Dartmouth College senior linebacker Braden Mullen can’t bring himself to root for Yale. After a four-year stint in the Ivy League, a span that saw him go 2-2 against the Bulldogs, it’s just too tough.

But Mullen and the Big Green’s Ivy title hopes — for the second year in a row — rely on Yale knocking off Harvard in “The Game.”

Mullen remembers how the situation unfolded last year following a 38-13 rout of Brown in Providence, R.I., with players and staffers holding up phones, tuning into the events in New Haven, Conn. They watched the Bulldogs squander an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter, reclaim their advantage and ultimately hold off the Crimson in a 23-18 win.

Dartmouth celebrated twice that day, Mullen said, as it secured the program’s third conference title in four seasons.

The 6-foot-2 Illinois native acknowledged that the team took a different route to get here this season, a campaign that started with a six-game win streak before a 1-2 record in the team’s last three games saw the Big Green fall out of first place in the Ivies. Now, ahead of Saturday’s regular-season finale with Brown at Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field, Dartmouth needs a little help from the Bulldogs and a win over the Bears, of course, to secure its fourth shared conference crown in five seasons.

Unlike last season, though, Yale is not in the title hunt. Is playing for nothing more than pride against its most bitter rival enough? We’ll have to see. Dartmouth isn’t afforded the luxury of shipping a few players to Cambridge, Mass., to help in Bulldogs coach Tony Reno’s cause either.

“Unfortunately, we can’t send players to add to Yale’s roster,” Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle said with a laugh while speaking with reporters on a Wednesday Zoom call. “We can only play against Brown, and that’s our complete focus. … We need to prepare this week to go out there and do what we need to do, and then you just let the chips fall where they may fall.”

For Mullen, adopting the tried and true method of controlling what you can control is central to any success this weekend, Ivy League title or not.

“I told the guys the other day before lift, ‘I don’t really give a (expletive) what happens in Cambridge this weekend,’ ” said Mullen, one of 27 seniors, along with three fifth-years, who will be honored on senior day. “Let’s play our game. Let’s win a football game, and then you can check the score once you get back to the locker room.”

Here are a couple storylines to monitor ahead of kickoff Saturday at noon:

The Big Green run game tries to regain its footing: Dartmouth was credited with 60 total rushing yards on 25 carries last weekend in its 39-22 loss at Cornell, more than half of which were credited to quarterbacks Jackson Proctor and Grayson Saunier. Five of those credited quarterback carries were sacks for a loss of 23 total yards, however.

All that to be said, the Big Green’s 60 rushing yards were their lowest output of the season. Junior D.J. Crowther and senior Q Jones, Dartmouth’s two running backs to get carries last Saturday, combined for 16 rushing yards on 12 carries.

The Big Green, who still remain a run-first team, have been held to 118 yards or fewer on the ground in each of their last three games. Jones, the team’s leading rusher with 647 rushing yards this season, is averaging 30.3 rushing yards on 14 carries per game in that stretch.

The Colorado native will be looking to recapture some of his early-season magic — or even a repeat of his 19-carry, 182-yard, one-touchdown performance against Columbia in late October — on senior day.

The turnover battle: It’s hard to win a game when you turn the ball over four times. That much McCorkle made clear on Wednesday.

One of the biggest storylines of Dartmouth’s first five games was the defense’s inability to force turnovers. That issue has been remedied in recent weeks. Defensive coordinator Don Dobes’ unit has forced eight turnovers in its last four games, including three interceptions against Cornell last week. Still, the offense’s three interceptions and a scoop-and-score from the Big Red defense were an instrumental part in Cornell’s win.

“That’s one of the big reasons we’ve had success this year,” McCorkle said of the Big Green offense limiting turnovers. “That’s something that last week cost us in certain times of the game. Right when we got momentum, (the defense forces) a turnover, and then all of a sudden we go back out there and you turn the ball right back over.”

McCorkle added that keeping drives alive has been a particular focus for Dartmouth’s offense, which ranks sixth in the conference in third-down conversion percentage (43.2%) and lost the time of possession battle against Cornell by nearly 10 minutes. The defense, meanwhile, will look to capitalize on Brown quarterback Jake Willcox’s habit for turning the ball over himself — his 12 interceptions, 10 of which came in his last five games, are the second-most in the conference.

Brown’s spread-the-wealth receiving corps: There might not be a Cooper Barkate or Bryson Canty or Samuel Musungu lining up opposite Dartmouth’s secondary this week, but Brown’s receiving corps poses its own unique challenges.

Eight Bears receivers have hauled in 18 or more catches this season, and four have recorded 300 or more receiving yards this season. Mark Mahoney, the 6-foot-5 fifth-year, is Willcox’s favorite target, leading the team in receptions (44), receiving yards (539) and receiving touchdowns (five).

While assessing the challenge of preparing for a receiving room that uses so many different pass catchers, McCorkle acknowledged that Brown is going “to get their completions.” After all, Willcox has aired the ball out 40.3 times per game this season.

McCorkle’s primary objective remains on limiting the explosive plays and not giving the Bears any “easy completions.”

“You’ve got to make (Brown) work for everything,” McCorkle said. “Force them to make a bad decision, go with the wrong read, and then you’ve got to be able, if that happens, to capitalize on that. … So everybody has to be on point each play. If that’s 70 plays or that’s 105 plays, you’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to be disciplined throughout the game.”

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