From 1895 to 1899, William Wurtenburg served as the head coach of the Dartmouth Big Green football program, which represented Dartmouth College in collegiate football competitions. Dartmouth had adopted football as a school sport in 1881 when the team went 1–0–1. Prior to Wurtenburg's hiring, the team had won two consecutive Triangular Football League championships under coach Wallace Moyle. Wurtenburg had been a highly successful player at Yale, where he had played at quarterback on teams that went 46–1–1 in a four-year span. He had graduated from the school in 1893 and coached the Navy Midshipmen football program for a year before his hiring by Dartmouth.
During Wurtenburg's five year coaching tenure, Dartmouth went 8–2 in conference contests and won four consecutive Triangular Football League championships. The 1895 season was made up of thirteen games, a record-setting amount for a Dartmouth team. It included the closest loss to rival Harvard up to that point. The 1896 was the most successful season of Wurtenburg's, in terms of winning percentage; the squad went 5–2–1, the tenth-best record among major teams, for a .688 win percentage. The fewest games played in a season under Wurtenburg were seven in 1897. That team managed a 4–3 record, which included a three-game scoreless streak. The 1898 squad finished the season with a losing record, 5–6, but managed to outscore its opponents 205–137. Wurtenburg's final season as Dartmouth's head coach was his worst. The team had a 2–7 overall record and went 0–2 in conference play. The season was also marked by several of the largest blowouts of Dartmouth in years.
Overall, the Dartmouth football program went 23–23–2 in Wurtenburg's five years of coaching. The 1898 season was the final Triangular Football League championship the school would win; the conference would become defunct in 1901, two years later. Following Wurtenburg's departure, Frederick E. Jennings, a player under Wurtenburg, would take over the program, leading it to a 2–4–2 record in one year of coaching. Another former player, Walter McCornack would coach the program starting in 1901, and led the team to a 15-win record in two years. Wurtenburg's tenure as coach has occasionally been remarked as the beginning of Dartmouth's acceptance as a major team.