Football Team Stops Columbia, 21-19

Columbia's quarterback, Don Jackson, must have been wondering where he had gone wrong in life last Saturday. First, he chose to attend a school where just going to practice means risking a mugging on the subway, where students are more apt to be interested in their next fix than the football hero's blond hair and passing statistics, and where the football team was voted "the worst college football team in America" the year Jackson matriculated.

Then last Saturday, a week after the Lions had beaten Princeton for the first time since 1945 on Jackson's passing, Jackson came to Cambridge to pick apart Harvard's weak secondary. But fate, in the form of defensive linemen, intervened, and Jackson spent most of the afternoon eating the football.

Finally, after a second string quarterback had put the Lions back in the game in the fourth quarter, Jackson had his head taken off while staggering toward the endzone in a try for a two-point conversion that would have tied up the game. Result, Harvard 21, Columbia 19--and a quarterback who felt like Massals after the chariot race in Ben Hur.

His counterpart in a red jersey, Rod Foster, didn't feel too wonderful after the game either. Foster racked up three interceptions and 33 yards passing in his second miserable game in a row. However, the lack of offensive balance didn't matter much, as Harvard's talented running backs ripped off 235 yards rushing and three touchdowns behind some excellent blocking.

Catalyst: Hall

Steve Hall was perhaps the chief catalyst in Harvard's running game. Hall's return to fullback enabled Ted DeMars to move back to halfback. DeMars obviously likes following interference more than leading it, and he expressed his relief by rolling for 132 yards in 12 carries.

The all-junior backfield celebrated its reunion right after the opening kick-off, marching 70 yards into the Columbia endzone in nine straight running plays. Foster's third down interceptions and incompletions cooled off the runner's momentum for a while, but the Crimson revived in the second period to break two long touchdown runs, one a 28-yarder by DeMars (his second touchdown), the other a 29-yarder by Ritchie Gatto.

After Gatto scored with a little over a quarter remaining sending Harvard up 21-7, Coach Joe Restic felt safe enough to let the second string defense pick up some experience. On the other side of the field, Don Jackson was lying on the Columbia bench so thoroughly trampled by Harvard's defense that reserve quarterback Glenn Erikson had to replace him. Erikson quickly worked over Harvard's second stringers for an 88-yard touchdown drive, picking up 61 of those yards by rolling out or scrambling out of the pocket. Jackson stumbled off the bench to throw the touchdown pass, but the two-point conversion pass was knocked down by Dave Ignacio.

Columbia Scores

Harvard's first string came back in, but Erikson moved Columbia through the air for a touchdown, exploiting a slow Harvard secondary that had been protected all afternoon by the Crimson rush. Once again, Jackson came in to try the two-pointer, and finding no one open, headed for a collision with Mike Murr and Mike McHugh a yard short of the goal line.

Columbia had scored its first touchdown on a gift from Foster. Tom Luciani, Columbia's excellent linebacker, was the recipient of an off-target Foster pass, and he rumbled down to the Harvard four. Jackson converted the break into a score on a rollout pass and Columbia had seven points on the board without having penetrated midfield offensively.

Foster's day did not consist entirely of bad passes, over-looked open receivers, and indecisive roll-outs. Minutes before he fired the interception to Luciani, he had laid a bomb into the hands of Ted DeMars for what appeared to be a 50 yard touchdown play. However, DeMars had stepped out of bounds before he caught the pass, and the ball was brought back to midfield.

Aside from Foster's demise since his heroics against Holy Cross and the shakiness of the defensive secondary. Restic's team is really looking better. The defensive line murdered the Columbia offense for three quarters, and even the defensive backs did not clutch when it really counted on the two-point conversion attempts. The blocking was good, and all three Harvard touchdowns came off Restic's much advertised motion and fakery in the backfield.

Harvard's productive running game will miss fullback Hall if his still bothersome ankle is not ready for Cornell. In addition to giving DeMars some running room with his blocking, Hall ran well up the middle.

Another stand-out was Captain Dave Ignacio, who for the third game in a row came up with big plays, knocking down one conversion attempt and picking off a Jackson pass late in the game. Statistics   H  C First downs  14  17 Rushing yardage  54.235  58.131 Passing yardage  33  94 Passes  5.12.3  9.17.2 Punts  7.38  8.29 Fumbles lost  2  1