Dante Reno, son of former Yale head coach Tony Reno, threw for 454 yards and five touchdowns as Yale beat Holy Cross 38-28 on Saturday, Sept. 19.

That yardage total is the second-highest for a single game in Yale history. Only Griffin O'Connor's 465-yard performance against Princeton in 2018 tops it.

Reno completed 30 of 43 passes in the season opener in Worcester, Mass. He threw his first touchdown to Jaxton Santiago on a 75-yard connection on the game's fifth play, according to WTNH.

Yale trailed late.

The Bulldogs scored 17 unanswered points in the final 9:36, with Reno's fifth touchdown pass going to Graham Smith with 3:42 remaining to put Yale ahead for good.

"Find a way to win, that's what our motto is right now," head coach Kevin Cahill said after the game. "We will make some adjustments, but it's good to come out of here with a win."

The victory was Cahill's first as Yale's head coach. He was named the Bulldogs' 35th head coach in February after Tony Reno stepped down for health reasons following 14 seasons, five Ivy League championships and an 83-49 record. Cahill had spent 10 seasons as an assistant on Tony Reno's staff before leaving to lead Lehigh, where he went 12-0 in the 2025 regular season and won the Eddie Robinson Award as FCS Coach of the Year.

Santiago finished with 12 catches for 234 yards and two scores, tying Reed Klubnik for the third-most receiving yards in a single Yale game. Lucius Anderson added nine catches for 155 yards and two touchdowns.

Dante Reno, a former four-star recruit who transferred to Yale from South Carolina, threw for 2,498 yards and 21 touchdowns last season. He earned the New England Football Writers Gold Helmet Award for his Sept. 19 performance, Yale Football announced on X on Sunday, Sept. 20.

No. 19 Yale opens Ivy League play Saturday, Sept. 26, at Cornell.