Harvard, Dawson Hold Steady

It took just three years to set, it has stood for 35 more seasons, and for a few hours on Saturday, fans watched and waited to witness the breaking of former Cornell great Ed Marinaro’s Ivy League rushing record.

And, for at least one more week, the wait continues.

Though Clifton Dawson didn’t make history on Saturday, he did plenty to help Harvard (7-1, 4-1 Ivy) to a 24-7 win over Columbia (3-5, 0-5 Ivy) in front of 11,716 fans at Harvard Stadium.

Dawson’s performance—120 yards and two touchdowns on 26 carries—paced a Crimson offense that gained 351 yards on the afternoon. And as has been the norm in virtually every game this year, it was Harvard’s defensive line that gave the Crimson the cushion it needed on the other side of the ball.

“Do you try to run the ball against a defense that’s great at stopping the run or do you try to throw the ball against a defense that’s leading the league in sacks?” Lions head coach Norries Wilson said after the game.

It was definitely the latter that gave Columbia the most success.

After the Crimson punted twice to open the game, the Lions got on the board when quarterback Craig Hormann beat senior safety Danny Tanner over the top for a 22-yard touchdown pass. The early holes in the defensive backfield prompted a change in the secondary that would keep the Lions out of the end zone for the rest of the game, despite 52 pass attempts from Hormann.

“We knew that we were going to get 50-60 throws from Columbia,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said of a secondary that featured at least three cornerbacks for most of the game. “We knew the ball would be in the air.”

The Crimson struck back with a score of its own exactly eight minutes later, when Dawson jogged in untouched from nine yards out to make the score 7-7 with 10:14 to play in the second quarter.

The senior running back managed to eke within 53 yards of Marinaro’s all-time mark against what is traditionally one of the league’s softer defensive fronts.

“They’re a very, very sound defense,” Dawson said. “It definitely took us some time to just settle down and figure out what they were doing defensively. We had to work for absolutely everything we got.”

Later in the second quarter, Harvard’s work once again paid off, this time through the air. On a third-and-six after a short punt that gave the Crimson the ball in Lion territory, junior quarterback Liam O’Hagan hit a wide open Corey Mazza in the endzone for a 29-yard score. The senior receiver once again led the way with 56 yards on four catches, while O’Hagan was 16-for-26 with 181 yards and the single touchdown. Harvard took a 14-7 advantage into the intermission.

In the first half, the Crimson took nine penalties for 55 yards, and five more flags in the second half gave it 14 for a total of 98 yards overall, by far season highs in both categories.

Harvard’s troubles with penalties marred what would have been a mistake-free afternoon. Murphy called them “the only negative on an otherwise very positive day.”

The Crimson’s first third-quarter possession resulted in a punt, but on the next drive, Dawson scored standing up from 12 yards out to give Harvard a 21-7 lead with 7:59 to play in the quarter. The Crimson got the ball thanks to a fumble caused by sophomore linebacker Eric Schultz, one of four lost fumbles by the Lions.

“They’ve instilled a new attitude in not only myself, but the D-line in general,” said junior defensive end Brad Bagdis, who recovered one of the loose balls and made seven tackles, three for a loss. “You can see from how we play as a D-line. It’s a combined effort from everybody.”

That was especially true on Saturday, as three players combined for four sacks, while four others had at least seven tackles each. Sophomore cornerback Andrew Berry led the team in the latter department with eight total stops, but it was the defensive line that turned in its best performance this year.

“It’s definitely the most athletic group we’ve had,” Murphy said of a front four that held Columbia’s leading rusher to 0.9 yards per carry.

Harvard “allowed” a startling minus-14 yards rushing to the Lions, not surprisingly a season best.

“To give a compliment to those guys, you [might] say they run like linebackers,” Murphy added. “I say they run like safeties.”

A 36-yard field goal from junior Matt Schindel with 12:52 to play in the fourth quarter not only ended the day’s scoring, but it gave Schindel the school record for most career field goals made.

Though Schindel’s wasn’t the record-breaking effort that most people came to see, it showcased another one of the Crimson’s offensive strengths.

“They’re a good offensive football team,” Wilson said of Harvard. “It’s not just O’Hagan and Dawson. They’ve got other kids out there.”

Dawson, O’Hagan, and those other kids didn’t get much help elsewhere in the league this weekend, as Yale squeaked by Brown, 27-24, and a failed extra-point attempt in double overtime cost Penn in the Quakers’ 31-30 loss to Princeton.

Although Penn will look for redemption against the Crimson next week, it seems as if everyone else will have their eyes on witnessing history. Everyone except Dawson himself.

“I have two more games left as a Harvard football player,” he said. “After I’m done, I’ll look back and I’ll assess my career from an individual standpoint, and hopefully it will be with a championship ring.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.