It’s late October in Manhattan and the Dartmouth football team’s defense, which held Columbia scoreless in the first half, had forced a three-and-out to start the third quarter. Out trotted Lions punter William Hughes to boot the ball back to the Big Green offense. The half-minute chess game had begun.

Dartmouth’s punt rush unit shuffled around the field, each move seemingly eliciting a different reaction from one of Columbia’s players at the line of scrimmage. Fingers were pointed, assignments were identified and changed, and the Lions’ formation was reshuffled in response to the Big Green’s continued movement. Columbia ended up changing its punt protection not once, not twice, but three times. On the third adjustment the play clock had run out.

The ESPN+ broadcast crew was stunned by the Lions’ mistake. Did Columbia have to accommodate a late 11th runner on the field? No. Did Hughes, now inside his own 15-yard line, need the extra space? No. So why did Columbia back away toward its end zone, essentially giving the Dartmouth offense five free yards?

To find the answer, you have to go all the way back to spring. Before the decisive games, before the Five Player of the Week honors, before the emergence of a new energy in the special teams room, assistant coach Joe Castellitto earned a promotion and outlined a clear vision. Everything that has unfolded this fall is a byproduct of that preseason shift.

“(It’s) a culture of controlled and clever madness,” senior linebacker Braden Mullen said.

Under the tutelage of the team’s current head coach, Sammy McCorkle, Dartmouth’s special teams were “a great unit,” Mullen said. McCorkle’s affinity for the oft-heralded third phase of the game, which dates back to his days playing in Gainesville, Florida, for the Gators, is well documented.

In his search for the program’s special teams coordinator ahead of the 2024 campaign, McCorkle wanted to find someone who understood the importance of the unit. The second-year coach predicted the trickle-down effect Castellitto’s coaching style, namely his energy and excitement, would have in the room. He was right.

Castellitto, who was hired to coach the Nickelbacks in March 2023, oversaw the punt rush and field goal blocking units during his first year in Hanover. He was given a free hand entering Year 2. He knew he wanted to go on the attack. He wanted to keep opposing special teams coordinators guessing all the time. Nothing – not even kicking the ball – would be considered passive.

“He had a meeting, talked for a bit and told us, ‘Hey man, I’m going to do my absolute best to make sure this is the best unit it can be,’” Mullen said. “And I’m going to ask the same of you, and if you don’t give it to me, I’m going to point it out to you. And if I don’t give it to you, I want one of you to point it out to you.’”

Castellitto, a former linebacker at Utica University in the mid-2010s and later an assistant coach at Central Connecticut State and UConn, said he has always been a guy with a lot of energy. He wanted his players to emulate that. So he brought “the juice,” he said.

The change in atmosphere was immediately apparent. Where players in the past might have feared encounters — some even fell asleep — there was a new excitement and energy, said sophomore kicker Matisse Weaver.

“We would start a special teams meeting and everyone would be yelling and cheering,” said sophomore kicker Owen Zalc, who earned a first-team All-Ivy nod as a freshman and made 13 of his 17 field goal attempts this season. “You brought the energy (because) you’re excited to be on special teams. It’s not just the extra phase… you get the opportunity to be on special teams here.”

Castellitto felt it too. Before special teams practice, he felt the anticipation. The players had bought in.

“Out on the court, we have our personal protectors answering the calls, we have our holder, who is super excited to be out there every time,” said Weaver, who leads the Ivy League in touchback percentage, with 32 of 48 kickoffs have not been returned. “You have people who aren’t necessarily the people making plays that are super invested. … Everyone just really enjoys it, and that starts with coach (Castellitto).”

The juice had seeped down, now it was time for the payoff on the field.

Senior punter Davis Golick, a starter since midway through his freshman year, had previously joked with the coaching staff about rugby punting, Castellitto said. In the second-year coach’s efforts to emphasize opposing special teams coordinators — Castellitto estimates the team has fielded 30 different punt formations this season — he wanted to try rolling out punts, which meant giving Golick the responsibility gave to adapt.

The Georgia native was up to the challenge.

Golick is averaging a career-high 41.2 yards per punt this season, a mark that ranks second in the conference. Castellitto finds it ironic that Golick’s best boots this season have come on rugby traps, including two that played a key role in Dartmouth’s win over Princeton on Nov. 8.

Golick’s career-high 62-yarder set up a Mullen recovery in Tigers territory and an eventual touchdown from the Big Green offense. His 59-yard punt late in the fourth quarter put Princeton at its own 2-yard line. Just three plays later, Dartmouth’s defense forced a safety.

For Mullen, these two sequences aptly illustrate “the world of difference” special teams can make and the “waterfall effect” the unit has on a game. The potential for success comes down to the lens in which teams view special teams as a task rather than an opportunity, Mullen said. At Dartmouth, it’s the latter, he said.

“Even though there are fewer plays per game, the ball moves so much on special teams and there are so many opportunities to get the ball where you want it,” said Mullen, who currently serves as the team’s long snapper, after starter Andy Belles. injury. “That’s really what coach (Castellitto) emphasizes: How can we put that ball in the best position for our offense and defense?”

Golick said: “You see the reward when you have that attitude throughout the team: that special teams is not an afterthought. It does not complement an offensive or defensive performance. It’s an entire phase that can make or break a game. You definitely see the results.”

Whether it’s the unit’s imprint on the game against Princeton, Zalc’s late-game heroics or Weaver’s consistency on kickoffs, the results have been clear for Castellitto and Dartmouth all season.

But in typical coaching fashion, the plays Castellitto is most excited about are the ones where “the things we learn are on film.” When the Big Green imposes a delay of play on an opponent’s punt, as they did against Columbia, or when all eleven players apply the “technique they coached” on a short Merrimack punt return, Castellitto gets fired up.

Before senior day festivities and the regular season finale against Brown at Buddy Teevens Stadium at Memorial Field on Saturday — an Ivy League title still in play with a win and a Yale victory over Harvard — the special teams unit will of Dartmouth appear to be on offense one last time this fall, just as Castellitto envisioned last spring.

“Some of these guys don’t play that much, some of them play a lot,” Castellitto said. “For them to reap the benefits of winning a football match and having a positive impact on it, that’s what excites me more than anything.

“I love it when special teams has success, but I love it when Dartmouth football has success.”

Alex Cervantes can be reached at [email protected] or 603-727-7302.