Brown’s Gessner Does Best Morris Imitation

While Carl Morris was busy slicing, dicing and even pancake-blocking the Holy Cross defense in his receiving clinic last Saturday, another Ivy League wideout was wreaking havoc of his own about 400 miles away.

It was Brown’s Chas Gessner, who caught 11 passes for 168 yards and three touchdowns in the Bears’ season-opening loss to Towson.

For Gessner—who, like Morris, is a returning All-American—the performance was frighteningly routine. It also served as a sobering reminder to the Crimson of what a serious threat the Bears are to its 10-game winning streak, which goes on the line Saturday at Brown Stadium.

And while Gessner and Morris won’t necessarily be on the field at the same time, their matchup will be the most intriguing “game-within-the-game.” The two receivers have rewritten their school record books and will likely play in the NFL.

With that in mind, it’s almost scary to think that they could’ve played on the same college football team.

“I recruited Chas Gessner,” said Harvard coach Tim Murphy. “I was at his house. I was disappointed when he chose to go to Brown.”

Brown coach Phil Estes had a different reaction to Gessner’s decision.

“Chas is a big part of why the Brown football program has been successful,” Estes said. “He’s every bit as good as his numbers show. He’s a tremendous competitor.”

Estes has watched Gessner make an impact from day one. He was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 1999 and led Division I-AA in receiving last season with 1,182 yards—the fifth-best single-season mark in Ivy history.

Gessner looks to be on a similar pace this year after his dazzling performance against Towson that included touchdown catches of 10, 14 and 35 yards.

“I don’t think you can completely stop Chas Gessner,” said Murphy, who watched Gessner catch 12 passes for 226 yards at Harvard Stadium last season. “He’s been a consistently dominant player, and because the way their offense is set up, you know he’s going to get his fair share of touches. You just hope you can keep him out of the end zone.”

Easier said than done. Gessner scored 12 touchdowns last season.

Cornell coach Tim Pendergast saw two of those scores firsthand in his team’s 49-21 loss to Brown last year. When asked what Harvard could do Saturday in order to stop him, Pendergast jokingly said, “Put 13 guys on the field.”

A big reason why Gessner has been so successful is his 6’5, 220-pound frame.

“He’s a very big target,” said Yale coach Jack Siedlecki. “You can run into problems if your cornerbacks don’t have a lot of size.”

Unfortunately for Harvard, that could happen Saturday. The Crimson’s two probable starters at corner—juniors Ben Butler and Chris Raftery—are just 5-7 and 5-11, respectively.

Harvard linebacker Dante Balestracci said that stopping Gessner will have to be a total team effort—one that focuses to a certain extent on the man responsible for getting the ball to Gessner, junior quarterback Kyle Slager.

“Whenever you have a guy like him on the field, you know he’s going to get a lot of touches, so you have to pay attention to him,” Balestracci said. “Our defensive backs do a great job, but you can only cover a guy for so long. Our front seven needs to get to the quarterback. We can’t let [Slager] just sit back there all day long.”

Murphy said he plans to utilize different defensive schemes in an attempt to throw Gessner and Brown off-balance.

“Any time you’re aggressive against the run like we are, sometimes that leaves your cornerbacks one-on-one with receivers,” Murphy said. “We have good corners, and we can cover receivers one-on-one, but not on every play. We have to mix it up and not let them draw a beat on what we’re doing.”

Princeton defensive backs coach Eric Jackson said the corners that have covered Gessner well have done so by playing him aggressively.

“The guys that have been successful—and there aren’t many of them—do a good job of not backing off of him,” Jackson said. “They stay in his face. You have to take a chance in going against a guy who makes plays like he does.”

And while Harvard’s pass defense was adequate against Holy Cross, the Crimson’s two-deep zone seemed vulnerable along the sidelines at 10 to 15 yards downfield—prime catching areas for Gessner.

By their nature, zone defenses leave certain areas uncovered. Pendergast said Brown’s offense is designed to find those gaps.

“Brown does an excellent job of exploiting your weaknesses,” Pendergast said. “They make sure they don’t line up Gessner in the same spot all of the time. It’s a very impressive offensive philosophy.

“They’re going to find him wherever he is.”