Jackson Proctor ’25, desperate to keep the play alive, rolled to his right, stutter-stepped and made his way to the sideline. Hounded by zeroes on the clock, Proctor broke a tackle, set his feet and launched the football toward the right side of the endzone, 32 yards away.
Dartmouth had won each of its past five games by fewer than five points. In 2019, the Big Green had clinched an improbable victory against Harvard when Derek Kyler ’21 found Masaki Aerts ’21 on a similar Hail Mary. Could they do it again?
It wasn’t to be: Proctor’s pass was batted down, breaking Dartmouth fans’ hearts on Homecoming.
“We’ve been working on it for as long as I’ve been here,” Proctor said of the Big Green’s two-minute offense. “We knew what we had to do. We had to get to a certain point on the field where we could take a shot, and we did. Obviously, we came up short.”
Dartmouth’s 31-27 loss to the Crimson ends the Big Green’s undefeated season and knocks them out of outright leadership of the Ivy League. The Big Green, now 3-1 in Ivy League play, finds itself locked in a three-way tie with Harvard and Columbia at the top of the conference.
Dartmouth fell behind early 10-0 before scoring 20 unanswered — including a monster 54-yard Owen Zalc ’27 field goal — to take a 20-10 lead by the three-minute mark of the third quarter. Proctor looked right at home back under center after a three-game hiatus, completing nearly 70% of his passes for an impressive 235 yards and two touchdowns. Similarly, Dartmouth’s defense dominated the line of scrimmage with two sacks and six tackles for loss. Defensive backs Patrick Campbell ’26 and Tyson Grimm ’26 were all over the field, combining for 16 tackles. The team was disciplined, not registering a single penalty all game.
So when Daniel Haughton ’26 got loose for a 72-yard score to take a 27-17 lead, the more than-7,000 Dartmouth alumni, students and spectators packing out Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field were ready to party.
“The goal is just to get a lead and keep the lead,” linebacker and captain Micah Green ’25, who tallied eight tackles, said after the game. “We just came up short. Sometimes that just happens.”
The collapse began after a short Dartmouth drive gave Harvard the chance to get back in the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Harvard took advantage — methodically moving 94 yards in 14 plays to pull within three on a Charles DePrima rushing touchdown. After another Dartmouth three-and-out, Harvard had a chance to take the lead with four minutes to go.
Harvard didn’t let its opportunity go to waste, with DePrima capping off a 10-play, 73-yard drive with his third rushing touchdown. With 27 seconds left, Harvard now had a 31-27 lead. Proctor and the Dartmouth offense tried valiantly to find the endzone, but it was too little, too late.
Despite the tough loss, the Big Green impressed offensively against Harvard’s league-leading defense. The 27 points they posted was the most in a game against Harvard since 2003 — and the most at home since 1993.
The offense’s success was a testament to the depth of the Big Green’s roster. In the face of star wide receiver Paxton Scott ’25’s undisclosed injury, others stepped up. Jackson Namian ’25, who had only one catch before the weekend, had five catches for 39 yards, and freshman Luke Rives ’28 recorded his first career catch. The emergence of these receivers dampened the impact of Scott’s absence for Proctor.
“Paxton is a really good player, but we had guys who stepped up,” Proctor said. “We had plenty of guys who played in a role that they haven’t played before, [including] Luke Rives, who’s a freshman, and I thought he did a really good job.”
There is very little time to mull over the result. On Friday evening, the team will be back on the field, this time on the road, against the 2-5 Princeton Tigers.
“I just can’t say how proud I am of the way every single one of the guys in that locker room and on that field today battled,” head coach Sammy McCorkle said after the game. “Knowing these guys, they’re going to bounce back from this, learn from it and get ready to prepare [themselves] next week.”
With a title still up for grabs with three games left in the season, Dartmouth has every reason to remain optimistic.
