Middleguards Georges, MacLean To Pressure Scrambler Dowling

Crimson middleguards Mike Georges and Alex MacLean will be doing this afternoon what every Harvard fan would love to be doing himself--putting the pressure on Yale quarterback Brian Dowling.

"We're in the best position to harrass Mr. Dowling," Georges says, "and we intend to do it."

"Dowling is not an extraordinary passer," Georges adds. "His strong point is scrambling," he says, "and if we can make him throw from the pocket like the average quarterback, the results of his passing will be the same as with the average quarterback."

"You can't go after Dowling hard, because he'll give you a fake and you'll miss him," MacLean says. "We've got to contain him in a pocket and wait for help," he adds.

One of the keys to today's outcome, according to Georges, will be the number of Dowling's passes that Harvard intercepts. "We picked off five against Yale last year," he says, "and if we keep the pressure on Dowling, I think we can do just as well today."

Seniors Alternate

Georges and MacLean, both seniors, alternate at the middleguard spot, with each playing about half the time. "One of the big reasons for the team's success this year," Georges says, "is that we have so much depth that we can alternate at the different positions."

MacLean starts every game and plays for two or three series of downs before being replaced by Georges. For the rest of the game Georges is used primarily to blitz the passer and contain the outside run, MacLean to stop the up-the-middle run. This is not a hard-fast rule, however. Often, one just comes in when the other gets tired.

"Mike is a little quicker and more reckless--he's a gambler," defensive line coach S. D. Fazio says. "Alex's strong point," Fazio says, "is reading the blocks to determine if the other team is going to pass or run--he's more cautious than Mike and is hardly ever fooled."

High School Heroes

Both Georges (6'0", 215 lbs.) and MacLean (5'9", 210 lbs.) played fullback and linebacker in high school. Both won honors for their fullback play as seniors. Georges was named to the All-Massachusetts and All-Prep New England teams and MacLean to the All-Prep team for the Washington, D.C., area.

After playing fullback and corner linebacker for the Crimson freshmen three years ago, Georges was switched by Yovicsin to offensive guard his sophomore year. He started for the junior varsity at guard and saw some varsity action, but, because of what he calls "an obsession against playing guard," he went out for fullback last year and again played mostly for the junior varsity.

"I saw the futility of staying at fullback this year, but I wanted to play somewhere where I could play a lot," Georges says. He picked middleguard over offensive guard, and at middleguard he has found his niche.

MacLean played offensive and defensive tackle as a freshman but was moved to middleguard his sophomore year because of his relative lightness. He played backup man for star middleguard Stan Greenidge the last two years but didn't gain much playing experience.

Impresses Yovicsin

"Alex started to impress us the last four games of the 1967 season," Yovicsin says. "We felt he'd be a very competent replacement for Greenidge, and he's more than proven this," he says.

Georges is a good example of the looseness of this year's team. Early in the season he pasted a McCarthy flower on his helmet and wore it for the first two or three games. He removed the name of McCarthy, he says, "because I didn't want to display any political affiliation on the field."

The flower was removed by an anonymous hippie-hater, however, and when Georges tried a new one on for size against Cornell, Yovicsin, who had received an anti-flower letter from an alumnus, made him remove it.

Harvard fans will be looking for Georges and MacLean to bloom on the field today.