BGA Overtime is the successor to BGA Premium, a site that covered Dartmouth football with daily stories starting in 2005. The OT is written and edited by Bruce Wood, a former beat writer who has covered Dartmouth sports since the early 1980s. It is not affiliated with Dartmouth College and is supported by your generous donations..
HANOVER – After a difficult start to the 2026 season, the Fearful Forecast rebounded with a flourish last week.
BGA readers came through with questions for Coach Sammy McCorkle and he kindly answered a representative selection of those questions after Wednesday’s practice. What follows is a gently edited transcript of his answers to your questions. Where similar questions were asked they were combined.
And keeping with the theme, we begin the Q&A with a couple of questions I asked Wednesday coming out of last week’s loss to Monmouth.
Q: What are your thoughts looking back at that game?
HANOVER – While The Pessimist chats up their usual server at the door, The Optimist sits impatiently at the usual table studying a sheet of paper he brought from home.
When The Pessimist finally sits down The Optimist immediately slides the paper in front of his old friend.
It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for your weekly Six Pack–plus one look at Dartmouth football after week two of the season, so buckle up.
1) Might as well start with the big one. It says here that Dartmouth has to be
HANOVER – If retooling a football team that took a heavy graduation hit is a little like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, Dartmouth found one of the most important missing pieces in Saturday’s loss to Monmouth.
HANOVER – The concept was sound against a team that a week earlier had scored touchdowns on 60- and 46-yard passes. Stop the big play and see if a Monmouth team seemingly not built to play ball control can beat you with extended drives.
Turns out they could.
HANOVER – Sammy McCorkle answered the way you’d probably expect him to answer.
The question: Are you one of those coaches who believes a team’s biggest improvement is between the first game and the second?
HANOVER – There is something satisfying about picking upsets. That said, it’s certainly a high-risk, high-reward endeavor. Get an upset right, and you are a genius. But pick too many underdogs and you come across as a dolt.
Hello friends, dolt here.