HANOVER – For as complicated as the X's and O's can make it look, at its essence football is really a very simple game.
Block and tackle. That's it.
Fresh off a disappointing 28-7 loss at Yale, Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle is looking for his team to be better at both against an athletic and underrated 2-4 Merrimack team.
“It’s about fundamentals across the board,” he said. “We have to block, we have to get off blocks and we’ve got to tackle better. We’ve got to be fundamentally sound and do the small things right against a good football team.”
That was a problem on both sides of the ball against Yale a week ago.
Offensively, a harried quarterback Grayson Saunier completed just 10-of-26 passes with one touchdown and one interception. The run game, meanwhile, managed just 69 net yards.
“We have to give Grayson time back there,” McCorkle said. “He can’t be feeling pressure. We’ve got to do a good job of getting open and we’ve got to get the run game going. If you can’t do those things, it makes it very difficult for the quarterback.
“He’s just got to keep doing what he’s doing. I mean, he makes plays. But we have to put him in situations where he can do that.”
Defensively last week, a balanced Yale offense got 28 completions in 37 attempts for 325 yards and two touchdowns through the air and 212 yards and one touchdown on the ground.
“Yale came out in attack mode and we didn’t respond very well,” McCorkle explained. “They knocked us on our heels from the get-go. We shot ourselves in the foot the first couple of series. You can’t be backed up and give them the ball at midfield.
“We’ve got to come out this week ready to play against an athletic, physical team that is going to play super hard.”
Merrimack’s sub-500 record probably deserves an asterisk. An independent since departing the Northeast Conference in 2024, it had to scramble to find games and, as a result, has played a challenging schedule. The Warriors have suffered losses at FBS Delaware (42-7), at FCS No. 2 Tarleton State, 45-20, against then-No. 6/8 Rhode Island (34-7), and 41-21 at Yale in a game in which it jumped out to a 21-7 lead.
The Massachusetts school’s wins have come at CAA member Maine (23-14) and over New Haven (17-10).
“They are a good football team,” said McCorkle. “They’ve faced some very good teams. They are battle-tested. We can’t be hesitant. We have to realize, hey man, if you make a mistake, just keep playing with the same energy that we’ve always played with. Just be in attack mode the whole time.”
Challenging the Dartmouth defense will be a Merrimack offense led by 6-foot-3, 214-pound sophomore AJ Hairston, a transfer from the University of Massachusetts, where he passed for 957 yards and four touchdowns last fall. in his first season at Merrimack he has completed 66-of-125 passes (52.8 percent) for 784 yards with six touchdowns and four interceptions. He’s also run 47 times (second on the team) for 229 yards before sacks and lost yardage are deducted.
“He has a live arm and can really throw it,” McCorkle said. “And he does a good job running the ball. We have to do a better job of getting matched up and making sure that we’re taking away open windows, and we have to get pressure on him.”
“It all goes hand in hand. I mean, you can sit there and say you have got to cover, but you’ve got to get pressure at the same time.”
Merrimack has four receivers with double-figure catches led by 6-3 Austin Palmer, who caught seven passes for 95 yards against Tarleton. He leads the team with 16 catches for 189 yards and two touchdowns.
Matthias Latham, a senior from Salem, N.H., leads the ground game with 376 yards, including 176 against New Haven. Galamama Mulbah, a 6-1, 225 transfer from Lackawanna College, has 180 yards, while DeMarcus McElroy, a transfer from St. Francis, has run for 177 yards and a healthy 6.3 average carry.
Beyond a completion percentage ranked 107th nationally among 124 FCS teams, the biggest issue for Merrimack is taking care of the football. The Warriors have fumbled 15 times, losing 10. They have more turnovers than any team in the country.
“We’ve got to create those turnovers,” said McCorkle, whose team is 122nd in the nation in doing just that. “Turning them over is a big thing, and then we’ve got to be ready to capitalize on it when that happens.”
The defensive headliner for Merrimack is a familiar name. Former Dartmouth linebacker Micah Green ’25, back healthy after a year off the field, is tied for the team lead with 36 tackles, including 2.5 for a loss with two QB hurries.
“Micah’s Micah,” said McCorkle with a smile. “He plays his butt off and I’ll tell you what. He’s brought that energy to their defense. He does a heckuva job and is having a great season for them.”
The Warriors have given up almost twice as many points as they have scored this fall (186–98) despite outrushing their opposition (960 yards to 654) and holding their opponents to 53.5 percent passing success.
Merrimack has been outscored just 79–63 in the first half through six games, but the second half has been an entirely different story, with opponents outscoring the Warriors, 107–35.
That could be a perfect storm for a Dartmouth team that has scored 24 points in each of the first two quarters, but just 21 points total in the second half including just one touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“That’s something we have to improve, scoring in the second half and fourth quarter,” said McCorkle, whose team has been shut out in the final period for three games straight. “It’s something we’ve struggled with, but we’ve got to score every opportunity we get. We’ve got to get down there and put points on the board.”
While Dartmouth will be playing for the fifth week in a row, Merrimack is coming off a bye.
“I’m sure they will have some guys back who had been banged up,” said McCorkle. “They are a physical team that wants to knock you around and are going to come out fast and fresh after the bye.”
NOTES: The Merrimack game was a late addition to the Dartmouth schedule. The teams have met just one time previously, with a 32-yard Owen Zalc field goal with seven seconds remaining giving the Big Green a 16–14 road win in 2024. . Merrimack fielded a Division III football team for the first time in 1996, moved up to DII from 1997-2018 and joined the FCS ranks in 2019. . Merrimack and Villanova are the only Augustinian Catholic colleges in the United States. Undergraduate enrollment at the North Andover, Mass., school was 4,123 in the fall of 2025 with an additional 2,147 graduate students.
The Warriors are coached by Mike Gennetti, promoted to the position in 2024 after serving as an assistant coach at the school since 2005. He’s a 2003 graduate of Worcester State, where he was recruited by then Worcester State assistant coach Tony Reno, the late Yale coach.
Gennetti, via a press release, on playing the Big Green: "Dartmouth is a program that we have a great deal of respect for. They've established a tradition of winning football, and when you play a program like that, you're going to face a well-coached, disciplined, and physical football team. It's another great opportunity for our players and our program to compete against a quality Ivy League opponent. These are the types of games we embrace because they challenge us and allow us to continue growing as a football program."