball out of the Wildcat formation with Yale having a 2nd and 3 on the Brown 5. Randall was thrown for an eight-yard loss and Philippe Panico missed a 30-yard field goal. I know Yale was struggling to run the ball at that point but I'd take my chances with a powerful back like Cargill getting a couple of cracks into the 5 rather than the Wildcat.
"That is a play that we practiced all week in that situation and we didn't execute the blocking of it," Williams said. "There was a particular block that needed to be made. It wasn't and that caused us to move backwards. It came down to execution, we liked the play, we knew what we were going to get from it. When you aren't able to execute plays, it doesn't really matter what you call."


It also didn't help that Yale gave up the longest run in Brown football history as Mark Kachmar had 95 of his 192 rushing yards on the Bears' third offensive play. The Bulldogs had a hard time defending both the run and pass in the first half. Brown helped Yale come back by going a bit conservative in its offensive play calling in the second half.
"You kind of knew they had it in them with the kind of skill that they had to come back but when you are up by three touchdowns, it is a matter of getting first downs and we blew it down there," Brown coach Phil Estes said of Yale's late offensive barrage.

"We were up 20 points and we are going to be OK. We have to get some first downs and we just couldn't get the first downs. The problem is you just start watching the clock. You don't want to throw. They have great skill at receiver, great skill at running back, defensively they play some soft coverages but they really wrap up, they hit hard and tackle hard."

Yale senior running back Alex Thomas missed his second straight game with a knee injury while Chris Smith appeared to suffer an ankle injury in the second half. If there was a positive for Yale, it is the continued emergence of freshman defensive end E.J. Conway who had another strong game.

Witt finished with 370 yards and is now just 69 yards shy of Alvin Cowan's Yale career record. Speaking of Witt, a film crew from NBC Nightly News was on campus yesterday following Witt around and also at today's game. They are planning to run a segment on Monday's show about Witt's potential conflict with his final Rhodes Scholarship interview. The interview was set for the morning of Nov. 19 in Atlanta and if it is not shifted to the previous day, Witt would have to choose between playing in The Game and going to interview for the most prestigious scholarship in this country.

2009 Penn game bring back painful memories for Smith

As if suffering a shutout loss at the hands of Penn wasn't a bitter enough pill to swallow, Chris Smith saw his freshman season come to an end when he suffered a hip injury in the 2009 game at Penn.

Earlier this week, I asked Smith to look back to his last experience at Franklin Field.

"I remember coming back with a broken hip," Smith said. "It wasn't exactly what I had planned. It was my freshman year, I was kind of just getting the hang of college football. I remember catching a post and a guy's helmet came in, kind of popped me and ended my season a little early. I am definitely going down there looking to get a 'w' this time and come back healthy.


"I've made that ride back from Penn once after not winning and kind of ending our season at that point. I think a lot of guys remembered how that tasted, how that felt taking that 3-hour bus ride back after a loss. We are going to do all we can to make sure that doesn't happen."

Yale coach Tom Williams vividly recalls the injury Smith suffered against Penn in 2009 and how it preventing him from continuing to develop as a go-to receiver for the Bulldogs as a freshman.

"That was difficult because we was just starting to come on as a freshman," Williams said. "Gio (Christodoulou) had gotten hurt against Cornell, Chris had started to really emerge as a go-to guy and then he gets hurt. I think that devastated for our football team because at that point we didn't really have anyone to be a threat down the field. He used that to get his body stronger and when he came back he was physically stronger, bigger, faster. As painful as it was at the time, I think it has made him a better football player."
Picking up a victory and remaining in first place in the Ivy League is No. 1 on Smith's priority list this week as Yale plays at Penn Saturday at noon on a game being televised by VERSUS. But he does have a chance for some personal milestones.

With one catch, he would move into a tie for eighth on Yale's career charts and he needs just three catches to tie former teammate Jordan Forney's for seventh place on the all-time list. He needs 131 receiving yards to break into the top 10 in that category while he is 100 yards away from Robert Carr's Yale career record for kickoff return yardage. The remarkable part of all of this is that Smith has done all of this and he still has as many as 15 games left in his Yale career.

More than any individual statistics, it is Smith's toughness that stands out when Williams thinks of his star receiver. It was an attribute Williams noticed when Smith took a recruiting visit to Yale shortly after Williams was hired at Yale. Williams jokingly questioned whether Smith was a glamour boy and wondered how important football was to him. Smith looked Williams in the eye and told him he lives to play football. Williams has discovered that wasn't just idle chatter on Smith's part.

"He's one of the toughest guys I have ever been around at any position," Williams said. "I think the reason why is that he is mentally tough but he is also physically tough. He worked to put himself in great condition. He really works hard at that but he is just a gritty, hard-nosed guy who loves to play the game. He really enjoys being around it, loves everything about it. He is one of the few guy who I have been around who really likes practice. Those guys are few and far between. I think the combination of all those things is what makes him such a tough football player."

Chris Smith will be game-time decision

Junior receiver Chris Smith's injured hamstring once again kept him out of practice on Thursday. He will make the trip to Lehigh for Saturday's road opener and there is a chance he can still play but Yale coach Tom Williams said that decision won't be made until he goes through pre-game drills on Saturday.

"I am just working a lot in the training room with (trainer) Dave (DiNapoli) and doing a lot of strengthening exercises trying to be ready to go for Lehigh. I am making the trip, hopefully it will loosen up for game time and I’ll be ready to go.

"It’s been really frustrating, even in meetings and watching film (knowing) that there is a possible chance that I might not be on the field, it is really tough especially in such a tough game. Lehigh is ranked, they are a good team. I was excited to prove that we are legitimate I-AA contender."

Smith came out of the Cornell game after pulling up lame while returning the second-half kickoff. However, he said he first had issues with the hamstring practice two days before the game.

"Actually it happened on Thursday and in the game, I ran a go route and at one point it really tightened up," Smith said. "On that kick return, I tried to go out there and play through it."

If Smith can't go, either former starter Gio Christodoulou or Cameron Sandquist would likely get the call when Yale goes to its three-receiver sets while Deon Randall would replace Smith on kickoffs.

"That is the great thing about our receiving corps, from top to bottom, I think we are an explosive unit and we have a lot of playmakers," said Smith, who is tied for the team lead with 135 receiving yards and is ranked fifth nationally with an average of 32.7 yards per kickoff return. "You have Gio, Allen Harris, Deon, Cam, Brandis (Yarrington), Jackson (Liguori), we’ve got guys who aren’t even starting who could be starting on other Ivy League teams. It is frustrating for me personally but as far as the team, I don’t think it is a drop off at all."

One receiver not in position to pick up snaps if Smith is out is freshman Ty Hutchison, who recently underwent surgery to repair a detached retina. Hutchison, a standout on Yale' JV squad, will miss the rest of the season. He addressed the team at the conclusion of Thursday's practice to give an update on his condition.

"He said he had 100 guys all asking him the same question so he wanted to talk to all of them at once," Williams said of why Hutchison spoke to the team on Thursday.

Williams said that seven freshmen will be making the trip to Lehigh - defensive back Nick LaTesta, punter Kyle Cazzetta, running back Wynston Bouknight, defensive end EJ Conway, linebacker Tyler Manu as well as offensive linemen Ben Carbery and William Chism.

Yale leads Cornell 17-3 at halftime

Aided by a strong start by Patrick Witt, Nick Okano's first career interception and a long punt return by Gio Christodoulou, Yale leads Cornell 17-3 at halftime.

Witt is 15 of 21 for 153 yards but he started 12 of 14 and overshot Allen Harris on a couple of throws. Harris leads Yale with 5 catches for 71 yards including 5-yard TD. He was stopped at 1 on another catch leading to Mordecai Cargill's 1-yard TD run.

Will McHale leads Yale with 7 tackles.

Cornell has utilized a very conservative offensive game plan, rarely taking shots down the field. Much of that may have to do with the fact that Yale's defensive front four got some pressure early on. However, it was curious to see Cornell settle for underneath completions when the Big Red had positive field position for much of the second quarter.

After a short completion brought up 3rd and goal at the 11, Cornell coach Kent Austin decided to wait until 3 seconds remained on clock to call his final timeout of half. Had he called it right away, Cornell could have taken a shot into the end zone and still had a chance at a field goal.

Yale beats Dean 24-7

Yale's defense, outside of one play, and special teams had strong performances in Saturday's 24-7 win over Dean College in a scrimmage at the Yale Bowl.

Yale had seven sacks (of course with the no hitting the quarterback rule at the scrimmage, defenders only needed to be in the general vicinity to get some of these sacks.

Carter Deutsch, who is back on defense after a move to the offensive line, had three of the sacks while Cliff Foreman had two sacks. Jordan Haynes led Yale with six tackles (according to my unofficial stats). After Haynes made his presence felt on Dean's first offensive possession, one of their assistant coaches could be heard telling his players "we've got to block the Mike (linebacker). Why can't we block the Mike." I am sure more than a few Ivy League coaches said or thought the same thing since Haynes is the Mike or middle linebacker at Yale. Haynes was not the author of the best hit of the scrimmage. That came from sophomore tight end who rumbled for yardage on his only reception when a Dean player came in and tried to lay a huge hit on Coty. The result was the defender being knocked backwards and Coty continued to move forward as if he was barely touched. The play happened in front of the Yale sideline and Coty's teammates went absolutely crazy after the play.

On special teams, Gio Christodolou brought back a punt 65 yards for a touchdown and a fumble recovery on a dropped Dean punt led to Alex Thomas' 2-yard touchdown. Yale coach Tom Williams was impressed with the efforts of his freshmen punters Parker Toms and Kyle Cazzetta.

He was not as happy with the effort of the first-team offense. At halftime he challenged them to come down the field and score and the Bulldogs did just that. Thomas ran three times for 41 of his team-high 45 yards on the six-play, 79-yard drive which ended with Patrick Witt hooking up with Chris Smith on a 28-yard touchdown.

Witt struggled at times throwing the ball down the field although he finished 13 of 20 for 122 yards with the one touchdowns and an interception. Smith led the team with 51 yards on three catches while Allen Harris had a team-high four catches.

Yale offensive starters were Witt, Mordecai Cargill at tailback, Cameron Sandquist, Deon Randall and Allen Harris at receiver, Kyle Wittenauer at tight end and the offensive line of tackles Roy Collins and Wes Gavin, guards Gabe Fernandez and Colin Kruger and center John Oppenheimer. On defense, it was ends Matt Battaglia and Austin Pulsipher, tackles Reed Spiller and Jake Stoller, linebackers Haynes, Will McHale and Wes Moyer, cornerbacks Drew Baldwin and Dawson Halliday and safeties Geoff Dunham and Nick Okano.

As for the freshmen, William Chism and Ben Carbery saw time on the second-team offensive line, linebacker Will Vaughan, running back Wynston Bouknight and corner Nick LaTesta where the ones I noticed as well as the two aforementioned punters.

There have been some injuries among the freshmen. Running back Kahlil Keys suffered a knee injury during practice earlier in the week and he may miss the season, defensive back Ethan DeSilva had a knee injury late in his senior season at Mission Viejo (Calif.) and will not play this season. Chism hurt his hand in the scrimmage and had an MRI done on Saturday.