Tired of waiting for the other guy, The Optimist is about to place his order when the door opens and The Pessimist ambles to their usual table. The Optimist: After two wins over two playoff teams in two weeks I was starting to wonder if you were even going to show. The Pessimist: Remember what the former women’s basketball coach said when she returned to Dartmouth after coaching at Fordham? The Optimist: Remind me. The Pessimist: She said the biggest difference between coaching in the Bronx and coaching in Hanover is, it’s easier to find parking in the Bronx. The Optimist: That’s pretty funny. I guess we’ll find out about that in three weeks when we put a 4-0 record on the line at Fordham. The Pessimist: You don’t waste any time, do you? The Optimist: Back to my original point, two wins over two playoff teams. You can’t do much better than that. The Pessimist: Actually, you can. Both of those games came down to the final minute, and in games like that it’s really a t...

Here’s your weekly half dozen observations between the Central Connecticut and Penn games. 1) Grayson Saunier became just the fourth Dartmouth quarterback to surpass 400 passing yards in a game when he went 30-for-44 for 407 yards with two touchdowns and one interception last Saturday. It’s way too easy to overlook that this was just Saunier’s fourth game as the starter. The junior is completing 70.3 percent of his passes through the first two games. It’s still early, but the Big Green record for completion percentage in a season is 70.7 by Derek Kyler in 2021. And in case you are wondering: other Dartmouth QBs who have topped 400 yards are Jack Heneghan ’18 (440), Dalyn Williams ’16 (435), Greg Smith ’02 (416 and 407), and Jay Fiedler  (419).  2) Tailback DJ Crowther didn’t have as many yards as he did in the opener against New Hampshire, but he was even busier with 29 touches. He had 24 carries for 86 yards and two touchdowns, and caught five passes for 12 yards. Cr...

  NEW BRITAIN, Conn. – It wasn’t easy, and Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle didn’t expect it to be. For the second straight week of this young season, and the second straight meeting with Central Connecticut, the Big Green has played with fire without getting burned. “Our guys do a really good job of hanging in there, staying focused and locked in, and not panicking while continuing to do their stuff,” McCorkle said outside the boisterous locker room after the 35-28 win. “We knew this game was going to be a battle, and we need battles like this.” They’ve had their share under McCorkle. Coming into this season he had 14 wins on his head coaching resumé at Darmouth, with exactly half of them decided by four or fewer points. He’s now 16-6 since taking over for Buddy Teevens, with six of the wins by a field goal or less. And he's  9-2 in one-possession games. The only one-possession losses have been to Harvard: the Crimson held off the Big Green in 2023, 17-9, and came from beh...

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. – You know that line at the end of the original Rocky when Apollo Creed says, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch,” and Rocky responds, “Don’t want one.” Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle comes from the school of “anyone, anytime,” but you couldn’t blame him if he isn’t particularly looking forward to another rematch with Central Connecticut. For the second year in a row, a team many Ivy League followers refuse to give its due took Dartmouth down to the final play of the game before the Big Green could escape with a 35-28 win. Only after Ky’Dric Fisher ran under a high-arcing throw from Grayson Saunier and sprinted untouched into the end zone for a 50-yard touchdown with 16 seconds left and Dartmouth’s defense broke up the Blue Devils’ hook-and-ladder prayer on the day’s final play could McCorkle relax. The Big Green improved to 2-0 with the win while Central Connecticut, which hadn’t lost at home since 2023, fell to 2-3 with its second last-minute loss in as many weeks. McCorkl...