Unbeaten Football Escaped a Sloppy Saturday

The goal of a good sports story is to make you feel like you were at the event, or at least make you wish you were. After Harvard football’s 24-7 win over Cornell at Harvard Stadium Saturday, I can’t write that kind of story.It would be impossible to convince readers that they should have gone to the game and just plain rude to force them to relive it.

Crimson games normally boast the intricacy and cohesion of a Rembrandt or a Leonardo. Saturday’s action, on the other hand, was like one of their famous works soaked in water until the paint ran everywhere.

Harvard turned the ball over on four of its first five possessions, more than doubling its turnover total for the season in just over 15 minutes Saturday.

The only first-half scoring opportunity for either team came on the final play of the second period, when Harvard fittingly missed a 43-yarder off the right upright.Both teams appeared fit for a reenactment of the French Revolution: the energy was there, but there was no execution.

Well, that’s only half-true.Because while Harvard’s offense was taking itself off the field with giveaways, it was the Crimson defense that was largely responsible for Cornell’s offensive ineptitude.

The Big Red got the ball in great field position over and over again thanks to Harvard turnovers, but then the Crimson defense held just as often. Cornell tallied five first downs through three quarters and finished the game with a season-low 10 after a garbage-time score.

Yet good defense is hard to describe; there are no perfect metaphors. Sticking with my artistic theme, if solid defense were a painting, it would be just that—solid. A rectangle of just one color, but a nice, deep royal blue one. It’s precise and it’s whole, but it’s hard to dissect or comment upon.

I could write about the most action-packed defensive play, the sack, and how senior defensive end Zack Hodges now has more of them than any other Harvard player in history. The Crimson had four of them in total Saturday. But those plays are often anomalous and rarely representative.

So I’ll let other numbers do the talking: 3, 6, 0, 3, 4, 2, 2, -1, 2, 3, -1, 2, 11, -1, 1, 0, 0, 9, 1, 2, 0, 1, -1, 2, 5, 5, 0, -5, 4, 1, 3. That’s how many yards Cornell gained on its 31 rushes (not including sacks). At least they were persistent!At times Harvard was a dance partner, perfectly mimicking and thwarting each of the Big Red’s advances. Other times the Crimson played the role of cat, cornering the mouse that was Cornell’s offense and leaving it no choice but to play dead.

But again, there are no perfect metaphors because people do not spend a lot of time describing stillness. The heart of a story is action—something this story lacked.

That’s why I can’t write a good sports story this week. But I can give Harvard fans some good news.

In the second half, the Crimson offense found a rhythm. First it exploited a coverage flaw on two nearly identical throws to sophomore tight end Anthony Firkser that led to the team’s first score of the game and set up a field goal on the next drive. Then Harvard scored twice in the fourth quarter to put the game away.

With Firkser’s touchdown, the Crimson scored in an Ivy-record 162 straight games. That’s proof that the futility we saw in the first half Saturday are rare in the Murphy era. History says the Crimson will likely return to its high-powered form against Lafayette.

So it’s good Harvard got this out of its system against an opponent it could still manage to beat, because the league looks as winnable as ever today.

The Crimson is the only unbeaten team in the Ivy League after Yale lost to Dartmouth Saturday, and Dartmouth’s defense was far from immovable in its 38-31 win.

Meanwhile, Princeton lost to a Colgate team that had just squeaked past Holy Cross the week before, and Penn looks like a shadow of its former Ivy champion self, if only it was high noon so the shadow was really small and the shadow had an 0-4 record with a -93 scoring differential.

If Harvard can rebound (and get healthy) next week against the Leopards, it should enter the heart of the Ivy season as the favorite. Maybe then I’ll be able to write a good sports story.

—Staff writer Jacob Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com.