Football to Take on Merrimack in Final Non-Ivy Game

Game Five: Dartmouth (1-3) vs Merrimack (2-4) - Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, 1 p.m.
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HANOVER, N.H. – The Dartmouth football team returns to Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field on Saturday, Oct. 17, to host Merrimack in its final non-league game of the season. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m., and the game will be televised on NESN and streamed on ESPN+.

Setting the Scene
Dartmouth owns the most Ivy League championships of any program, with 22, and has won a title in four of the past six seasons. The Big Green lead the all-time series with Merrimack 1-0, having won 16-14 at Duane Stadium on Sept. 28, 2024, in the first meeting between the programs.

Dartmouth is 1-3 overall and 1-1 in the Ivy League. The Big Green opened with one-possession losses to No. 7 Lehigh (24-20) and (RV) Monmouth (31-28), beat Penn 14-10 in the Ivy opener on Oct. 3, then fell 28-7 at Yale on Oct. 10.

Merrimack is 2-4 and in its third season as an FCS independent. The Warriors are led by third-year head coach Mike Gennetti and have wins over Maine (23-14) and New Haven (17-10). They fell 41-24 at Yale on Oct. 3 after leading 21-7 and are coming off a bye. Quarterback AJ Hairston Jr. has thrown for 784 yards and six touchdowns, and running back Matthias Latham leads the ground game. Graduate linebacker Micah Green, a former Dartmouth player, anchors the defense. Merrimack has committed a nation-high 16 turnovers this season.

Sammy McCorkle, the Robert L. Blackman Head Football Coach, is in his fourth season at the helm in 2026. The Big Green won Ivy League titles in 2023 and 2024 under McCorkle.

Core contributors return throughout the lineup:

Saunier: The quarterback threw for 2,143 yards and nine touchdowns last season and rushed for 413 yards and a team-high 11 touchdowns. Through four games in 2026, he has completed 51 of 98 passes for 739 yards and five touchdowns.
Fisher and Lemon: Ky'Dric Fisher, the top returning pass catcher after posting 21 catches for 341 yards as a sophomore, caught a 30-yard touchdown at Yale and has 14 catches for 260 yards and three touchdowns this season. Nick Lemon had two catches for 12 yards at Yale.
Keith: Harrison Keith, a Third Team Associated Press (AP) All-American last season, led the team with four interceptions as a junior. He had 12 tackles at Yale and leads the Big Green with 39 on the season.
Linebackers and secondary: Cameron Best-Alston matched Keith with 12 tackles at Yale. Steve Simpkins Jr. had 10, and Johnny Stephens added nine.
Defensive line: Bruce Williams and Joshua Johnson combined for four sacks and 37 tackles as juniors last year and will look to take their production to the next level in 2026.

Dartmouth fell 28-7 at Yale on Saturday, Oct. 10, at the Yale Bowl. The Bulldogs scored on their first two drives to lead 14-0, and the Big Green answered late in the first quarter on an 11-play, 87-yard drive. Saunier hit Fisher for a 30-yard touchdown on fourth-and-6 with 48 seconds left in the quarter. Yale outscored Dartmouth 14-0 the rest of the way and finished with 537 yards to Dartmouth's 225.

Saunier completed 10 of 26 passes for 156 yards, a touchdown and an interception, and Myles Craddock led the Big Green with 55 rushing yards on 16 carries. Dartmouth averaged 2.4 yards per carry and converted 1 of 10 third downs. Luke Armistead punted seven times for a 49.3-yard average, including a 77-yarder, which ranks second all-time in program history for longest punt.

The loss followed Dartmouth's 14-10 Ivy opener against the University of Pennsylvania on Saturday, Oct. 3, a Homecoming Weekend win at Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field that improved the Big Green to 15-3 at home over their past 18 games.

With a Win on Saturday…

Dartmouth would improve to 2-3 overall.
The Big Green would improve to 2-0 all-time against Merrimack.
McCorkle would improve to 2-0 against the Warriors.
Dartmouth would improve to 16-3 at home over its past 19 games.

Scouting Merrimack
Merrimack is 2-4 overall under head coach Mike Gennetti in 2026. The Warriors are in their third season as an FCS independent and went 4-8 in 2025. They have two FBS opponents on their schedule this season, Delaware and Wake Forest, and six of their 12 opponents received votes in the FCS preseason coaches poll. Dartmouth was one of those teams.

Merrimack opened with a loss at Delaware and won 23-14 at Maine on Saturday, Sept. 12. On Saturday, Oct. 3, the Warriors lost 41-24 at Yale. They led 21-7 in the second quarter, but Yale outscored them 34-3 the rest of the way and gained 476 yards.

Merrimack averaged 20.5 points and 343.9 yards per game in 2025. Merrimack visits Dartmouth before hosting New Hampshire on Oct. 24 and Wagner on Oct. 31. Dartmouth plays at Columbia on Oct. 24, so the Big Green will see that opponent next.

Last Time vs. Merrimack
Owen Zalc kicked a 32-yard field goal with three seconds left to give Dartmouth a 16-14 win on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, at Duane Stadium in North Andover, Mass. Merrimack led 14-10 after three quarters, and Dartmouth scored the last six points of the game. Zalc made all three of his field goals in the second half or after halftime: 31 yards in the second quarter, 50 yards in the fourth and the 32-yarder to win it. He also missed from 50 yards in the third quarter. Painter Richards-Baker caught a 75-yard touchdown pass from Jackson Proctor in the first quarter.

Dartmouth held Merrimack to 99 passing yards and 264 total yards, though Jermaine Corbett rushed for 137 yards and two touchdowns for the Warriors. The Big Green defense forced two turnovers on downs, and Micah Green led the team with nine tackles.

Sammy McCorkle Against Merrimack
McCorkle holds a 1-0 record against Merrimack as Robert L. Blackman Head Coach:

def. Merrimack, 16-14: Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, at Duane Stadium

Elite Company for Saunier

Career passing yards: 3,415, No. 10 in program history. He needs 10 to pass David Gabianelli '87 (3,424) for No. 9. Dalyn Williams '16 holds the record at 7,458, and Derek Kyler '21 is eighth at 4,409.
Career completions: 281, ninth. He needs 82 to pass Kyler for eighth. Williams holds the record at 620.
Career completion percentage: .623 (281-for-451), third behind Kyler's .693 and Williams' .627, and just ahead of Alex Park '14 (.622).
Career total offense: 4,170 yards, ninth in program history after passing Jon Aljancic '97 (4,156). He needs 69 to pass Mark Johnson '90 (4,238) for eighth. Williams holds the record at 8,952.
Single-game passing yards: 407 vs. CCSU (2025), tied for fifth in program history.
Season passing yards: 2,143 (2025), eighth all-time.
Season completions: 183 (2025), seventh all-time.
Season rushing touchdowns: 11 (2025), tied for ninth all-time.
Career rushing touchdowns: 20, tied for ninth all-time.
Points in a season: 60 (2025), tied with Yale's Josh Pitsenberger for the Ivy League lead that year.

Saunier Among Active FCS Players
Saunier ranks 27th among active FCS players in passing efficiency (135.38), 29th in total offense (4,170), and 42nd in total offense per game (173.8).

Weekly Honors For Stephens
Johnny Stephens was honored as the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week on Monday, Oct. 5.

Weekly Honors For Zalc
Zalc was named a semifinalist for the 2026 Campbell Trophy on Thursday, Sept. 24. He has been named Ivy League Special Teams Player of the Week seven times in his career, most recently on Sept. 21.

Zalc in the Record Book

Single-season field goals: 17 made on 21 attempts (2023), a program record. The Ivy League record is 19, by Princeton's Chris Lutz in 1988. Zalc's 17 ranks fourth in league history.
Single-season field goals in league play: 14 in 2023, the Ivy League record. Penn's Andrew Samson had 13 in 2008.
Career field goals: 41 made on 62 attempts, a Dartmouth record. That is tied for fifth in Ivy League history with Penn's Jason Feinberg. He needs 11 to tie and 12 to pass Brown's Steve Morgan (2004-07), the conference record holder with 52.
Career points-kicking: 221, first on Dartmouth's career points-kicking chart, with 98 of 100 extra points and 41 field goals. That is seventh in Ivy League history, and he needs 9 to pass Harvard's Jake McIntyre and Brown's Sean Jensen (229).
Career points: 221, second all-time in program history behind Myles Lane '28 (307).
Longest field goal: 54 yards vs. Harvard (2024), tied for the Ivy League record.

Zalc Among Active FCS Players
Zalc ranks third among all active FCS players in field goals (41), third in field goals-per-game (1.21), eighth in extra points – kicking (98) and 10th in career points (221).

Some of the Nation's Longest Punts
Luke Armistead's 77-yard punt against Yale was the second-longest punt in program history and the fourth-longest punt by an FCS player in 2026. Armistead now owns two of the longest punts by an FCS player this season, with his 74-yarder against Penn currently ranking seventh.

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