One day after his father died, Yale quarterback Dante Reno took the field in New Haven and threw for 298 yards and four touchdowns, leading the Bulldogs to a 41-24 win over Merrimack. The victory opened Yale's home season and came just 24 hours after the death of Tony Reno, the former Yale head coach and Dante's father, who passed away on October 2, 2026, in New Haven, Connecticut.
Dante completed 22 of 39 passes in the win, according to Boston.com, which first reported that the second-year starting quarterback said he never considered sitting out the game after his father's death. He described his Yale teammates as his family and said his father's spirit is everywhere in the program he helped build. Tony Reno died after a lengthy battle with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative brain condition that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strikes just 1 to 2 people per million annually in the United States and typically brings rapid neurological decline, with a median survival of just 4 to 5 months after symptoms appear.
A Program Built Over 14 Years
Tony Reno stepped down as Yale's head coach in February 2026 after 14 seasons leading the program, a tenure that ended with a career record of 83-49 — the second-most wins in Yale football history, trailing only legendary coach Carm Cozza's 179 victories across 32 seasons from 1965 to 1996, as reported by AP News. Reno led Yale to five Ivy League championships during his time in New Haven, and his teams went 7-2 against archrival Harvard between 2015 and 2025 in the storied rivalry known simply as The Game.
His final season as head coach was also his best. In 2025, Reno guided Yale to a 9-3 record and an Ivy League title, earning the conference's first-ever automatic berth to the NCAA FCS Playoffs. The Bulldogs capped that season by overcoming a 28-point third-quarter deficit to stun Youngstown State 43-42 in the first round, the same AP report notes, marking Yale's first FCS playoff win in the modern era of the program.
From South Carolina to His Father's Program
Dante Reno's path to Yale wound through the SEC. The quarterback originally signed with the University of South Carolina as a four-star recruit out of Cheshire Academy in Connecticut before transferring to Yale in June 2025 specifically to play for his father, according to 247Sports. The move paid off immediately: in his first season at Yale, Dante started all 12 games and threw for 2,498 yards, the fourth-highest single-season total in school history, along with 21 touchdowns.
That breakout year carried into 2026, when Dante entered the season on the preseason watch list for the Walter Payton Award, which recognizes the top offensive player in FCS football, per a Wikipedia entry on the team. Yale defensive captain Abu Kamara was also named to a national watch list, for the Buck Buchanan Award, entering the year.
Coaching Continuity Under Kevin Cahill
Leading the Bulldogs now is Kevin Cahill, who took over as head coach after Tony Reno's resignation and is in his first year running the program. Cahill isn't new to Yale — he spent 10 seasons on Reno's staff from 2012 to 2022 as associate head coach and offensive coordinator before departing to become head coach at Lehigh, where he won back-to-back Patriot League titles and earned the 2025 Eddie Robinson Award as the top head coach in FCS football, according to the Daily Voice. Cahill said Tony Reno's memory motivated him as he guided the team through the emotional week.
The comeback against Merrimack unfolded dramatically on the field. Yale trailed 14-7 early before clawing back, and the Bulldogs needed a go-ahead 20-yard touchdown pass from Dante Reno to Garon Kemp in the fourth quarter to break a 24-24 tie, per The Big Lead. Yale outscored Merrimack 17-0 in the final quarter to seal the 41-24 win in New Haven.
After the final whistle, the program's social media account posted, “Nothing could stop us today.” Dante Reno made his own message public too, dedicating the four-touchdown performance to his father with a post that read simply, “This one's for you pops.”
