Football Victory Sets Up Battle of Unbeatens at Yale

The stage is set.

With its 23-7 victory over Penn at home on Saturday, the Harvard football team continued its undefeated run through the Ivy League following an uninspiring 1-2 start to the season and ensured that sole possession of the Ancient Eight title will be on the line in the Crimson’s upcoming battle against Yale in New Haven.

Harvard (7-2, 6-0 Ivy) used its formidable defensive attack while putting together a few key scoring drives to beat the Quakers (3-6, 2-4 Ivy) in front of a crowd of 10,116 on Senior Day.

The Crimson victory, combined with a 27-6 Bulldogs win over Princeton, means that the upcoming matchup between the Harvard and Yale will be the first time both teams have entered The Game with perfect Ivy League records since 1968.

“We’ve obviously, in the 14 years I’ve been here, never been in that situation,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “I think it’s great for the league—hopefully it will give a little bit more notoriety to the Ivy League, and we’re just happy to be in this position.”

In a game that featured two of what Murphy called “the three best defensive teams in the league”—with the other being Yale—neither the Crimson nor Penn was able to put points on the board early on, trading three-and-outs for much of the first two quarters.

But with 2:13 remaining in the first half and Harvard beginning a drive on its own 12-yard line, sophomore running back Cheng Ho sparked the Crimson offense, finding a hole and cutting past Quakers defenders for a 37-yard gain.

Senior quarterback Chris Pizzotti then completed three straight passes, including a 23-yard toss to sophomore receiver Mike Cook, to set Harvard up at the Penn 20.

On the next snap, Pizzotti found senior wideout Corey Mazza wide open on the left side of the field for the touchdown to complete the 88-yard drive and put the Crimson up, 7-0.

“That last drive of the first half was huge, just gaining momentum, because up until that point we hadn’t really done anything on offense,” Pizzotti said. “Just putting in a score pretty easily at the end of the first half was just huge confidence-wise.”

The score was Mazza’s 28th career touchdown catch, tying him for first place on Harvard’s all-time list with Carl Morris ’03.

“I didn’t remember it until halftime, because it was a tight game,” said Mazza, who finished the game with four receptions for 75 yards. “It feels good. It’ll feel a lot better to go out and get a win the last game, and hopefully, if the opportunity comes, break [the record].”

The Crimson took its offensive momentum into the second half, scoring another touchdown on the first drive of the third quarter.

On the second play of the drive, Pizzotti took Harvard across midfield with a 29-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Matt Luft. After a three-yard run by Ho and an incompletion, Pizzotti and Luft hooked up again, when Pizzotti aired the ball into the endzone and a leaping Luft hauled it in for the touchdown.

Luft led the Harvard receiving corps with 95 yards on four catches.

The Crimson added to its lead with a 30-yard field goal by sophomore kicker Patrick Long just over four minutes into the third quarter to bring the score to 17-0.

Harvard appeared to be running away with the game, with the injury-plagued Quakers offense’s inability to put points on the board.

Coming into the game, Penn was already missing its starting quarterback, junior Robert Irvin, for the season due to a shoulder injury. Then, in the first quarter of Saturday’s game, the Quakers’ starting backfield tandem of running back Joe Sandberg and fullback Nick Cisler went down.

“We’ve been a very, very unlucky team,” Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. “We’re catching some bad breaks and playing against a good team—bad combination.”

But the Quakers’ backups made things interesting late in the third. With just under eight minutes to go in the quarter, Penn marched 80 yards down the field for a touchdown, with rookie tailback Michael DiMaggio leading the way.

DiMaggio carried the ball five times for 25 yards on the drive, including a two-yard touchdown run to give Penn its first score of the game.

On the ensuing kickoff, the Quakers successfully attempted an onside kick, recovering the ball and giving themselves good field position at their own 42. But a third down holding penalty set Penn back, and despite a nice run by quarterback Brian Walker, who broke a few tackles to rush 11 yards, Penn fell short of a first down and was forced to punt.

The drive signified the end of the Quakers threat, as the Harvard defense tightened up, consistently pressuring Walker and only allowing Penn’s offense 71 total yards in the second half. While the Crimson committed 10 penalties, including two consecutive pass interference calls, Murphy attributed the fouls to his team’s aggressive style of play.

“I will say that on some of the occasions when we’ve had the most flags, we’ve played particularly well,” Murphy said. “So I don’t know what exactly that means other than we’re definitely an aggressive team…We play a lot of man coverage, our guys play right up in the face of guys, so you’re going to get some of those.”

Harvard padded its lead in the fourth after recovering a Quakers fumble on a punt return, when Ho, who gained 79 yards on 12 rushes, plowed through Penn’s defensive line and rushed into the endzone for a 20-yard score.

The Crimson spent its remaining possessions running out the clock to complete the victory.

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.