Football Writes Different Ending to Same Story

The storyline from Saturday’s meeting between Harvard and Princeton read like a generic script for Crimson failure from last season.

The Harvard offense jumped out to an early lead but committed costly turnovers and couldn’t put away a reeling foe. An opportunistic opponent took advantage and stayed close into the final quarter. The Crimson defense gave the opponent a chance to win, and the game came down to a field goal in the final seconds.

Fortunately, this time it was Princeton’s Taylor Northrup’s last second field goal attempt sailing wide left, and the Harvard bench erupting in celebration.

During the 2000 campaign, Harvard lost heartbreakers to Penn and Cornell, which were credited in large part to the team’s inexperience.

This time around, Harvard Coach Tim Murphy believed the Crimson’s growing confidence and experience made the difference.

“I thought it was a great win for us because we had our hands full of adversity,” said Murphy. “I don’t know if we had the confidence to play like this a year ago.”

During a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Brown in the first week of the season and Saturday’s victory over the Tigers, the Crimson proved to itself and its critics that this year’s squad possessed the mental composure that last season’s team lacked.

That newfound composure may be just the thing to push the Crimson to an Ivy League title and, perhaps, an undefeated season.

Breach of Security

Coming off a season in which the Crimson committed an astounding 36 turnovers, Coach Murphy and his staff preached nothing but ball security to the team in the offseason.

And through Harvard’s first four games, the extra effort appeared to have paid off. The Crimson had committed only two turnovers all season heading into Saturday and were ranked second nationally in turnover margin.

But against an aggressive Tiger defense, the Crimson’s focus lapsed as senior quarterback Neil Rose threw three interceptions and senior wide receiver Sam Taylor lost a very costly fumble.

Coach Murphy drew a direct correlation between Harvard’s mistakes and the close final score.

“If you want to know why we were down at halftime, it’s obvious,” he said. “We made mistakes we hadn’t made in a long, long time.”

With Harvard up 14-3 and looking to build its advantage early in the second quarter, Rose was picked off by Princeton linebacker Chris Roser-Jones, who led Division I-AA linebackers in interceptions last season and has three this season. Roser-Jones returned the ball to the Harvard 15 and set up a Tiger touchdown.

After sitting out a series because of a jarring hit, a shaken Rose lofted a wobbly pass down the right sideline, which was intercepted by cornerback Paul Simbi, one of his two picks on the day. Rose’s miscue led to a Princeton field goal.

Then, in the waning seconds of the first half with Harvard deep in Princeton territory, Taylor hauled in a Rose aerial across the middle of the field and stretched for the end zone, only to lose the ball. The Tigers recovered and the Crimson threat was thwarted.

Overall, a 17-point swing resulted from the four Crimson turnovers, but Harvard pulled it out in the end. Next time, the Crimson may not be so fortunate.

Anybody Got a Band-aid?

Just when it seemed that the Crimson had its core of key players healthy and ready to perform, the injury bug struck again against the Tigers.

A week after getting sophomore linebacker Dante Balestracci, senior tailback Josh Staph and senior defensive end Phil Scherrer back from early-season ailments, three more Harvard players succumbed to injury.

Junior tailback Nick Palazzo, who carried the Crimson ground attack in Staph’s absence and provided a valuable change-of-pace to the Harvard offense, tweaked a hamstring injury in practice Friday and did not dress against the Tigers.

Then, early in the second quarter, Staph aggravated the ankle injury that sidelined him for two games earlier this season and sat out the rest of the game.

Junior Rodney Thomas, who was fourth on the Harvard depth chart at tailback in the spring, stepped in and picked up 83 yards to lead the Crimson.

On the same series that Staph left the game, Rose was shaken up and sat out one series, but returned and led the team into the second half.

However, on the Crimson’s first drive of the second stanza, Rose injured his throwing shoulder while diving into the end zone on a three-yard touchdown run and spent the remainder of the game on the sideline.

Freshman Ryan Fitzpatrick, who vaulted into the backup quarterback spot after an exodus of signal callers from the team since last season, replaced Rose and led the team for most of the second half. Fitzpatrick finished with 61 yards through the air and recorded his first career touchdown pass, which gave Harvard a 28-20 lead that the Tigers couldn’t overcome.

Despite seeing his first truly competitive collegiate action, Fitzpatrick seemed calm and poised in protecting the Crimson advantage during the second half.

“It was actually pretty nice [seeing] the confidence [my teammates] had in me in the huddle,” Fitzpatrick said after the game.

The status of all three injured players for next week is still uncertain.

Kick It Into Gear

After a strong start to the 2001 campaign, the Harvard kicking game and special teams have fallen on hard times the last two weeks.

Last week at Cornell, sophomore kicker Robbie Wright missed two field goal attempts and subsequently lost his starting job to junior Anders Blewett.

Blewett made all four of his extra point attempts versus Princeton but attempted no field goals.

The Tigers clearly outpaced the Crimson in the kicking department with Northrup displaying both his kicking and punting talents.

Before missing the crucial 49-yard attempt in the closing seconds, Northrup had connected on field goals of 42 and 43 yards and had banked two extra points high off the side of the Murr Center.

In the punting department, Northrup used amazing distance and hangtime on his kicks to average 41 yards per punt and allow only two returns for ten yards to Crimson punt returner Carl Morris.

Meanwhile, for Harvard, sophomore punter Adam Kingston, who was averaging nearly 42 yards per kick coming into the game, struggled mightily and managed only slightly over 31 yards per punt against Princeton. As a result, the Tigers had a 17-yard advantage in average starting field position over the course of the game.