Play-Action Jackson: Looking for Scapegoats in All the Wrong Places

After a 32-point loss, it is only natural to go looking for scapegoats.

Five turnovers are a good place to start.

"Chalk it up to five turnovers," Murphy said. "When you turn the ball over against a quality opponent, this is the result you should expect. The turnovers put us behind the eight ball in field position from the start."

Chalk the loss up to turnovers, however, and you're oversimplifying the game.

Turnovers didn't lose this game.

Inexperience and a tough opponent lost Harvard the game.

"Our 1997 squad was a veteran team," Murphy said. "This team's the exact opposite. It's a young team and we've shown flashes of brilliance, but we didn't play like a mature football team today."

Flashes of brilliance kept this game close when turnovers nearly buried the team. Inexperience killed it in the end.

Both interceptions came late in the fourth quarter after the game was already decided, and all three fumbles came in the first quarter, so please don't blame the loss on fumbles.

After three Crimson fumbles, Lehigh lead by just four points, 10-6, with six minutes remaining in the second quarter.

The game was either team's to win or lose at this point. Lehigh stepped up to the plate, and the Crimson didn't.

After back-to-back Crimson pass rushes forced Lehigh quarterback Brant Hall to throw the ball away on first and second down, Lehigh faced third-and-10 at the Harvard 20.

On the ensuing play, freshman linebacker Dante Balestracci broke through the line and had the quarterback within arm's reach.

It was almost too good to be true until Balestracci dove for the quarterback and missed.

Hall sidestepped the dive and connected with a wide-open junior Josh Snyder for a 20-yard touchdown pass.

It's hardly fair to mention Balestracci's name on this play. It was a great individual effort to break through the line, and it was poor downfield coverage that resulted in the touchdown.

But if Balestracci could have come up with a sack, Lehigh wouldn't have scored a touchdown and Balestracci's sack would have likely knocked the Mountain Hawks out of field-goal range, facing fourth-and-long.

Instead, Lehigh took a 17-6 lead, the Crimson went three-and-out on the next drive, and Harvard couldn't get off a punt on fourth down.

The botched punt attempt gave Lehigh the ball at the Harvard 36-yard line, setting up a quick score and giving Lehigh a comfortable 24-6 lead heading into halftime.

In three minutes, the game went from a winnable contest to a blowout, and there wasn't a fumble in the series.

Harvard may have allowed 45 points on Saturday, but in the first 25 minutes of the game, the Crimson defense was golden.

The defense bailed the team out of fumble trouble early in the game.

An inexperienced team, the same defense, a quick three-and-out, and a botched punt let the game quickly slip away in the second quarter.

Harvard played well at times during the game Saturday.

Keeping the game close even with three fumbles in the first quarter and holding Lehigh to 10 points in first 25 minutes, despite two offensive drives that started inside the red zone, were signs of how good this Harvard team could be.

"There's no question in my mind that we're a better team than the score showed today," Murphy said.

Allowing Lehigh to put the game out of reach with a quick offensive flurry in the second quarter showed how far this young team has to go.

This team is talented, and it can make the big plays. It just hasn't been able consistently to make the big plays when it matters.

Give Balestracci a year and maybe he makes the sack or someone else recovers the fumble. Give sophomore wideout Carl Morris a year and maybe he squeaks out a first down on a screen pass facing third-and-3. Give this team a year and maybe it will be '97 all over again.

Right now, however, this team is not as bad as the scoreboard showed Saturday, but it is not as good as it might have hoped after the victory over Brown.

The Cornell game was no fluke.

That was Harvard football.

And this week proved it.

Inexperienced. Inconsistent.

With flashes of brilliance.