Presser Points: Dartmouth

By rbrown
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: September 14, 2023

Photo courtesy Dartmouth media relations

PRESSER POINTS

News and notes from the University of New Hampshire’s weekly press conference in advance of Saturday’s home game against Dartmouth (6 p.m.):

This game will be the season-opener for Dartmouth, which will be without head coach Buddy Teevens, who is still recovering from injuries sustained in a bicycle accident that occurred in March. Sammy McCorkle will serve as Dartmouth’s interim head coach. He has spent the last 18 years on Teevens’ staff, nine as the associate head coach.

“That’s been hard (not having Teevens around), but I’ll tell you the guys have done a phenomenal job of bonding together and leaning on each other and helping each other through this very difficult time,” McCorkle said. “But he’s always in our thoughts all the time. We’ll continue to follow the blueprint he’s developed and we’re going to move forward, just like he would want us to do.”

UNH (1-1) is coming off Saturday’s 45-42 loss at Central Michigan.

UNH holds a 20-19-2 advantage in the series, and won last year’s meeting 14-0 in Hanover. The Wildcats are 10-3-2 against the Big Green in Durham.

“They’re going to be ready for us,” UNH coach Rick Santos said. “Obviously with the way the game went down last year at the end of it us not knowing where the trophy was we kind of stormed their sideline, so I think there’s a lot of motivation on their end. They’re probably pissed off. They want to come in here and do the same thing to us on our home turf, so we have to be ready for these guys.”

Santos said preparing for an opponent that has yet to play a game presents challenges that aren’t present later in the season.

“With Coach McCorkle taking over maybe he’s just going to throw a bunch of different wrinkles at us that they haven’t shown in the last few years,” he said. “So we’re going with preparation based on last year and things they’ve done in the past.”

UNH STATISTICS | DARTMOUTH STATISTICS

*******

— Dartmouth was picked to finish sixth in the Ivy League Preseason media poll. The Big Green returned seven offensive starters and four starters on defense from a team that finished 3-7 last season.

“I think we’re an experienced team,” McCorkle said. “We may not have, per se on paper, a lot of returning starters, but we don’t ever look at it as who’s a starter. We play a lot of guys. We had a lot of injuries last year so a lot of guys had to play probably sooner than they should have, but hopefully that’s going to pay off in the long run because of the experience they had in playing in a game situation. We feel like overall we have good experience.”

— UNH is ranked No. 11 in both major FCS national poll.

— Dartmouth quarterback Nick Howard has 24 rushing touchdowns in the last two seasons. He ran for 819 yards and 15 TDs as a sophomore, and rushed for 503 yards and nine touchdowns last season, when he missed two games because of injury.

— Santos on the Dartmouth defense: “Their defensive coordinator (Don Dobes) has been there for a long time. We feel like we have a good read on what they’re going to do. They’re bend but don’t break. They play a ton of zone coverage. They make you march the ball down the field. … I think it’s going to be a game that’s going to be won or lost in the trenches, so we need to do a phenomenal job up front — hopefully running the ball in particular if we do have a hurricane and the elements are going to be what it looks like right now. We have to be dominant on the ground.”

— UNH safety Joe Eichman has an interception in each of UNH’s first two games. He’s second on the team with five career interceptions.

— UNH wide receiver Logan Tomlinson on having extra time to prepare for an opponent (Dartmouth) versus having two games under your belt (UNH): “I like our spot. We’ve built a lot of momentum these first two weeks. The big season-opener win (against Stonehill) and then going on the road for an FBS game and playing how we did. I’m sure they have a chip on their shoulder from us winning the game last year and also having additional time to prepare, but I think the camaraderie and the steps we’ve taken in our first two weeks is a position I like us in.”

— Dartmouth’s Paxton Scott caught at least one pass in every game last season and led the team with 34 receptions (two touchdowns).

— McCorkle on UNH: “With them having so many guys back on offense and defense it’s essentially the same team from last year. … We just have to be prepared to go out there from the very first play all the way through to the last play.”

UNH VS. DARTMOUTH

1901: Dartmouth 51, UNH 0
1907: Dartmouth 10, UNH 0
1916: Dartmouth 33, UNH 0
1917: Dartmouth 21, UNH 6
1921: Dartmouth 24, UNH 0
1922: Dartmouth 25, UNH 0
1924: Dartmouth 21, UNH 7
1956: Dartmouth 13, UNH 0
1960: Dartmouth 7, UNH 6
1961: Dartmouth 28, UNH 3
1964: Dartmouth 40, UNH 6
1965: Dartmouth 56, UNH 6
1968: Dartmouth 21, UNH 0
1969: Dartmouth 32, UNH 0
1972: Dartmouth 24, UNH 12
1973: UNH 10, Dartmouth 9
1976: Dartmouth 24, UNH 13
1979: UNH 10, Dartmouth 10
1980: UNH 24, Dartmouth 7
1984: UNH 38, Dartmouth 10
1985: UNH 23, Dartmouth 7
1986: UNH 66, Dartmouth 12
1987: UNH 41, Dartmouth 2
1990: UNH 21, Dartmouth 21
1992: UNH 45, Dartmouth 27
1993: UNH 14, Dartmouth 7
2000: UNH 42, Dartmouth 21
2001: UNH 42, Dartmouth 38
2002: UNH 29, Dartmouth 26
2003: UNH 42, Dartmouth 17
2004: UNH 45, Dartmouth 24
2005: UNH 49, Dartmouth 20
2006: UNH 56, Dartmouth 14
2007: UNH 52, Dartmouth 31
2008: UNH 42, Dartmouth 6
2009: UNH 44, Dartmouth 14
2014: UNH 52, Dartmouth 19
2016: Dartmouth 22, UNH 21
2021: Dartmouth 38, UNH 21
2022: UNH 14, Dartmouth 0