Tran-spotting: Now Playing, The Harvard Crimson

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the real Harvard football team.

The Crimson picked the perfect weekend to unmask the heart that Harvard fans had known was there all along.

By demolishing Dartmouth 63-21 in front of this season's biggest crowd, the Crimson vanquished its second-half demons of the past four weeks and played all four quarters with equal fire and determination. With a dynamic, multifaceted offense and an aggressive, mobile defense, Harvard proved to the league--and to itself--that its bid to win the Ivy crown is no Halloween prank.

After rumbling through a record-shattering shoot-out with the Big Green, Harvard now finds itself planted atop the Ivy League, a feat that seemed unimaginable only a few weeks ago.

Granted, Dartmouth's 1-5 record did not seemingly pose a serious threat, but after watching the Big Green start off the game with a virtually perfect scoring drive that left Dartmouth with a 7-0 lead, Harvard fans might have feared that the Crimson had left its heart on the field against Princeton last week.

Meet a stingy Harvard defense soon emerged, limiting Dartmouth in the second half to 18 total yards and only one first down. After giving up the early touchdown, the Crimson defense buckled down and decimated Dartmouth's passing game, forcing it to the ground in the second half.

Long an unsung hero of the Harvard

defense, senior Chris Nowinski recorded two sacks on the day, both coming during a critical third-quarter series in which Dartmouth threatened to cut Harvard's commanding 42-21 lead. Given the Crimson's performance in the past four games, Nowinski's stellar defensive instincts provided just the right dose of inspiration to jump-start an aggressive defensive attack against the Big Green's offense.

Meet a mature Harvard offensive line that has finally answered all doubts about its age. It protected Brad Wilford from a highly-touted, hard-nosed Big Green defense, allowing Wilford to pass for 398 yards in only three quarters, breaking the school record for passing yards in one game.

Although it gave up two sacks on the day, the sophomore-laden offensive line excelled under pressure, helping the Crimson to convert all three of its fourth-down opportunities and giving Wilford, Menick and Co. the room to score nine touchdowns against the Big Green.

Meet a Harvard receiving corps that lunged for passes all afternoon in the way that hungry dogs chase after bones.

By chalking up six catches for 74 yards, senior Terence Patterson broke the school record for career receptions. Sophomore Andy Fried had a breakthrough game, reeling in two long touchdown passes from Wilford under heavy coverage. Freshman Carl Morris used his athletic 6'3 frame to leap for five catches and 112 yards, and classmate Kyle Cremarosa added four catches on the day.

Meet Brad Wilford, who has proven this year that he belongs at the helm of the Crimson's ship. Time and time again, Wilford baffled the Big Green defense by finding wide-open receivers downfield and burned Dartmouth for three touchdowns.

Meet Harvard's new all-time leading rusher, Chris Menick, who wove in and out of heavy traffic all afternoon, barreling his way through defenders to rack up 120 yards and score three touchdowns. All season long, Menick has been the saving grace of Harvard's offense, consistently recording 100-plus rushing yards a game and allowing the Crimson to remain in the hunt for the Ivy title.

Naysayers may point out that Harvard has had all these components in place for the entire season. Harvard Coach Tim Murphy has made no drastic changes to the roster or to the

playbook. Critics might claim that this team is the same team that has been playing all season long, the same team that has collapsed late in the game and the same team that has tortured loyal fans throughout the year.

Saturday's contest against Dartmouth, however, inspired me to realize that this is an entirely new Harvard football team with a new sense of focus and desire. All the pieces have finally fallen into place, and Murphy now has a possible Ivy title in view.

In earlier matches against Colgate, Cornell and Fordham, the Crimson suffered from second-half mental lapses that forced its offense to struggle and its defense to lag. After gaining commanding leads over its opponents, Harvard then committed grievous turnovers and penalties that nullified any hope of validating the hard

work that the players were performing on the field. It seemed as if the Crimson's greatest threat in each of those games was itself.

And at one point in the game against Dartmouth Saturday afternoon, the Crimson seemed destined to suffer from another second-half breakdown. Holding an impressive 35-14 lead at halftime, the Crimson drudged up flashbacks of Fordham as Dartmouth's Tom Reusser picked off an errant Wilford pass at the start of the third quarter, leading to a quick Big Green touchdown.

Last month's Harvard football team would have continued to make careless mental mistakes throughout the second half, but Saturday's team was different.

On the Crimson's next drive,

Wilford, Menick and the talented Harvard receiving corps moved the ball downfield 71 yards, leading to a short 5-yard Wilford pass to fullback Chris Stakich in the end zone. The Big Green never scored again.

There would be no more second-half mental lapses Saturday.

"When we came into the locker room at halftime, we were so hungry [to win]," Menick said after the game. "The whole attitude was that we were not going to let up. The offensive side and the defensive side of the locker room were yelling that we had to stay fired up and stay hungry."

The Harvard defense picked up its share of the slack, tightening the noose around the Dartmouth offense. Even though Big Green quarterback Brian Mann had had a career first half by completing 22-for-29 passes (15-of-16 in the first quarter), the Crimson secondary and the defensive line suffocated the dynamic Dartmouth offense.

Mann went 0-for-7 in the second half.

The Crimson, however, is still far from perfect. Penalties continue to plague Harvard this year, and even though kicker Mike Giampaolo connected on all nine of his extra-point

attempts, he missed a 46-yard kick at the beginning of the fourth quarter. And with both teams tied at seven, a penalty against Dartmouth nullified a momentum-shattering, fourth-and-4 Big Green fake punt that would have completely burned the Crimson.

But when Harvard needed to make big plays, it did--and as Murphy acknowledged after the Crimson's loss to Cornell, the team that can pull out the big plays is the team that wins the big games.

The Harvard defense held the Big Green scoreless for the final 29:31 of the game. Harvard finally utilized all its offensive weapons and displayed a dynamic offense that is as good on the ground as it is on the air. With seniors Menick, Patterson, and Wilford obliterating individual career records during the game, the Harvard offense broke the record for total yards in a game, gaining 640 yards on the day.

The new Harvard football team has sent a message loud and clear to the rest of the Ivy League--it has gotten rid of its past demons and is ready to contend for the Ivy crown. The wealth of talent on this team has finally come together in a masterpiece of experience and

eagerness that Murphy has skillfully molded into an Ivy front-runner.

No one knows which Harvard team will show up to play next weekend against Brown--the pretender that has teased and taunted Harvard fans all year with glimpses of both brilliance and carelessness, or the real team that took the field against Dartmouth Saturday afternoon.

Now that Halloween has passed, the masquerade is over. The real Harvard football team has been unmasked.