Crimson Begins Post-Dawson Era

Before senior running back Clifton Dawson waited in vain yesterday to hear his name called in the NFL Draft, the next classes of the Harvard football team played in the annual Crimson-White spring game, the first night game in school history, held Saturday evening under the lights of a rain-soaked Harvard Stadium.

The second team technically won the game by a 20-7 score, but the real questions pertained to who would replace a number of departing seniors—mostly on offense.

No bigger shoes stand to be filled than Dawson’s. And despite sitting out the spring game with a hamstring injury, Harvard coach Tim Murphy has tabbed freshman Cheng Ho as the starting tailback for the 2007 season.

“If this were the season, he probably could have played tonight,” Murphy said of Ho. “He’ll be fine in a week. He’s definitely number one. He’s won the job.”

The same level of certainty doesn’t exist at quarterback. Junior Liam O’Hagan took the early reins for the first-team offense, while sophomore Jeff Witt called the signals for the second team for the first four series.

Junior Chris Pizzotti—who started five games in 2006—entered the game on the second quarter’s first drive, and the three alternated drives for the remainder of the game.

All three QBs struggled, finishing a combined 30-of-70 for 256 yards and no scores.

“It was very typical of the whole spring—inconsistent,” Murphy said. “We’ve been inconsistent at quarterback, and I don’t want to sugarcoat it. There are days where all of them have played extremely well, but they haven’t necessarily been consistent with it.”

O’Hagan had a particularly poor sequence late in the third quarter. He had an errant pass intercepted by sophomore linebacker Matthew Thomas and returned inside the 10-yard line to set up first second-team touchdown, a seven-yard scamper from sophomore running back Randy Ojukwu that gave the second team a 10-7 lead.

Two possessions later, O’Hagan was picked off by Thomas again, this time resulting in a field goal from freshman Patrick Long to make the score 13-7. Ojukwu capped the scoring on a two-yard touchdown run with 22 seconds left in the game.

“Liam, in terms of total scope of our offense, gives us the most opportunities because he’s more athletic,” Murphy said. “He can make plays with his feet, he can run, and he can improvise better than the other guys.”

Murphy stopped short of naming a starter for the fall, but he stressed that whoever gets the job will face the same task.

“The biggest thing all three of them have to do is learn from the mistakes, use our system, and take what people give us,” he said.

BUSTIN’ OUT

Sophomore linebacker Peter Ajayi and sophomore cornerback Riki Yoshinaga led the Crimson with six tackles each, but it was Ajayi who had the real standout performance. His three sacks pushed the offense back a team-high 25 yards, he both forced and recovered a fumble, and he broke up a pass.

“Peter came here kind of as an athlete [and] was actually recruited by the Harvard basketball team,” Murphy said. “He decided to play football as a recruit before he got here, and he was kind of a project. The project’s starting to pay dividends—he could be a good player for us.”

Though he only caught one pass for four yards in the spring game, Murphy also cited freshman quarterback Mike Cook as having made strides—at wide receiver.

“Mike Cook was a guy that we recruited as a quarterback but told him he’d probably be a receiver or a DB, so we made that move and he had a good spring,” Murphy said. “He’s going to be a good receiver.”

Murphy added that freshman offensive lineman James Williams will make a run at a starting job at tackle in the fall, something that’s uncharacteristic for the position.

“You haven’t seen that for a long time,” he said.

FAST FEET

Besides Ho, a number of other prominent players sat out the game. The missing players especially affected the receiving corps: wideouts Corey Mazza, Chris Sanders, and Matt Lagace all didn’t play due to various injuries, none of which should affect the team in the fall.

Come September, health in that trifecta—along with returning mainstays Matt Luft and Alex Breaux and some new recruits—will give the position an amazing amount of depth.

“We needed speed and we got speed at the wide receiver position,” Murphy said. “We had gotten to a point where we had some good big receivers, guys like Matt Luft, guys like Corey Mazza, and they’re good receivers. We don’t have as much speed as we’ve had in the past on some of the better Harvard teams, so we’re looking for speed.”

Billed to fill that need is incoming freshman Levi Richards of Newton High School in Newton, Ill. Murphy said that the 6’1 wideout “will be the fastest kid on the team the day he steps off the plane.”

“He’s a track and field kid who was a prolific touchdown scorer in high school, a small high school in a kind of farm town in Illinois,” Murphy said. “He’s legit.”

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