Football Holds On, Downs Brown 27-20

As the fans slowly filtered into the Soldiers Field athletic complex on Saturday, the focus was on stadium security. By the end of the day, however, ball and lead protection were all anyone wanted to talk about.

The Harvard football team avoided the turnovers that plagued it in late-game situations last year and held on to defeat Brown in its first game of the season, 27-20, in front of an announced crowd of 8,511. Fifth-year senior Josh Staph, a converted fullback, rumbled for 152 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Crimson, and senior quarterback Neil Rose recovered from a rocky first half to finish with 222 passing yards for Harvard.

Impressive as these figures were, the most important number for the Crimson was probably zero: zero interceptions, zero fumbles and zero blown fourth-quarter leads.

The thing thats gratifying from the coaches standpoint is that what weve talked about all year was ball security, ball security, ball security, Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said. We had no turnovers in a hard-fought football game.

Harvard did make things interesting in the games closing stages. Nursing a seven-point lead with two minutes left in the game, the Crimson had the ball at midfield and looked to run out the clock. But the offensive line committed two false starts in the next two plays, costing Harvard a combined ten yards and forcing the Crimson to punt. Sophomore Adam Kingstons punt was downed at the nine-yard line, and Brown quarterback Kyle Rowley had one last chance to lead the Bears into the endzone.

Then, the Crimson defense took over.

Rowley stepped out of the shotgun and aimed for a receiver, only to have his offering swatted away by junior defensive end Mike Armstrong. On the very next play, Rowley got the ball and took a few steps to the right only to be pulled down by senior defensive end Marc Laborsky for a loss.

Rowley did rip off a gain of 26 yards on third down, completing a pass to his brother Travis and setting up a first-and-10 on the Brown 32. But Armstrong sacked Rowley on the next play, and senior strong safety Andy Fried picked off Rowleys pass at Harvards 45-yard line to seal the victory for the Crimson.

Coming into the season, we knew going in that were gonna be situations where wed have to stop them in the end, and we won that battle, Coach Murphy said. We did the things we had to do to win.

Brown had tied the game at 20 earlier in the quarter on a 21-yard field goal by Sean Jensen with 7:48 remaining. At that point, Harvard went to a formula that had worked all gameput the ball in Staphs hands. Staph, who had won the starting tailback job in training camp after junior Matt Leiszler tore his ACL during the offseason, found a gaping hole and rushed up the middle for an eight-yard gain. On the next play, Staph took advantage of a strong block by senior receiver Dan Farley to pick up another 18 yards and get the ball to midfield. Two plays later, Rose found receiver Carl Morris off a short route, and the junior took advantage of more solid blocking to turn the play into a 29-yard gain.

After two more Staph rushesincluding one for 13 yardsbrought the Crimson inside the red zone, Rose hooked up with Morris again, finding him off a fade pattern in the corner of the end zone to give Harvard a lead it would not relinquish.

Its not how many yards, its how many wins, Coach Murphy said. Its not how many completions, its how well we do with ball security. I thought [Neil] played as mature a game as hes played since hes been here.

Rose and Morris had finally clicked in the second half after struggling in the first. Rose had completed only five of 14 passes in the first 30 minutes, and Morris had been uncharacteristically quiet with 36 yards on three catches after seeing several passes slip through his fingers.

I was actually pretty confused with myself at first, Rose said. I wasnt making the passes and the ball wasnt coming out right.

However, Staph was there to carry the offense. The offensive line created hole after hole for him and he took advantage, barreling through for 47 yards in the first quarter, including the first of his three scores from one yard out.

Once you see holes like that, youre excited, Staph said. I want to go play again right now. You just see linebackers and defensive backs come up to hit you instead of D-linemen, and its the most fun Ive had in a while.

Despite the efficiency of the running game, the Crimson fell behind by as many as ten in the third quarter as Brown star wide receiver Chas Gessner victimized the Harvard secondary. The 65 junior set a new Bears single-game record with 226 receiving yards on the day, 169 of those coming in the first half.

Facing a third and long at midfield in the first quarter, Rowley aired out the ball to a wide-open Gessner, who had completely eluded junior safety Niall Murphy. Gessner stumbled out of bounds at the Harvard 4 to set up the first score, and Browns Joe Rackley ran it in two plays later.

But after Brown went up 17-7 in the third quarter, the Crimson allowed only a field goal the rest of the way. Niall Murphy atoned for his earlier missed assignment by picking off a Rowley pass that had been tipped by defensive back Dan Miree at the Brown 42. The ensuing possession ended with another Staph touchdown run. Fried attributed the turnaround to an adjustment to Browns hurry-up offense.

We werent expecting it, Fried said. It led to Chas getting open on a lot of blown assignments. In the fourth quarter, the defense really came together and we were used to the tempo and the speed.

Rose also began to find his receivers in the second half, at one point completing 9-of-10 passes in the period.

In the third quarter our no-huddle offense just started to click, Rose said. Everyone was on the right page. It just seemed like practice.

Morris rebounded from his quiet start to finish with 101 yards, and Farley caught passes of 13 and 25 yards to bring the Crimson to the three-yard line.

Im really proud of how the whole team didnt panic, said Staph, who finished the drive with a three-yard endzone plunge. You say things when youre down 10 points like, Keep your heads up, were gonna win this, but its amazing that we actually did it.

As much as Harvard deserved credit for the turnaround on all sides of the ball, the Brown offense gave them every opportunity to get back in it. The Bears were whistled for eight penalties in the game, often for lining up improperly at scrimmage. Two of these penalties negated potential touchdowns.

But the play that best summarized Browns second-half futility happened early in the fourth quarter. With Brown down three, Rowley found a wide-open Brandon Buchanan in the endzone, only to watch helplessly as Buchanan dropped the ball.

I will not take anything away from Harvard because they obviously are very talented, Brown Coach Phil Estes said. But I will say that we stubbed our toes a few too many times out there.

The Crimson also caught a break in that Brown senior tailback Michael Malan, the Ivy Leagues leading rusher last year, was hurt early in the first quarter. Malan was nonetheless effective when he played, finishing with 78 yards on 19 carries. Brown, however, only ran the ball 37 times, compared to 53 for Harvard.

A number of players sustained injuries late in the game, including Staph and sophomore linebacker Dante Balestracci, who led the Crimson with ten tackles. Staph sprained an ankle, but said he expected to be fine for next weeks home game against Lafayette.