'Twas 20 Years Ago When Harvard Beat Yale, 29-29

It was almost 20 years ago that Harvard and Yale battled to a 29-29 tie in one of the most memorable and exciting college football games of all time.

Harvard and Yale each entered The Stadium on November 23, 1968 with perfect 8-0 records, setting the stage for a matchup that would decide not only the bragging rights of the two schools but also the Ivy League championship.

And The Game lived up to its billing, as back-up Crimson quarterback Frank Champi '70 threw for two touchdowns and a pair of two-point conversions in the final 42 seconds to give Harvard a tie and a share of the Ivy title with the Elis.

Here's a game-by-game look back at that exciting season.

Harvard 27, Holy Cross 20

Coming into the season opener, the Crimson was plagued by a lot of question marks. The opener helped answer a lot of them, as well as hint at things to come.

Harvard came back from a two-touchdown deficit and scored 15 points in the final 12 minutes to edge the Crusaders at The Stadium.

Senior quarterback George Lalich '69 got the starting nod and scored the winning TD from one yard out. Lalich dispelled any preseason doubts by going 11-for-19 on the afternoon. He found end Pete Varney '71 seven times for 89 yards and six first downs.

Harvard 59, Bucknell 0

In what some called the mismatch of the decade, the Crimson demolished Bucknell, 59-0, at The Stadium for its second win of the season.

The Crimson scored in each of its first five possessions to put the game out of reach before it had started.

Harvard ran for 392 yards on the afternoon and scored eight touchdowns. Captain Vic Gatto '69 had 122 on the ground, moving him into second place on Harvard's all-time list.

Harvard 21, Columbia 14

Gatto and fellow halfback Ray Hornblower combined for 237 yards rushing in New York to give the Crimson its first Ivy win.

Although Lalich completed just four passes in the game, one of them was the winning touchdown to Varney late in the game.

The Harvard defense contained the Columbia running attack fairly well, but had trouble holding back QB Marty Domres, who completed 16 of 21 passes.

Harvard 10, Cornell 0

Vic Gatto ran for 76 yards to earn the all-time Harvard rushing title and scored a touchdown against a strong Big Red defensive unit to give the Crimson a 10-0 shutout over Cornell at The Stadium.

An overpowering Harvard defense never allowed the Big Red to get inside the Crimson 20-yd. line during the contest.

Halfback Hornblower also netted 138 yards on the ground, while Lalich completed 11 of his 18 passes for 102 yards.

Harvard 22, Dartmouth 7

The Crimson combined a balanced offensive attack with a solid defense to establish itself as a legitimate Ivy League contender with a 22-7 win over Dartmouth at The Stadium.

A mighty Harvard defense--led by linebackers John Emery and Dale Neal--held the Big Green to 16 yards on the ground in the first half, while Crim and Gatto each ran for touchdowns to give the Crimson an early lead.

Lalich completed 11 of 19 passes for 119 yards, but Harvard's only passing TD came on a Gatto toss to Hornblower on the halfback option.

Harvard 28, Penn 6

By capitalizing on Penn mistakes in the first quarter, the Crimson earned a key win over the previously undefeated Quakers at The Stadium.

Harvard turned a pair of interceptions and a Penn fumble into 14 points early in the game. After Gatto returned a punt 70 yards for the third touchdown of the quarter, the Quakers never recovered.

Penn Coach Bob O'Dell called the Harvard defense "the quickest I've seen in my four years at Penn."

Harvard 9, Princeton 7

In a fierce defensive battle in Palmer Stadium in Princeton, N.J., the Crimson pulled out a 9-7 victory to remain undefeated.

The Tigers played possession ball, quick-kicking three times in the first half on second or third down, in order to push Harvard back into its own territory.

The Crimson managed a field goal by Tommy Wynne and a touchdown run by Hornblower to take a 9-0 lead into halftime.

In the second half, end John Cramer and the Harvard defense held Princeton to just one touchdown to cement the victory.

Harvard 31, Brown 7

After jumping out to a 17-0 halftime lead, the Crimson rolled past the Bruins, 31-7, for the eighth-consecutive time to improve Harvard's record to 8-0 overall, 6-0 Ivy League.

Emery opened the scoring for the Crimson at The Stadium by returning an inteception 54 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter.

Bolstered by a strong running attack, Harvard kept pushing around the Brown defense, despite an ankle injury to Hornblower in the third quarter.

Harvard 29, Yale 29

With Harvard's victory over Brown, the stage was set for The Game for The Title. Led by star QB Brian Dowling, the Elis started off quickly.

After marching his team downfield with a combination of quick passes and handoffs to All-Ivy running back Calvin Hill, who later played for the Dallas Cowboys, Dowling scampered in from the Harvard two-yd. line to open the scoring. Yale's Bob Bayless converted the extra point to make it 7-0.

Dowling also threw for a pair of TDs in the first half, one to Hill at the start of the second quarter, and another to Del Marting midway through the period. Marting caught a Dowling toss for the two-point conversion following his touchdown to put the Elis ahead, 22-0.

Meanwhile, the Harvard offense was sputtering. A strong Yale defense held the Crimson to only 18 yards rushing in the first half, and Lalich could not get his team to advance up the field.

Yovicsin sent Champi in for Lalich, and the back-up responded with a 15-yd. touchdown pass to right end Bruce Freeman '71 with time running down. A bad snap from center spoiled the conversion attempt, and Harvard went into the half down, 22-6.

But the second half belonged to the Crimson.

Freeman recovered a fumbled punt return on the Yale 25 early in the third period, and two plays later Crim busted over for the score. Richie Szaro '71 added the extra point to cut Yale's lead, 22-13.

It soon looked like Harvard's comeback would go for naught, courtesy of Dowling and the Yale defense. The star QB scampered in for another touchdown around right end, this time from 15 yards, to put Yale ahead, 29-13, with 10:44 left in The Game.

Things looked pretty bleak when the Elis stopped the Crimson on fourth down just a minute later, but Champi had not yet performed his heroics.

Champi got the ball back on his own 14-yd. line with less than four minutes remaining and marched the Crimson downfield. He hit Freeman for a 15-yard touchdown pass to make it 29-17.

Harvard needed a two-point conversion to cut the lead to eight, and the comeback appeared to come up short when Champi's pass to Varney for the conversion was incomplete. But the officials ruled that Yale had interfered with the receiver, giving the Crimson a second chance. Crim bulled over on the next attempt to take advantage of the Eli mistake and keep Harvard alive.

The Crimson's hopes then rested on the on-side kick Kenny Thomas booted the ball short to Yale's Bradford Lee, who later became the Associate, Professor of History here.

Lee was promptly separated from the ball by a Joe McKinney hit, and Bill Kelley recovered the fumble on the Yale 49.

Destiny drove Champi down to the eight-yd line, where the QB hit Gatto in the right corner of the end zone for the touchdown which brought Harvard within two points as time ran out.

"When I saw it, I knew I had to love it," Gatto said after The Game. "Just take it in my arms and love it."

Champi then sent end Pete Varney into the same spot of the end zone for the two-point conversion which tied The Game and broke the hearts of the 15,000 Yale fans in attendance.

Champi became immortalized as one of the greatest heroes in Harvard sports history, as the Crimson's headline of the next day blared, "HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29."