The Princeton Game: Lightning in a Stormy Season

The unexpected reigned supreme for the Harvard football team on Saturday at Palmer Stadium: the sure-handed halfback fumbled with 28 seconds left, "come from behind" had a somewhat compromising meaning, and all the Crimson touchdowns were notched in a span of less than five minutes.

But perhaps the most unexpected event came when Harvard coach Joe Restic, the silver-haired, silver-tongued gridiron executive who at times makes you believe he'd be better off in the White House instead of Dillon Field House, analyzed the contest with a Freudian-Rocknean slip.

"You don't say anything to your ball club after a game like that. They stormed back, but it was a tough one to lose, er, tie," Restic said.

So Harvard basically deadlocked its way out of contention for the Ivy League football title with the 24-24 showing, and, as is typical of this 1978 edition, did it in the most painful way possible.

Oh, the Crimson can still win the championship, provided it wins the last three games of the season while Brown and Dartmouth lose two out of three. But those aren't really pep-rally-inspiring odds.

For the Harvard football player, the game with Princeton must have run the gamut of emotions. Tears mingled with lightning, embarrassment with hope, and when the officials inadvertently poked their noses into the affair, anger danced with disbelief.

The Jekyll-Hyde skit of a week ago against Dartmouth was nothing compared to the offensive overdrive which opened the second half. With 30 minutes to go in the contest, it was 14-3 Princeton. With 25 minutes, 15 seconds remaining it was Harvard 24-14. You almost had to wonder whether the Palmer Stadium clock was observing Daylight Savings Time, for no "also-ran" football team can score that quickly.

Rich Horner started it off, giving Harvard its touchdown on a punt return in eight autumns with a 54-yd. job that made it 14-10.

"We call this type of return a 'hold-up' left, where the line is holding up and trying to set up a return wall down the left sideline," Horner explained afterward. "Their punter hit it to my right, and I started heading left when I noticed there was nobody in the middle. Poty (Steve Potysman) sprung me loose and after that there was this big alley. The next thing I knew I was in the end-zone."

The defense went into its "three downs and punt" act, while quarterback Larry Brown launched an AFL-type touchdown bomb to John MacLeod and then directed a five-play, 54-yd. touchdown drive in 33 seconds that was as crafty in execution as it was in celerity.

But that was it. Five minutes out of 60 when the Harvard football team meshed as completely as the dreams of the most partisan fan. It was a taste of invincibility for those who have believed all along in the deceptive talent of this squad. It was the 285 seconds that at first evoked hope, then despair as the rest of the game failed to do it justice.

After that it was all haze. There was an inexcusable pass interference call, a quarterback draw that went for big yardage, a couple of punts maybe, then the fumble. And just as hazy now is any kind of analysis of this team, or for that matter, of the season in which the ends will not justify the means.