After 10 months, the wait is nearly over. This Saturday, Dartmouth’s football team will take to Buddy Teevens Memorial Stadium to face the University of New Hampshire Wildcats, kicking off their new season. With an Ivy League team now guaranteed a spot in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs, the stakes for Dartmouth this season have risen substantially.
“We’re all antsy, we’re ready to get out there,” starting quarterback Grayson Saunier ’27 said. “We’ve been putting in work the past 10 months, and I think we’re ready to show everybody what we’ve got.”
It was a busy offseason for the Big Green’s coaching staff. Tight ends coach Wendy Laurent moved to Ohio State University, and special teams coordinator and nickels coach Joe Castellitto left for a job at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. With these departures, it was up to head coach Sammy McCorkle and the rest of the staff to ensure that Dartmouth continues to compete for an Ivy League title after sharing the last two.
They got straight to work with a slew of coaching hirings. They brought on the experienced Shane Montgomery, who coached Super Bowl winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at Miami University in Ohio, to serve as the new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Wide receivers coach Mitchell Thompson, cornerbacks coach Mike Johnson and secondary coach Kevin Bracken will also make their coaching debuts for the Big Green.
“They’ve done a phenomenal job adjusting,” McCorkle said. “Coach Montgomery, especially, is doing a great job of implementing his offense and combining what we’ve done in the past with what he does, and the players have responded really good.”
To replenish their playing roster after the departure of a talented graduating class, McCorkle looked inward.
Saunier has taken over as the starting quarterback for Dartmouth, who hopes to match the Ivy League success of his predecessor Jackson Proctor ’25. There is a lot of buzz around Saunier, who went 3-0 last season as the backup when Proctor was injured and impressed with his dual-threat ability. This included a standout performance against conference rivals Yale University, where he tallied five total touchdowns, passed for 276 yards and ran for another 84 to erase a 23-point deficit and stun the Bulldogs in overtime.
“[Grayson’s] our guy going into the season,” McCorkle said. “He’s earned the right, he’s had a phenomenal pre-season. He had a great spring. He’s done a good job of taking control of that offense and being a leader for us offensively.”
Despite the departure of the prolific wide receiver Paxton Scott ’24, Saunier will certainly have no shortage of weapons. Star tight end Chris Corbo ’26, who caught seven touchdowns last season, headlines the receiving corps that also features receivers Daniel Haughton ’26, Grayson O’Bara ’26 and Nick Lemon ’27, among others. Corbo and offensive lineman Delby Lemieux ’26 were named to the FCS Preseason All-American Team and standout kicker Owen Zalc ’27 was named to the second team.
“They’ve been putting in so much work, so much time and energy into this and pouring themselves into this program,” Saunier said. “I think they deserved every bit of that award. But they’re not worried about the award. All they care about is this team and how we can take the next step and keep progressing and keep getting better and better.”
Defensively, the group has a lot to live up to after it led the Ivy League in yards allowed and finished third in points allowed. The defense will rely on its seniors to guide its young unit forward. Joe Onuwabhagbe ’26, Dakota Quiñonez ’26, and Jabari Johnson ’26 will lead the defensive line, which finished the 2024 season as the Ivy League's best rush defense and led the league in sacks. Meanwhile, Sean Williams ’26 and Patrick Campbell ’26 will work to anchor the secondary.
“A lot of big pieces of our team have left or graduated,” Williams said. “We just got to take the same approach that we did any other year, building that chemistry from day one … and embracing everybody that we have with us at this point.”
Dartmouth’s home opener against UNH will push this new-look Dartmouth team to the limit. UNH is currently ranked 23rd nationally in the FCS Coaches Poll and 25th in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25. The Big Green will have to key in on dual-threat Matt Vezza, who has run for 160 yards and passed for over 500 through his first three games.
UNH “should be ranked much higher in 23, I can tell you that,” McCorkle said. “We have to be ready to come out from the very get-go, because that’s what you’re going to get from UNH … They’re going to play full speed. They play fast, they hustle, and they come at you in different ways … and we’ve got to play very disciplined football in all three phases.”
Despite a tough opening game, there’s a lot of hype for Dartmouth coming into the season. The team was ranked number two in the Ivy League preseason poll with four first-place votes. If Dartmouth were to win the title, which is based on in-conference record and head-to-head record as a tiebreaker, the team would get an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. While Dartmouth may have the end goal of an Ivy League title in mind, their preparation has been focused on the details.
“For us, it’s more focusing on the small, minute details in everything we do, making sure we get all the little things corrected,” Williams said. “As we always say, little things make the big things happen.”
While fans may be nervous when Big Green takes the field for their first season in a new era of Ivy League football, the locker room feels calm and ready to rock.
“We just got to go out there and have fun,” Saunier said. “Trusting the preparation that’s going into it, trusting in coaches, and just really believing and having confidence in yourself that ‘I’m good enough.’ Everybody on this team is good enough, and we’re ready to go ball.”
