Defense Struggles to Regain Last Year’s Form

There’s an old axiom in football that defense wins championships. If that axiom still holds true, the Crimson will need to vastly improve its defensive performance if it is to repeat its 2001 Ivy League championship.

Through four games this season, the Crimson defense has been less than perfect. Harvard is giving up 26.5 points and 377 yards of offense per game. The Crimson has forced opponents into only 14 punting situations. Most ominously, the Crimson is last in the league on third downs, allowing opponents to convert on over 50 percent of their third-down attempts.

“We lost six all-Ivy players on defense from a year ago,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “There aren’t that many teams, outside of the University of Miami, that can lose 60 percent of their all-League players off of a championship defense and simply reload.”

Last year, Harvard’s defense shut down its opponents, holding several Ivy opponents below their league scoring averages. The Crimson allowed only 20.4 points per game and dominated the line of scrimmage. Opponents averaged only 90 yards on the ground and found little if any time to pass the ball.

However, this year the Crimson has been unable to establish a pass rush. Harvard is next-to-last in the Ivy League with only six sacks. With its front four unable to gain penetration, the Crimson has resorted to blitzes to create any pressure on opposing quaterbacks.

Perhaps the Crimson’s trouble creating pressure is not surprising, as Harvard lost its entire starting defensive line from a year ago, including Marc Laborsky ’02, who led Division I-AA in sacks per game.

“We haven’t had that dominant pass-rusher emerge,” Murphy said.

Likewise, with the loss of hard-hitting Andy Fried and cover corner Willy Alford, the Crimson lost its best players in the secondary. With its frequent eight-man fronts, the Crimson pass defense relies on its cornerbacks’ ability to maintain man coverage.

With little pass rush and less talent and experience in the secondary, the Crimson has fallen prey to opposing teams’ aerial attacks. Opponents have been able to find seams in the Crimson’s coverages and march the ball down the field. Harvard ranks second to last in the Ivy League, giving up an average of 261 yards in the air, and allowing opponents to complete over 56 percent of their passes.

“We’ve been inconsistent in our zones and our man coverages, and inconsistent in our pass rush,” junior linebacker Dante Balestracci said. “We need to put those things together.”

Unlike last year, the Crimson has had particular trouble shutting down a team’s top receiving threat. In its last three games, Harvard’s opponent has had a 150-yard receiver. Three weeks ago, Brown’s Chas Gessner caught 10 passes for 150 yards. Two weeks ago Lehigh’s Michael Sutton caught 11 balls for 204 yards. And last Saturday, Cornell’s Keith Ferguson caught 12 passes for 154 yards.

“If we run into another guy who is legitimately a dominant player at the wide receiver position, we probably would consider running different schemes,” Murphy said.

Harvard’s trouble defending the passing game has become so well-known that running oriented teams like Cornell have changed their game plans when they play the Crimson. Coming into last week’s game, Cornell had passed for only 361 yards in three games. However, the Big Red opened in a five-wide set and threw the ball 44 times, 16 more times than their previous average.

However, with so much talent on the Crimson offense, it is of little surprise that Harvard’s opponents feel a need to pass the ball and play catch-up.

“[The other team’s] best defense is to keep our defense on the field,” senior defensive end Mike Armstrong said.

Aside from the four turnover it created against Lehigh, the Harvard defense has had its trouble forcing opponents into mistakes. In Harvard’s three other games, it has managed only three takeaways. The team led the nation in turnover margin last year.

“Stripping the ball is something we work on in practice every day,” Armstrong said. “Two years ago, it wasn’t as big a focus of our team.”

While Harvard has given up its share of yards this season, the defense has usually come through in the clutch. The Crimson is a perfect five-for-five in defending two-point conversions. And up only two in the fourth quarter against Brown, Harvard made the necessary plays to shut down the Bears’ potent attack.

For the first time all season, the Crimson defense appeared to gel in the second half of last week’s game. After a first half which saw the Big Red put up 17 points, the defense clamped down. Harvard allowed only one significant second-half drive, and essentially shut down the Big Red’s passing attack.

“The second half against Cornell we really set in,” Balestracci said. “You’d like to gel a lot sooner than the fourth game, though.”

With only six games left in the season, Harvard has very little time for its next wave of defensive superstars to emerge.

“When it’s all said and done, that pass-rusher, that productive blitzer, that cover corner will emerge,” Murphy said. “Will they emerge to the degree they did last year? Probably not.”

Unfortunately for Harvard, this weekend brings in No. 14 Northeastern. Featuring one of the most dominant rushing attacks in the nation, the Huskies figure to put up big numbers on the ground.

“We’ll be tested physically in this game, as we much as we will be all year,” Murphy said. “From a physical standpoint, size, speed, toughness, this is the best football team on both sides of the ball that we will play all year.”

—Staff writer Samuel C. Roddenberry can be reached at scrodden@fas.harvard.edu