SEASON RECAP: Crimson Defends Ivy League Title

On paper, it seemed like the 2008 edition of the Harvard football team was the class of the Ivy League.

And in reality, the Crimson proved to be just that.

Led by fifth-year senior quarterback Chris Pizzotti and a defense with a wealth of experience, Harvard finished this year’s campaign 9-1 (6-1 Ivy) to successfully defend its Ancient Eight title.

“It was a great season, the first Harvard football team in 25 years to win back-to-back Ivy League titles,” captain Matt Curtis said. “That’s the goal for Harvard football every year, to win the championship, and we accomplished that goal.”

Turnovers and mistakes plagued the Crimson in its early-season matchups, but a fourth-quarter charge in the season opener against Holy Cross allowed Harvard to come away with the 25-24 win.

Pizzotti scored two running touchdowns in the last 6:16 to lead his team out of a 24-12 hole to victory—the first of four Crimson wins to be decided by four points or less.

“Every time you open up the season, you want to start on the right foot,” Pizzotti said. “I think that game really set the tone for the season. No matter what position we were in, whenever we were in a hole, we could get out.”

But things didn’t go so well in the Crimson’s Ivy opener against Brown, and on that rainy September afternoon, the goal of repeating as Ivy League champions suddenly seemed a lot harder to attain.

Though Harvard jumped out to an early lead, a missed extra point and three fumbles put the Crimson in a 24-16 hole in the fourth.

With a minute left to play, Harvard looked to have seized the momentum. Backup quarterback Liam O’Hagan found junior Matt Luft in the endzone to pull the Crimson within two points of the Bears.

But Harvard was stopped short on its two-point conversion attempt, letting Brown walk away with the 24-22 win, its first against the Crimson in nine years.

“You always learn more about your team from a loss than any win,” Curtis said. “We had some holes, we had an opportunity to win the game...They were a good team and we caught them on a good day.”

Harvard took the lessons learned against the Bears to heart, rattling off eight straight victories to finish the season. The Crimson’s experienced starters led the team to close wins over Lehigh and Princeton, while its depth of talent proved crucial to keep pace in the Ancient Eight.

The season’s penultimate game pitted Harvard against another one-loss squad in Penn.

After jumping out to a 17-0 third-quarter lead, the Crimson let the Quakers back in, and the lead narrowed to 24-21 with less than five minutes to play.

Penn was threatening at the Harvard 12-yard line with 20 seconds on the clock when senior Ryan Barnes pulled down his third interception of the day—this one in the endzone to seal the victory.

The win at Franklin Field set up Harvard for a shot at the Ivy title against Yale in the 125th edition of The Game.

The single-digit temperatures and 30 mile-per-hour winds stalled the Crimson’s potent passing offense, as Pizzotti was just 12-for-21 for 109 yards on the afternoon.

With Harvard forced to turn to its running game—a weakness for the team all season—Gino Gordon stepped up. The sophomore carried the ball 39 times for 168 yards and the game’s only touchdown.

“[Coach Tim Murphy] said, ‘If we run the ball well, we’ll win the game,’” Gordon said after the game. “The offensive line, they stepped up, they had huge holes, and I pretty much just ran through them all day.”

Once again, Harvard was anchored by its defense, which held Yale scoreless on seven straight snaps inside the 10-yard line late in the fourth quarter to preserve the 10-0 victory and the championship.

With the departure of such a talented class of 2009, it seems like an era of Crimson football is coming to a close. But fittingly, the seniors ended their careers exactly as they were expected to—as champions.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.