Crimson Bleeds the Big Red White

If not for a Bean straight out of Beantown, the Harvard football squad's Ivy hopes might be baked.

And if not for an added shot of C.C., the Crimson's hopes might be sizzled, too.

Because if Larry Bean and Cecil Cox hadn't combined Saturday for the play of the game--not to mention the season Harvard might very well have lost a last-minute thriller and with it, the upper-hand in the race for the 1984 Ancient Eight title.

Not that the Crimson's got the upper hand in the league race, anyway, because the Cantabs have yet to prove to anyone--themselves included--that they're contenders and not merely pretenders.

"We're just not where we should be right now," said Harvard's star running back Robert Santiago.

But will the clock winding down Saturday in the Crimson's showdown with lowly regarded Cornell, it was pretty clear where the Crimson was.

It was in a heap of trouble.

For with 1:58 to go, Cornell sat just six yards from a first down and just 24 yards from the go-ahead touchdown. On the fourth-down play, Big Red quarterback Shawn Maguire tossed a screen to fullback Mark Miller.

Not until Bean bumped Miller off course and Cox threw him out of bounds two yards short of a first down and 20 yards shy of the goal line could Harvard breathe a collective sigh of relief and sneak away with a 24-18 victory.

"If he [Bean]doesn't put the hit on him," fellow defender Barry Ford said after the game, "their we're in a lot of trouble."

The Crimson might be in a lot of trouble anyway, if it doesn't figure out a way to stop its opponents earlier and more consistently, particularly teams it should soundly defeat, like Cornell.

Saturday in the Stadium, the Harvard defense allowed 18 points to a team that all season had scored just 23. More than that, it allowed more than four yards per Cornell carry and allowed the visitors to ram it down their proverbial throats on several long drives.

"We're going to have to take a hard look at that," Harvard Coach Joe Restic said about his squad's run defense. "We have to establish ourselves there. We just have to be able to take the ball away from people."

No one knew that better after the game than Ford, in whose direction the visitors directed their punishing ground attack.

"If we're going to challenge for the league title," the senior defender said, "we're going to have to get more consistent."

That goes for the entire Harvard squad, too. For while the defense almost let Cornell sneak into the end zone in the closing moments, it was the offense which gave the Big Red that shot.

And it wasn't necessarily the fumble with just over six minutes to play--the fumble which set up Cornell's last-hope drive--that almost killed the Crimson's chances.

Once again, it was Harvard's inability to turn numerous scoring chances into points that kept the visitors within striking distance.

"We have yet to really explode," said Santiago, who did manage to explode for 168 yards rushing. "Even against Columbia [which Harvard defeated, 35-21, in the season-opener] we didn't really explode."

In fact, Harvard's offense has yet to score more than three touchdowns in one game this year.

That statistic will have to improve, especially if Harvard is to compete with league-leading Pennsylvania, which is averaging five touchdowns a game this year.

First and foremost, though, is Dartmouth, a team the Crimson hasn't beaten since 1978.

Harvard visits the Big Green next weekend, and though the Crimson's still in the thick of the Ivy race--thanks at least in part to Bean and C.C.--it'll still have to prove it deserves to be there.

"Hopefully against Dartmouth," Ford said, "we'll put together a whole game.

"And prove we can win this league."