ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Hewlett Continues Secondary’s Strong Year

With 2:30 to go in the final quarter of Saturday’s football game, the ball lay in the hands of the Dartmouth offense. The Big Green needed a single touchdown to tie the score and send the game to overtime. The Crimson needed a stop.

They found it in the hands of senior safety Doug Hewlett.

“At first I was actually kind of reading towards the other side, and I was a little surprised,” Hewlett said. “It was a little overthrown, and I guess that was what helped me make that play, just being in the right place at the right time.”

But the drive-ending interception with 1:26 to play wasn’t Hewlett’s only contribution to the game. He also performed a feat unmatched in four decades.

Along with seven tackles, Hewlett put the clamps on Dartmouth’s passing game by racking up three picks. The last time a Harvard player caught three interceptions in one game, the calendar read 1967.

Pick number one occurred during the first quarter, when Hewlett snatched up Big Green quarterback Alex Jenny’s pass on the three yard line to keep the game tied at 7-7.

His second interception again stopped Jenny, this time during the third quarter. Thanks to Hewlett, the ball went back to the the Crimson offense and freshman quarterback Collier Winters rushed for the final Harvard touchdown.

It was even more impressive given that all of this came without definitive knowledge of Dartmouth’s quarterback prior to seeing Jenny’s face on the field.

“Most of it is just preparing for the system,” Hewlett said. “But there’s little things—certain quarterbacks have certain tendencies, they’ll look one way and throw the other—just things like that. We prepared for both quarterbacks. We didn’t know who we were going to see this week, so it really was just preparing for the scheme.”

The big day was the brightest of a solid season for Hewlett, who was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week and National Defensive Player of the Week by both College Sporting News and The Sports Network for his efforts. Hewlett is fourth on the team in tackles and has added two sacks and a forced fumble to his three interceptions.

Hewlett’s exemplary defensive performance was one of many from the Crimson’s secondary. Complementing Hewlett’s damage dealt to the Big Green’s offense, senior Steve Williams added another interception to his resume, which now boasts a league-leading seven for the season and Dartmouth's two quarterbacks were held to 13-36 passing for 171 yards. 

Two other players have also recorded multiple interceptions in one game. Williams picked off two passes in games against Princeton and Brown and senior John Hopkins recorded his pair of picks during Harvard’s match with Lafayette. Every home game this season has seen multiple interceptions by the Crimson D.

But for now, Murphy, Hewlitt, and the rest of the Harvard football team look onward–not to setting additional historic landmarks or adding to already impressive stats, but instead towards resting up for next Saturday.

“We can’t beat Columbia tonight,” Murphy said. “The best we can do is go get a good meal, get a good night’s sleep and come down tomorrow and watch video. That’s the only approach that works.”