Football Pulls Big (Green) Upset

HANOVER, N.H.--With Harvard and Dartmouth both coming into their football game on Saturday sporting the same record, injuries to key players, and, as always, rooting sections straight out of an L.L. Bean catalog, the Crimson and the Big Green seemed to offer studies in similarity.

Then the game started, and the similarities ended.

Harvard's seventh game of this 1994 gridiron season was its best so far, as the offense and defense came together to produce a thorough 35-12 whipping of Ivy League rival Dartmouth.

"The bottom line is that the kids came to play today," Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said. "We got execution on both sides of the ball--offense and defense--for the first time all year."

Heroes for Harvard included junior quarterback Vin Ferrara and sophomore tailback Eion Hu. Ferrara posted the sixth best passing total in school history with a sparkling stat line--19 of 22 for 302 yards and three touchdowns, including 16 straight completions at one point. Hu carried 38 times for 166 yards and two touchdowns.

"We were a little down after last week [when Harvard lost to Princeton, 18-7], and this week in practice, we got back to the basics," Ferrara said.

"We were concentrating on things that we have done all year, and it showed today," he said. "Everyone right down the line had a great game."

After an uneventful first half that saw the Crimson (4-3 overall, 2-2 Ivy) eke out a 7-0 lead over the Big Green (3-4, 1-3) on a one-yard Hu touchdown, an explosive 46-second stretch in the third quarter blew open the contest.

The fireworks started on the opening series of the second half, when Ferrara capped a nine-play, 73-yard drive with a 17-yard scoring pass to junior tight end Matt Gargulinski.

A Patrick Hannon extra point stretched the lead to 14-0, and the Dartmouth home crowd of 9,529 sat quietly as if glued to the bitterly cold aluminum bleachers.

They didn't sit for long, though. On the ensuing kickoff, Dartmouth cornerback Brian White, son of Boston Celtic legend Jo Jo White, ran the ball back 98 yards to tie a Harvard  35 Dartmouth  12

school record and to close the gap to 14-6.

With the suddenly festive home fans barely back in their seats, however, Harvard answered immediately with a bizarre play that saw Ferrara pass over the middle to junior flanker Mike Halligan, only to have Halligan tip the ball to Dartmouth's White. White then bobbled it into the hands of Harvard's Adam Golla, who ran the ball in against a stunned Dartmouth defense.

End result? Officially a 58-yard pass from Ferrara to Golla, chaos on both sidelines and an insurmountable 21-6 lead for the Crimson.

"I was an offensive lineman up until last year, so I haven't been in that kind of situation much," Golla said. "It's a lineman's dream to score like that.

"I just saw the ball and picked it up, and I figured that I should keep running until I heard a whistle," he said.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Three touchdowns had been scored in 46 seconds.

The game wasn't over yet, of course, and Harvard added two more touchdowns before yielding a meaningless last-minute touchdown to Dartmouth, but the result seemed effectively decided by the momentum shift of Golla's score.

Dartmouth, in fairness, played without its first-string quarterback, Ren Riley, and its star running back, Pete Oberle, both of whom suffered injuries in the last few weeks, but no excuses came from the angry Big Green.

"This is a flat embarrassment," Dartmouth co-captain Josh Bloom said. "We just got blown out. They did whatever the hell they wanted. I don't know how to describe it--it's sickening."

Harvard also played without a key player, junior tailback Kweli Thompson, who stayed home due to bruised ribs, but Hu picked up the slack by carrying the ball a career-high 38 times.

"It didn't really affect me," Hu said of the increased workload. "Of course you're going to get tired at some point, but [the coaches] also put Brian Cohen [a junior fullback] in, which helped."

Hu and his teammates on offense confronted a Dartmouth defense that entered the game ranked tenth in the country in Division I-AA, but that fact didn't seem to faze them.

"[The Dartmouth defenders] were up there with Cornell and Princeton, but the main thing was that our fullbacks could take out their linebackers, which made my job easy, and of course Vinny had a spectacular day," Hu said.

On this gray, wintry day, it was Harvard's defense, not Dartmouth's that turned scrooge-like.

Junior rover Kevin Dwan led the way, as usual, with 17 tackles, while senior defensive back David St. Peter chipped in eight and senior end Doug Anderson added seven Freshman Jeff Compas and junior Clete Johnson filled out the picture of complete domination with one interception each.

"It was a really great game," Hu said. "If our offense and defense keep playing together like that, we could finish 7-3. That's our goal. But right now, we're just thinking about Brown next week."CrimsonE. Houston WuJunior quarterback VIN FERRARA (in earlier action) put up big numbers Saturday.

school record and to close the gap to 14-6.

With the suddenly festive home fans barely back in their seats, however, Harvard answered immediately with a bizarre play that saw Ferrara pass over the middle to junior flanker Mike Halligan, only to have Halligan tip the ball to Dartmouth's White. White then bobbled it into the hands of Harvard's Adam Golla, who ran the ball in against a stunned Dartmouth defense.

End result? Officially a 58-yard pass from Ferrara to Golla, chaos on both sidelines and an insurmountable 21-6 lead for the Crimson.

"I was an offensive lineman up until last year, so I haven't been in that kind of situation much," Golla said. "It's a lineman's dream to score like that.

"I just saw the ball and picked it up, and I figured that I should keep running until I heard a whistle," he said.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Three touchdowns had been scored in 46 seconds.

The game wasn't over yet, of course, and Harvard added two more touchdowns before yielding a meaningless last-minute touchdown to Dartmouth, but the result seemed effectively decided by the momentum shift of Golla's score.

Dartmouth, in fairness, played without its first-string quarterback, Ren Riley, and its star running back, Pete Oberle, both of whom suffered injuries in the last few weeks, but no excuses came from the angry Big Green.

"This is a flat embarrassment," Dartmouth co-captain Josh Bloom said. "We just got blown out. They did whatever the hell they wanted. I don't know how to describe it--it's sickening."

Harvard also played without a key player, junior tailback Kweli Thompson, who stayed home due to bruised ribs, but Hu picked up the slack by carrying the ball a career-high 38 times.

"It didn't really affect me," Hu said of the increased workload. "Of course you're going to get tired at some point, but [the coaches] also put Brian Cohen [a junior fullback] in, which helped."

Hu and his teammates on offense confronted a Dartmouth defense that entered the game ranked tenth in the country in Division I-AA, but that fact didn't seem to faze them.

"[The Dartmouth defenders] were up there with Cornell and Princeton, but the main thing was that our fullbacks could take out their linebackers, which made my job easy, and of course Vinny had a spectacular day," Hu said.

On this gray, wintry day, it was Harvard's defense, not Dartmouth's that turned scrooge-like.

Junior rover Kevin Dwan led the way, as usual, with 17 tackles, while senior defensive back David St. Peter chipped in eight and senior end Doug Anderson added seven Freshman Jeff Compas and junior Clete Johnson filled out the picture of complete domination with one interception each.

"It was a really great game," Hu said. "If our offense and defense keep playing together like that, we could finish 7-3. That's our goal. But right now, we're just thinking about Brown next week."CrimsonE. Houston WuJunior quarterback VIN FERRARA (in earlier action) put up big numbers Saturday.

With the suddenly festive home fans barely back in their seats, however, Harvard answered immediately with a bizarre play that saw Ferrara pass over the middle to junior flanker Mike Halligan, only to have Halligan tip the ball to Dartmouth's White. White then bobbled it into the hands of Harvard's Adam Golla, who ran the ball in against a stunned Dartmouth defense.

End result? Officially a 58-yard pass from Ferrara to Golla, chaos on both sidelines and an insurmountable 21-6 lead for the Crimson.

"I was an offensive lineman up until last year, so I haven't been in that kind of situation much," Golla said. "It's a lineman's dream to score like that.

"I just saw the ball and picked it up, and I figured that I should keep running until I heard a whistle," he said.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Three touchdowns had been scored in 46 seconds.

The game wasn't over yet, of course, and Harvard added two more touchdowns before yielding a meaningless last-minute touchdown to Dartmouth, but the result seemed effectively decided by the momentum shift of Golla's score.

Dartmouth, in fairness, played without its first-string quarterback, Ren Riley, and its star running back, Pete Oberle, both of whom suffered injuries in the last few weeks, but no excuses came from the angry Big Green.

"This is a flat embarrassment," Dartmouth co-captain Josh Bloom said. "We just got blown out. They did whatever the hell they wanted. I don't know how to describe it--it's sickening."

Harvard also played without a key player, junior tailback Kweli Thompson, who stayed home due to bruised ribs, but Hu picked up the slack by carrying the ball a career-high 38 times.

"It didn't really affect me," Hu said of the increased workload. "Of course you're going to get tired at some point, but [the coaches] also put Brian Cohen [a junior fullback] in, which helped."

Hu and his teammates on offense confronted a Dartmouth defense that entered the game ranked tenth in the country in Division I-AA, but that fact didn't seem to faze them.

"[The Dartmouth defenders] were up there with Cornell and Princeton, but the main thing was that our fullbacks could take out their linebackers, which made my job easy, and of course Vinny had a spectacular day," Hu said.

On this gray, wintry day, it was Harvard's defense, not Dartmouth's that turned scrooge-like.

Junior rover Kevin Dwan led the way, as usual, with 17 tackles, while senior defensive back David St. Peter chipped in eight and senior end Doug Anderson added seven Freshman Jeff Compas and junior Clete Johnson filled out the picture of complete domination with one interception each.

"It was a really great game," Hu said. "If our offense and defense keep playing together like that, we could finish 7-3. That's our goal. But right now, we're just thinking about Brown next week."CrimsonE. Houston WuJunior quarterback VIN FERRARA (in earlier action) put up big numbers Saturday.