Dartmouth Wins Heavyweight Battle

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 meeting with Central Connecticut.

For the second year in a row, a team many Ivy League followers don’t 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.

McCorkle freely admitted after the game his team has work to do before opening the Ivy League season at Penn on Saturday. But he thinks anyone who expected Dartmouth to run an overmatched opponent off its home field should have taken a closer look at a team with the last two Northeast Conference offensive players of the year, the reigning defensive rookie of the year, and a boatload of transfers.

“I know a lot of people don’t understand, but they’re a good football team with some dudes,” McCorkle said. “They won their league last year, and we knew going into this game it was going to be a battle, which it was.”

A back-and-forth game that saw Central Connecticut score first and neither team lead by more than seven points was tied at 28-28 with 58 seconds remaining after the Blue Devils drove 80 yards in 12 plays, the last a five-yard touchdown pass.

With a potential overtime looming, but Dartmouth quarterback Grayson Saunier, who would finish with a career-high 407 passing yards, had other ideas.

After his three completions advanced the ball to midfield, offensive coordinator Shane Montgomery dialed up a two-move, stop-and-go to Fisher on the right sideline. “They had a new corner out there and he was biting and biting,” McCorkle said of the play call.

According to Saunier, it was a play the Big Green had been working to perfect ahead of the game.

“Last week we had a similar play to Luke Rives where he made a great catch,” the quarterback said. “But I didn’t make the throw we needed, so he was falling out of bounds when he caught it. Ky’Dric ran a great route and the ball placement this time was better.” 

Although it was the only pass he caught all afternoon, Fisher knew when he made his final move there was open field ahead of him, and the last defender was in his rear-view mirror.

“In my peripheral (vision) I saw him take a step and I knew that was my sign to take off,” he said. “My teammates told me (after the play) he bit really bad.”

Even with Fisher 10 feet or so beyond the last defender, there was still the little matter of Saunier getting the ball to him. And the receiver catching a wide-open pass, sometimes the toughest of all to pull in.

With the ball in the air, everything – except for Fisher’s feet – went in slow motion. 

“It felt like it took a long time to come down,” Fisher admitted of a spiral he caught in stride. “There was a lot of time for nerves to kick in, but I’ve made that catch a lot of times in practice and all I was thinking to myself was, ‘Do not drop the ball.’ ”

Watching from the sidelines, time slowed both for McCorkle on the sideline, and for tight end Chris Corbo after finishing his route.

“It felt like the ball was up there for 50 seconds,” McCorkle said. “Ky is fast and has great hands, so I knew we had a chance if it got there.”

Said Corbo: “I came around on my break and I saw (Fisher) wide open. I saw the ball and it was, ‘Is it ever going to come down?’ But it dropped right in the basket.”

Fisher expected nothing less from Saunier, who overcame an interception on the Big Green’s first possession to go on and finish with just the sixth 400-yard passing game in Dartmouth history in just his fourth career start.

“Grayson has one of the best attitudes I’ve ever seen,” Fisher said. “Most quarterbacks would be down after throwing a pick like that, but he was like, ‘We’re good. We’re good,’ and he showed how resilient he is.

“The last pass was a beautiful ball. He didn’t let the pressure get to him. He delivered the ball perfectly, and we made the play.”

Fisher said after the game he was eager to see the touchdown pass on film because he couldn’t even remember crossing the goal line.

“I think I kind of blacked out,” he said. “I just remember hearing my teammates yelling, so I started yelling with them.”

Saunier finished his afternoon 30-for-44 with two touchdowns. The first came after a Central Connecticut TD put the home team ahead, 21-20, eight seconds into the fourth quarter.

After Dartmouth’s only three-and-out of the game, the defense recorded back-to-back sacks to force a punt to give the ball back to the Big Green offense at its own 11 with 9:38 remaining. Saunier completed his first three passes of a drive that was capped by a perfectly thrown 26-yard touchdown pass down the middle to Corbo.

“Chris is one of the best players on our team,” said Saunier. “We expect great things out of him. He understands that and when he has to make a catch like that, he does it.”

Saunier ran over the right side for the two-point conversion that became important when Central Connecticut responded with the long drive that tied the score and made overtime look almost inevitable until the Saunier-Fisher connection broke Homecoming hearts in the crowd of 4,019.

“Was it a perfect game?” McCorkle said. “Heck no. But when we have to find a way to win, we do. Wins are hard to come by, so the bus ride home will be much better.

“Maybe I’ll get to pick the movie on the way home, which I never do.”

Rocky anyone?

NOTES

DJ Crowther again led the Dartmouth ground game, running 24 times for 86 yards and two touchdowns, including the first that tied the score at 7-7 in the first quarter. He followed his two-yard TD with another of 12 yards to answer a Central Connecticut touchdown throw and tie the score at 14-14 with 9:24 left in the second quarter.

The only other score before the teams combined for 29 points in the fourth quarter came off the foot of Owen Zalc, who hit field goals of 27 and 36 yards. The junior All-America was wide on kicks of 29 and 50 yards.