After This Game, It's Best to Look Back

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--To fully comprehend Yale's 28-0 win over Harvard Saturday at the Yale Bowl, you have to look back.

You can talk about the great play of the Eli defensive unit. Led by team captain and right end Fred Leone and the rest of the boys on the front line--who hassled Cuccia-Allard all game long, who held fullback Jim Callinan, averaging 5.3 yards a carry this season going into the Bowl, to just 60 yards on 21 carries--the Elis stalled an inept Multiflex. It was the same story, only twice as bad as last year, when the Elis completely locked out the Harvard strike force, 14-0, in the Stadium.

But you also have to look all the way back to the years 1931-32, to a time when the Harvard offense was feeling The Crunch even worse than the moguls of Wall Street. Those two years were the last time the Crimson suffered consecutive shutouts at the hands of a Yale squad, 3-0 in '31 and 19-0 in '32.

Harvard has returned the favor twice since the Depression, in 1940-41 and 1965-66, but overall the Eli defense, not surprisingly, has been the more prodigious, leading in the shutout department, 35-25. Of course, you must remember that there have been seven 0-0 ties in the series, all prior to 1926, and that one team or both was shut out in 30 games prior to 1915. In those days, offenses didn't move, they wallowed.

After Saturday's game, you also have to look back to the record books, to find out exactly where names like Callinan, Diana, Rogan and Grieve stand in the lists of all-time Harvard and Yale greats. And you find that they stand pretty tall.

Callinan's second carry of the game, a four-yard run off right tackle, pushed him over the 1000-yard mark for the season, the first Harvard back ever to reach that magic milestone. In addition, Callinan's 21 carries gave him 209 on the season, also a new Harvard record. You have to look back to Dick Clasby's old standard of 205 in 1951 to find what is now second best.

A look at the stat sheet shows that the Harvard defense was unable to break up the combination of quarterback John Rogan and split end Curtis Grieve, as Grieve caught four passes for 82 yards and two touch-downs (although back-up QB Joe Dufek threw the second scoring strike). What the sheets don't show, however, is that Grieve's performance earned him several spots in the Eli record books.

Rogan, of course, had previously become Yale's all-time leading passer, with 2718 yards through the air for his career, and Grieve's 47 catches going into the game were already an Eli high for a single season. And with Saturday's performance, the rangy receiver broke Gary Fencik's record (729, in 1975) for most receiving yards in a season, with 790. His four receptions, the final one a touchdown catch with only 1:24 left in the game, tied him with tight end John Spagnola (1976-78) for most receptions in a career (88). And his two touchdowns, again the second one with just 1:24 left, gave him 12 on the year, to break the old mark of 11 set by Ed Woodsum in 1952.

As for Eli tailback Rich Diana, you only have to look as far back as last week. The Ivy's best running back, although held to under 100 yards for only the third time this season, cushioned Eli rushing marks he already held. His 28 carries boosted that season mark to 293, and his 93 yards increased his season total to 1448. He took a safety valve pass from Rogan at the Harvard 32, eluded the grasps of three Harvard tacklers and outraced another down the sideline, to score the first Yale touchdown in the opening quarter, and he punched over for another midway through the fourth.

One other record was set in the game. Harvard split end and kick returner Paul Scheper returned two kick-offs to tie the career mark for most returns, 33, set by Rod Foster in 1970-72. Scheper, who almost lost his shot at the record after the first two Eli kicks went through the end zone, also holds the record for most returns in a season, 20, set in 1979.

Finally, the crowd of 73,500 at the Yale Bowl was New England's largest football audience since 1924. It seems, after Harvard's performance in The Game of '81, it is best to look back.