Harvard Gridders Top Rutgers, 39-9

Sophomore quarterback Rod Foster started off the game Saturday with a 47-yard kick-off return. His replacement, sophomore Eric Crone, ended it with a 28-yard touchdown run.

Harvard smashed Rutgers, 39-9, and indicated that it has two good quarterbacks and a good team. "We're finding a lot of depth we thought we didn't have," captain Gary Farneti said after the game.

A swirling wind held down the Crimson's passing game, but Rutgers didn't do much to stop the Crimson on the ground. Led by fullback Tom Miller's 154 yards, the offense rushed for almost 400 yards.

Miller's running, Pete Varney's catching, and Richie Szaro's kicking put Harvard into a comfortable 13-0 lead at the half, but a variety of sophomores took over from the veterans to break the game open with a 26-point fourth quarter.

Crone Follows Foster

Foster started off the final quarter with a 22-yard touchdown run. Crone came in and added 20 more points, picking up 88 yards on 8 carries, hitting sophomore Bill Cravens with a 33-yard pass, scoring two touchdowns himself, and getting some help from sophomore running backs Teddy Demars and Mike Murr.

Harvard had sustained a steady ground game during the first half on Miller's inside running, but twice Rutgers forced the Crimson to settle for field goals. Foster finally set up a touchdown with only 17 seconds left in the half, hitting Varney on the Rutgers three, Varney lost his helmet, but still managed to struggle over for the touchdown.

The Crimson looked weak in the third quarter. Hampered by a fifteen-mile-per-hour wind. Foster threw five incomplete passes in a row, and Harvard went nowhere.

"We sort of coasted in the third quarter," Foster said. "A good team would have jumped us."

Skimpy Scarlet

Rutgers didn't largely because Harvard's defense was turning in another good performance. The Scarlet Knights gained barely more than 100 yards in total offense.

Depth again was a factor as Ed Kettlewell capably filled a hole left by Harvard's first two left tackles, Ed Vena and Tom Mesereau.

The offensive line is "coming along"- according to coach John Yovicsin. It took Foster's rollouts and passing to move the Crimson last week, but Foster was able to stay on the ground from the beginning against Rutgers. The interior line consistently gave Miller running room up the middle.

Steve Harrison, who replaced Varney at halfback, ran about as effectively as Varney did against Northeastern, picking up 18 yards in 11 carries. But he has been running at halfback less than week, and the blocking he received left something to be desired.

Despite some speculation by the Boston papers, it is impossible to tell if Crone outplayed Foster at quarterback. Both played very well.

Windy Weather

Foster's 5 for 13 passing performance and his occasional liability to move the team was partly due to at least one broken pattern, one dropped pass, sloppy execution by his teammates in the third quarter, and the wind.

Crone ran all over Rutgers in the fourth quarter, but by then Rutgers had virtually given up. Crone gave away a touchdown with a stray swing pass, and Foster saved one by scrambling for his blocked punt in the Harvard end zone.

Harvard's new pro-type formation has produced some exciting football unfamiliar to the connoisseur of the Crimson's more conservative brand of football in the past. There were several long runs. Miller broke loose for 50 yards, Demars went for 44, Foster ran for 22 and Crone had runs of 16, 26 and 28 yards.