“We should have sent the whole team and the crowd out there and gotten the most out of the punishment,’’ joked cocaptain Tim McManus, after Dartmouth’s football team ended its school-record 17-game losing streak with a 28-6 victory.

There hadn’t been any pigskin celebrations at Daniel Webster’s old college since Nov. 3, 2007, when the Big Green ran up 59 points on Cornell. Beating Columbia, which hasn’t had a winning season since 1996, normally doesn’t call for confetti hereabouts, but this was no normal victory.

“Such a piano off your back,’’ said cocaptain Pete Pidermann. “It wasn’t that we got the win, but that this could be the moment when everything turns around.’’

If Dartmouth can beat Harvard tomorrow afternoon at the Stadium, it would be the program’s biggest victory since the 2003 varsity wrecked the Crimson’s unbeaten season after starting 0-4. As usual, the odds are daunting. Har vard has won 11 of the last 12 meetings, including a 35-7 thumping last year, and dominated the Green, 44-17, in this year’s scrimmage.

Still, the Crimson have seen enough of the visitors to be wary.

“A couple of weeks ago, people would have thought, ‘Hey, that looks like a guaranteed W,’ ’’ said coach Tim Murphy in this week’s Ivy League teleconference. “We knew from the scrimmage that they were a different team, even though the record didn’t show it until they beat Columbia. Our kids were already believers.’’

There were stretches during the first five games when the Green seemed on the verge of a breakthrough. They led Colgate with 10 minutes to play in the third quarter before giving up 21 straight points, were driving for a go-ahead score against New Hampshire just before halftime, and would have had a chance to overtake Pennsylvania had they recovered an onside kick in the final seconds. Only two games were blowouts - a 38-7 loss at Yale and a 34-14 defeat at Holy Cross.

There were “tangible gains without the satisfaction of victory,’’ said coach Buddy Teevens, yet the procession of losses was dispiriting. “Early in the season, we wondered if we were in the habit of losing,’’ said sophomore quarterback Conner Kempe, who stepped in when senior starter Alex Jenny went down with a dislocated elbow at New Haven.

Dartmouth traditionally has had to deal with several challenges: it’s the league’s smallest institution (4,098 undergrads), it’s in a secluded nook two hours north of Boston, and it has a staggered year-round calendar. More recently, the league’s academic index requirement had reduced its talent pool and the 30-recruit limit per year made it difficult to gain ground once injuries and losing increased attrition.

“Some people who come back don’t appreciate that things have changed so substantially,’’ said Teevens, who quarterbacked Dartmouth to an Ivy title in 1978. “They say, ‘Why can’t you do it like it was before?’ There are multiple reasons for that.’’

But the biggest drawback was the school’s antiquated football facilities, most notably the Davis Varsity House that was built in 1927.

“It was old and historic,’’ said Teevens. “I dressed there, my dad dressed there, and all the alums dressed there. But for a 17- or 18-year-old in today’s world, it was a little bit archaic.’’

Much of the school’s charm is its Enchanted Village feel, its lovely yesteryear setting. But as the rest of the league upgraded athletic plants, Dartmouth’s remained set in granite.

“It starkly struck people when they came on campus,’’ said Teevens.

All that changed two years ago with the opening of the Floren Varsity House, a $20 million showpiece with all the big-time necessities - a spacious locker room, meeting and study areas including a 130-seat “smart classroom,’’ coaches’ offices, a lounge decorated with mementos of glories past, and a 10,000-square-foot strength training center.

The message to the Dartmouth community and recruits was unmistakable. “The best times are coming,’’ promised Teevens, who was head coach from 1987 through 1991, then departed on a road that took him to Tulane, Illinois, Florida, and Stanford, before he returned here in 2005.

That was the essence of a candid state-of-the-program letter that Bob Ceplikas, the acting athletic director, sent in August to the Friends of Dartmouth Football, former players and parents, in the wake of a thorough external review done by Rick Taylor, a former assistant coach during the ’70s who went on to serve as AD at Boston University, Cincinnati, and Northwestern.

“We are all in agreement that our team’s record over the past 11 years has been unacceptable,’’ acknowledged Ceplikas, while outlining changes designed to turn things around. The improved facilities. The league’s academic index smoothing out, broadening Dartmouth’s recruiting pool. More competitive financial aid. Suspending long-standing but lopsided rivalries with UNH and Colgate and substituting Sacred Heart and Butler. And a boost in football fund-raising, which had ranked last in the league.

“The more factual information I can get them, the better the understanding is that times change,’’ said Ceplikas. “Universally, there is a wish that football at Dartmouth could regain its stature, at least within the Ivy League.’’

Nobody expects a quick reversal.

“My presentation was that it was going to take time,’’ said Teevens, whose record during his second tenure is 8-38. “I didn’t know how long. Certainly, you wish it had been more rapid.’’

“When you’re 0-17, it certainly wears on you,’’ says McManus, a junior wide receiver who had played in the last victory but has been sidelined with a broken leg this season. “It can wear on any human being.’’

Last weekend seemed the best chance for a victory. Columbia had dropped its previous two games and hadn’t won here in eight years. It was homecoming, with the usual Friday bonfire on the green and new president Jim Yong Kim vowing that the squad would “take it to Columbia.’’

“The team felt going in that we were going to win,’’ said Pidermann.

Once Dartmouth jumped to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, the stands began filling up despite the rain.

“Lots of our buddies were texting their friends saying, ‘Hey, we might pull this one out,’ ’’ said McManus.

Everything went the way the Green had dreamed. Nick Schwieger, a sophomore running back from Norton, Mass., set a school rushing record with 242 yards. The defense produced three turnovers, one a killer 39-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Charles Bay. The final minutes were nirvana.

“To see the sheer joy on some of the faces was priceless,’’ said Teevens.

During the glory days of the McKinnons and Bowdens and Williamses, the bumper stickers declared “Dartmouth Will Win.’’ After the desolation of the last decade, the expectations are more modest.

“The feeling now is, maybe they can win,’’ said Kempe. “The talk last year was, this team can’t win.’’

Now all they have to do is keep doing it. Though the Green will be decided underdogs at Harvard and Brown, they figure to be competitive against Cornell and Princeton. There won’t be a winning season, but one seems to be lurking just beyond the foliage-filled hills.

“I’m really jealous,’’ said Pidermann. “I won’t be able to be around here for a couple more years.’’

John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com.