Upon reviewing the film of Dartmouth’s 45-13 football rout of Fordham in the season opener at Memorial Field, Sammy McCorkle was pleased with two things: the effort his team gave and that they were assignment sound.

Sure, the eight penalties for 60 yards are a small stain on an otherwise dominant performance, but the Big Green’s head coach said he’d much prefer to “have to slow them down than speed them up.”

“I thought we, overall, did a really good job of not making any mental mistakes,” McCorkle said. “Our guys were good at making sure they knew their responsibilities throughout the whole game. … I thought we competed the entire game, and that’s the one thing we asked of them.”

Senior cornerback Jordan Washington, whose field goal block and 60-yard touchdown return earned him Ivy League special teams player of the week honors, was a little more blunt in his assessment of the win.

“Crazy enough, I don’t think it does anything,” Washington said of any momentum from the season-opening victory. “I think that’s kind of what we expected going into it — we expected dominance.”

Ahead of the season, McCorkle talked about how the Big Green’s special teams unit won the team games in 2023. Dartmouth didn’t need any heroics from that group on Saturday, but Washington’s scoop-and-score was a second-half spectacle for the delighted Big Green faithful.

The senior cornerback passed along some credit to a fortuitous bounce, but he directed most of the credit to the job the scout team did in replicating Fordham’s field goal attempts. Washington told his teammates all week that if the Rams executed their blockers the way the Big Green scout team did, he would be able to block a kick.

Now the task at hand is preparing for Merrimack (1-3).

The Big Green (1-0) make the short drive to North Andover, Mass., on Saturday to face the FCS independent Warriors, now in their second full year at the Division I level.

Here are three storylines to monitor ahead of the game:

Merrimack’s quarterback shuffle: Warriors coach Mike Gennetti has started three different quarterbacks and played four so far this season.

Gavin McCusker’s shoulder injury early in the season opener against Air Force saw Merrimack pivot to Malakai Anthony, who has appeared in three games and completed 21 of 32 passes for 120 yards while adding 25 yards on the ground.

Ayden Pereira has started Merrimack’s two most recent games against Bucknell, a win, and Maine, a loss. Pereira has the lowest completion percentage among the three Warriors quarterbacks to have attempted a pass.

He has connected on just 21 of 44 throws for 212 yards and two touchdowns. He’s also rushed for 62 yards this season.

The final piece of the quarterback quartet is Justin Lewis, who was thrust under center for several series in Merrimack’s 26-15 loss to Maine this past weekend after completing all six of his passes for 103 yards against UConn. He was picked off twice by the Black Bears, completing eight of 13 passes for 62 yards before Pereira returned.

The Warriors’ early season quarterback shuffling forces Dartmouth to prepare for all options, McCorkle said.

“They’re all different types of quarterbacks,” McCorkle said. “They bring a little something different for their offense. … Our biggest thing is we just have to understand who’s out there at quarterback and be assignment sound.”

Merrimack could be without top receiver: Gennetti’s rotating string of quarterbacks so far this season is well-documented, and any potential instability could be further plagued by the potential absence of star wide receiver Donovan Wadley on Saturday.

Wadley, who was named to the 2024 Walter Payton Award preseason watch list, exited the Warriors’ game against Maine with an apparent injury, according to Mike McMahon of the Mack Report.

Wadley was a jack of all trades for Gennetti last season, housing three kickoff returns while hauling in 26 receptions for 471 yards and five touchdowns and adding 216 rushing yards. So far this season, Wadley has caught seven passes for 93 yards and rushed for nine yards on four carries.

His status ahead of kickoff was unknown Thursday.

Can Dartmouth backfield replicate performance? McCorkle entrusted his running backs with a greater workload in game one than in the program’s recent history. Senior Q Jones and junior D.J. Crowther repaid that trust on Saturday, combining for 165 rushing yards and three total touchdowns.

The Big Green rushed for 233 yards against Fordham and face a Merrimack squad that has allowed 166.5 rushing yards per game, a mark which ranks 79th in FCS.

For Crowther, whose 79 rushing yards were a career high, his success on Saturday and emergence in the backfield came from a consistent approach and trusting of his teammates and coaches.

“Just keeping us humble, keeping that mindset about always attacking the day and always finding ways to get better,” said Crowther of the message from first-year running backs coach Braxton Chapman. “Once the day is over, it doesn’t matter what we did in the past, you’ve got to keep going and keep finding ways to be great.”

Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.