The Promised Lande: Defense Had Trick Up Its Sleeve

PRINCETON, N.J.—On the weekend before Halloween, a treat almost seemed inevitable for Princeton.

The upstart Tigers—cloaked in orange and black and riding their longest winning streak since 1997—expected to pounce on a Harvard offense riddled by injury and weakened with uncertainty.

Then came the trick. Despite containing the Crimson offense, the Tigers couldn’t conquer the Crimson.

On this day, the defense was dressed up as Harvard’s most dominating unit.

“The defense deserves the lion’s share of the credit for getting us out of here with a [win],” said Harvard coach Tim Murphy of the unit that he has defended from outside critcism all year.

When Harvard was last in the league in opponents’ third-down conversions, Murphy said the pass rush would come.

When the Harvard secondary struggled against big-play receivers like Chas Gessner and Michael Sutton game after game, Murphy urged to give his players time.

It turns out that Murphy was right. Since a horrendous first-half performance against Cornell two weeks ago, the defense has allowed fewer game-breaking plays and made more of them each quarter.

Against Northeastern, the defense kept Harvard in the game until the Crimson’s potential winning drive ended with a Rodney Thomas fumble.

On Saturday—when four forced turnovers compensated for the Crimson’s lowest total offensive output in over a year—the defense won the game.

On Harvard’s first drive, Princeton disrupted the Crimson precision attack. Two false starts, a fumbled snap and two stuffed Ryan Fitzpatrick runs later, Harvard faced fourth-and-16 and a fired-up Tiger team.

Despite a beautiful punt by junior Adam Kingston, Princeton still took over in Harvard territory, 44 yards from a potential seven-point lead.

Then came the trick.

On second-and-five, Tiger star senior tailback Cameron Atkinson took the handoff and then took a monster hit from sophomore linebacker Brian Niemczak. The ball popped out of Atkinson’s clutches and was recovered by Armstrong at midfield.

Three minutes later, the good field position was transformed into a 7-0 lead.

That was the template for Harvard’s pattern of success as 17 of its 24 points came off of turnovers.

Trick: the defense forces a turnover.

Treat: the offense capitalizes and scores.

“You can’t win the game when you turn the ball over four times,” Princeton coach Roger Hughes said. “That is definitely a problem when you play a team like Harvard.”

As Hughes spoke during the post-game press conference, he sat facing a dry-erase board with a list of team goals scrawled upon it. Judging from his game plan, Hughes probably wasn’t expecting his quarterbacks to toss three interceptions.

The top three focal points were: “Physically dominate the secondary,” “Intimidate the secondary” and “[Make] big plays.”

Princeton did none of the three.

The Harvard secondary, easily the most maligned unit of the Crimson defense, finally contained a prime-time receiver. Senior Chisom Opara, the Ivy’s third-leading receiver, had a comparatively bland day of eight catches for 87 yards. More importantly, Opara’s longest catch went for only 20 yards.

Princeton’s longest play from scrimmage was only 31 yards.

Of course, there were mistakes.

The most notable muffed play came at the close of the third quarter when senior cornerback Chris Raftery got greedy and jumped in front of junior linebacker Juano Queen, who was standing in perfect position to intercept quarterback David Splithoff.

The pass, which would have been either defender’s second interception of the day, grazed off of Raftery’s fingers. The Tigers took advantage of the blunder to drive down the field and convert on a 30-yard field goal to cut the lead to two touchdowns.

In the fourth quarter, Princeton was able to string together its only extended drive of the afternoon, an 89-yard model of efficiency.

The march was highlighted by the scrambling of backup sophomore quarterback Matt Verbit and ended with a beautifully-thrown 16-yard TD pass to Opara.

The score cut Harvard’s lead to 24-17, and could have been a fatal error.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a victory. And the victory was delivered, and finally secured, by the defense.

When junior defensive end Brian Garcia picked off Verbit with 14 seconds on the clock, he pulled in, with the ball, the credibility that Harvard’s defense has been seeking all season.

The Crimson offense was supposed to be carrying this team.

So, the trick? On Halloween weekend, the defense was leading the Ivy-title defense.

—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.