Big Green

Dartmouth still measures its football program against a bar it set for itself decades ago: the record for Ivy League titles, now at 22, with the most recent coming in 2024. The Big Green compete in the FCS ranks of the Ivy League.

The program traces back to 1881, long before the college settled on the nickname that stuck. "Big Green" borrowed its name from a color, not a mascot — the shade chosen by college president Eleazar Wheelock back in 1769, said to echo the pine trees around campus, and adopted formally in 1867. It only became the team's identity after the "Indians" symbol was dropped in the mid-1970s, giving Dartmouth athletics a name pulled from its own history rather than invented for the occasion.

Before the Ivy League existed in name, Dartmouth was already collecting championships in the old Triangular Football League, winning eight titles between 1888 and 1898. The 1925 team is remembered separately, credited with a national championship by the selectors of that era.

The college has sent players on to make their names elsewhere too — Ed Healey went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the program counts eleven inductees in the College Football Hall of Fame in total.