As Usual, Football Rolls

A Friday afternoon pep rally. Buzz and hype around campus for a sporting event unrelated to Yale. President Summers' pants almost falling down during the halftime show.

But for all that was different off the field surrounding the Harvard-Penn football game, the product on it was exactly as expected.

In leading Harvard to a 28-21 victory and the Ivy League championship, the Crimson's usual suspects—guys like Neil Rose, Carl Morris and Willie Alford—played at the top form they had displayed all season.

No doubt this was a special and remarkable game. The Crimson had not defeated Penn in three years, and no current undergraduate was alive the last time it had an 8-0 record.

But the actual game went according to plan—Harvard's plan. The battle between two Ivy giants was as much a contest of emotion as it was pure football acumen.

"We did exactly what we said we had to do to win the football game," Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said.

The Quakers knew it as well.

"It was the game everbody expected," Penn Coach Al Bagnoli added.

Harvard's modus operandi this season has been to use the rushing game as a setup for the explosive passing attack. Senior Josh Staph and junior Nick Palazzo, the Crimson's "Thunder and Lightning" backfield duo, have combined to give Harvard the league's leading rush total.

The Crimson averaged 46 rushing attempts per game, with 189 yards per game, in its first seven contests. Of course, the respected Quaker defense ranked first in Division I-AA against the run, giving up only 1.6 yards per carry. Most opposing teams this season had given up running the ball, averaging only 27 attempts against Penn.

On Saturday, Staph and Palazzo were fearless, often running straight into the heart of that defense. Like most weeks, the Crimson finished with 145 rushing yards on 44 attempts.

"We were going to come out running the football, because nobody in the league had been able to do that against Penn," Murphy said. "That was a psychological thing, saying, 'Hey, this is what you do best, but we're going to show you right now we can run the ball.'"

For the most part, Harvard had all the psychological advantages.

On the other side of the ball, Penn's bruising back Kris Ryan was the league's leading rusher and its top scorer, averaging nearly five yards per carry. Take away his 66-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and Ryan gained only three yards each time he carried the ball.

The passing game was also clicking for Harvard, as it had in previous wins over Columbia and Cornell. Similarly, Neil Rose and Co. were facing a Penn defense that had only given up five passing TD's all season, and only 212 yards a game.

But Rose—the most efficient passer in the league this year despite numerous injuries—tore up the Quaker secondary, completing 18-of-26 passes for 270 yards and three scores. Those numbers closely mirror the Crimson's season average of 251 yards per game.

More importantly, Rose made no mistakes for the second week in a row. He threw no interceptions, and only took one sack against a team that led the league in sacks. Contrast his performance to that of Penn's Gavin Hoffman, who uncharacteristically was sacked four times.

Mistake-free football, of course, is what got Harvard to this point. It has committed the fewest turnovers in I-AA ball this season—seven—and four of those came solely in the Princeton game. Against the Quakers, nobody fumbled or threw a pick, while the Crimson picked up an interception by Willie Alford and a blocked punt by Rodney Thomas.

Of course, the Crimson has been averaging a +2 turnover margin, so everything went according to plan.

"I don't think any team I've been on has ever done such a great job of protecting the football," Murphy said.

That near-perfect ranking on ball security has frustrated many Ivy coaches.

"When you can play in a game of this magnitude and not turn the ball over once, you give yourself a great opportunity to win the game," Bagnoli said.

And lastly, no one can forget Morris, the biggest Harvard playmaker in years. He not only owns or shares almost every Harvard receiving record in the book, but his big-play ability means the Crimson is never out of a game.

In a year when the Crimson has had to battle back from deficits in three of five Ivy games already, why should Saturday have been any different?

Penn jumped to a 14-0 lead, but Morris made sure Harvard was never out of it. The team, having been in this position before, and often, wasn't worried.

"We definitely knew the offense was going to come through," senior defensive end Marc Laborsky said.

Did they ever. Morris finished with nine catches for 155 yards, breaking some more records, but more importantly, caught two Rose TD passes. His second, an amazing 62-yard slant-and-go route, put Harvard up for good.

"We've had unbelievable playmaking under pressure all year long, and that's what separates good teams from championship teams," Murphy said.

Those playmakers—Rose, Morris, et al.—did on Saturday what they've been doing all year long, and it finally paid off in front of the largest home crowd this year.

"It was the best atmosphere ever," Morris said. "I've never seen a game like this, especially with all the students there cheering and supporting us."

Au contraire, Carl. We have seen games like this. With the Ivy championship in hand and the Game next week, it's just that more people are starting to notice.