BRAD AS I WANNA BE: Perfect Saturday for Pizzotti, Crimson

NEW HAVEN—It was their finest hour.

The team that everyone had been waiting for all season finally appeared in its full glory on Saturday, trampling the previously unbeaten Bulldogs in the biggest edition of The Game in 39 years.

The Crimson was everything it had the potential to be in the preseason: a dominating, run-stuffing defense that forced turnovers in the air, an explosive passing offense with a deep receiving corps, and a competent running game that moved the chains at key moments. The Game was an affirmation that Harvard had solved every challenge it faced this season.

After watching the team open 1-2, with the win an unimpressive 24-17 triumph over a so-so Brown team, everyone began to wonder whether the Crimson was championship-caliber. The season-ending shoulder injury to starting quarterback Liam O’Hagan in the Lehigh game, just a week after he was knocked out of the Brown game with a second-half concussion, and a 13-point showing against the Mountain Hawks made everyone think that the offense was weaker than expected.

Enter senior Chris Pizzotti, a quarterback every Harvard fan already knew well. The year before, he started five games, including a gutsy comeback win at Lehigh while fighting through a knee injury, only to lose his job when O’Hagan returned from a suspension. This preseason, he lost the quarterback battle again, then lost a fumble that was returned for a touchdown against Lehigh, sealing the 20-13 loss. Maybe his arm was moving forward, or maybe it wasn’t; it didn’t really matter, because the heart of the Ivy schedule was approaching and the Crimson needed to recover.

Recover it did, with Pizzotti leading the way. By midseason, coaches and players were calling him the most improved player on the team, and he finished the year atop the Ivies in passing efficiency. He turned in one of the top statistical days in Crimson history, throwing for 365 yards and two touchdowns against Princeton, but he, like his teammates, saved his greatest day for last. On Saturday, he was 27-of-41 for 316 yards and four touchdowns as the Crimson smashed Yale.

“I’m very fortunate to be in the position I was in,” Pizzotti said. “But really, all personal things aside, I couldn’t be happier to be a part of this team, and right now it’s really just focus on the team. One of the kids mentioned the other night that we made every win look ugly. We finally made one look good, so it was nice to play our best game when it was most important to.”

Pizzotti’s redemption story closely mirrors that of the team as a whole, a team that was never dominant in starting the season 7-2.

“What really is satisfying about this one is that the essence of coaching is when things aren’t perfect, how you respond to it,” Murphy said. “We’re down 1-2, we lose our first-string quarterback, and pretty much everybody, predictably, forgot about us. And just one day at a time, one practice at a time, we said, ‘Our next practice is our best practice, our next game is our best game.’ And this is one of those teams that got better and better through the year.”

Six straight wins later, Harvard faced a 9-0 Yale team that had won just one game by less than two touchdowns all season. By all accounts, the Crimson had no shot. But, once again, Harvard rose to the challenge, stuffing Bulldogs star Mike McLeod to the tune of just 50 yards on 20 carries, the third straight year the Crimson has held him under 100 yards. The defense, which let Yale passer Matt Polhemus run wild in Cambridge last season, held the shifty Yale quarterback to 39 total yards. And a team that was the most penalized in the Ivy League this season was flagged just twice for a grand total of 15 yards in its final game.

It may not have wrapped up a season of complete perfection—we’re often reminded that this team was two plays from 10-0—but on Saturday, they were as perfect as could be.

—Staff writer Brad Hinshelwood can be reached at bhinshel@fas.harvard.edu.