Down one point late in the fourth quarter, Dartmouth sat on the one-yard line with a chance to take the lead.
Grayson Saunier ’27, in shotgun, motioned D.J. Crowther ’26 into the backfield for a jet sweep. As Crowther ran across the field, Saunier snapped the ball, faked the handoff, cut to his right and ran into the endzone untouched for the go-ahead score.
While the packed crowd was going crazy, head coach Sammy McCorkle was focused and saw something shocking.
“They switched personnel,” McCorkle said. “They had the right personnel the first time when we scored, but then they switched out their personnel the next play, and so we just said, ‘Hey, let’s just run it again.’”
So they did.
And it worked.
Saunier kept it again, cut to his right and walked into the endzone for the successful two-point conversion with the clock winding down.
UNH attempted to tie the game, converting twice on fourth down to put themselves within striking distance, but they couldn’t convert a third time. Dartmouth knelt it out to secure the victory over their in-state rivals.
After a shaky start, Dartmouth recovered and stayed poised to open their season with a statement win over No. 23 UNH, 27-20.
“We bounced back,” McCorkle said. “We never panicked.”
Dartmouth’s offense came out of the gate swinging. Receiving the kickoff, the Big Green marched 58 yards down the field to inside the 30-yard line before disaster struck. Saunier rolled out to his right and fired a pass straight into the open arms of UNH’s Matthew Sopp, who ran it all the way back to Dartmouth’s own 13-yard line.
“We were rolling down as a boot out, I made the wrong read. [The] ball slipped out of my hand,” Saunier said. “It happens … we’re gonna make mistakes. But it’s not about dwelling on those mistakes.”
Dartmouth couldn’t stop the momentum and fell behind 7-0. Facing a fourth-and-six in UNH territory, Dartmouth ran it to Crowther to get the momentum back in the next possession, but his attempt was stuffed at the line and the Big Green turned the ball over for the second time in a row. A few plays later, Dartmouth was staring down the barrel of a 10-0 deficit as the first quarter winded down.
The deficit seemed to refocus the Big Green. The defense locked in.
Sean Williams ’26 was able to quickly react to a dropped pass from UNH’s Caleb Burke to intercept it in stride, running it back 25 yards to give Dartmouth great field position. Saunier completed his next four passes, among them a 34-yard dot to a streaking Luke Rives ’28, who ran for 21 yards to set up a Crowther touchdown.
“Once we were able to flip the field… the tide started turning around a little bit,” McCorkle said. “You could just tell that just the energy and momentum started picking up.”
Crowther exploded in the second half, running for 90 yards and two more touchdowns. He bullied defenders at every chance he got, including a nasty stiff-arm on UNH captain Duncan Moreland, who he carried into the endzone to give Dartmouth its first lead of the game.
“The little runs are going to make the big runs happen,” Crowther said. “You got to stay consistent with your read … and just keep trusting the whole line no matter what's going on.”
Crowther, who makes his first start for the Big Green after backing up Q Jones ’25 and Desmin Jackson ’26 last season, finished with a dominant 143 yards and three touchdowns on only 20 carries.
“I had a really good feeling he was going to have a game like this,” McCorkle said. “He’s got great vision. He does a very good job trusting his offensive line. I thought our offensive line and our tight ends did a good job of coming off the ball. We said it, we got to win in the trenches.”
The defense also shined with experienced players in the secondary making big plays.
Harrison Keith ’27 intercepted a pass from Matt Vezza, while Patrick Campbell ’26 made huge tackles in big moments, including smothering Vezza’s QB-keeper on fourth and short in the red zone to keep the game all tied at 13 early in the fourth quarter.
“We were locked in, ready to go, ready to get to it and it was big to have guys on all levels making plays,” Williams said. “That makes it a lot easier for the secondary to cover.”
After exchanging touchdown drives however, the Big Green found themselves down one after a mishandled snap left Dartmouth unable to convert the extra point. Needing a big play, Saunier connected with Grayson O’Bara ’26 to put Dartmouth deep in UNH territory with a chance to take the lead.
O’Bara’s huge play capped off a prolific day for the receiver, who caught six passes for 100 yards. A few plays later, Saunier waltzed into the end zone to take the lead, and waltzed in again — on the exact same playcall — on the two-point conversion to put Dartmouth up 27-20 with 2:53 left in the game.
“Everybody stepped up,” Saunier said. “It’s good because we practiced it every week, to see it all come out and play the way that we wanted to happen at the right time of the game.”
UNH still had plenty of time to tie the game, but Dartmouth’s defense stood firm, and Campbell came up clutch once again and broke up Vezza’s pass on fourth down to ice the game.
Dartmouth’s defensive line — despite the graduation of 2024 standouts Ejike Adele ’25 and Josiah Green ’25 — stayed dominant as defensive lineman Dakota Quiñonez ’26 and a slew of linebackers led by Nico Schwikal ’26 limited UNH’s rushers to a measly three yards per carry.
“I think we only ran for 88 yards. I think that was key to this game,” UNH head coach Rick Santos said. “If Dartmouth gets you in obvious passing situations, they win.”
Those passing situations allowed Joe Onuwabhagbe ’26 and Thaddeus Gianaris ’26 to terrorize UNH on the pass rush. Gianaris lit up the stats sheet, recording two tackles for loss and the Big Green’s lone sack on their final drive.
“We were rotating guys in, and you could just sense the energy,” McCorkle said. “They were pinning their ears back … and they did a heck of a job putting pressure on that quarterback.”
The win marks Dartmouth’s first victory in the Granite Bowl since 2021 and bodes well for its campaign to compete for a spot in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
Dartmouth will face Central Connecticut State University next week in New Britain, Conn., before beginning conference play against the University of Pennsylvania on Oct. 4 in Philadelphia.
