BOOK OF SAMUELS: Chapple, Offense Exceed Expectations

Coming into Saturday’s game against the Big Red in Ithaca, N.Y., I expected more of the same from Harvard.

I expected the secondary to continue to dominate after taking the air out of the Brown and Lafayette passing attacks. Sure, I knew Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews was talented. But so was Brown’s Kyle Newhall-Caballero, and all the Bears had to show for their effort was seven points.

I expected the uber-talented defensive line to suffocate the Big Red running game and pile up sacks. Before Saturday’s contest, Harvard had allowed just 74 yards on the ground per game. And with defensive tackles Josue Ortiz and Nnamdi Obukwelu and defensive ends Ben Graeff and Zach Hodges on the line, there’s nowhere for the opposing quarterback to hide.

And I expected more of the same from the offense: namely, nothing too special. Though the team has scored 55 points in two games, the offense hasn’t been a dynamic force. It’s been good enough when paired with a phenomenal defense.

Well, my prediction turned out to be correct about the defensive line. Cornell managed a miniscule 60 yards rushing against the stingy Harvard D-line. As for sacks, Cornell had given up just one in its first three games. On Saturday, the Big Red allowed four. Two came courtesy of Ortiz, who now has four sacks in as many games and remains on that 10-sack pace. And Ortiz’s drops weren’t dainty little tackles. One was an are-we-sure-Mathews’-head-stayed-on hit, and on the other, Ortiz threw the Cornell gunslinger around like a rag doll.

As for my other two predictions—a brilliant performance by the secondary and a mediocre offensive one—I couldn’t have been more wrong.

A couple of breakdowns didn’t help the Crimson secondary’s case, but its struggles were understandable against the brilliant Mathews. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the next couple of years, he leads Cornell to a victory over the Crimson.

But the story of the day was, unequivocally, the all-of-a-sudden mighty Harvard offense, which amassed 544 total yards on the day. The team had averaged 338 yards in its first three games.

Funny enough, last year against Cornell, it was the Gino Gordon ’11-led running attack that brought the Crimson the win. This time around, Harvard’s quarterback Colton Chapple took the reins.

And the junior second-stringer had a day for the ages with a whopping 414 yards through the air. If you’re keeping score back home, that’s the second-highest total in the Harvard football program’s illustrious 138-year history. Not even some guy named Fitzpatrick ever broke the 400-yard mark.

The fact that Chapple was having an unbelievable day sort of sneaked up on everyone. In the first quarter, he was pretty quiet. So too was the rest of the Harvard offense, which played like it had slept through an alarm and had to rush to the field to make the game. In the second period, things looked slightly better for Chapple and his crew. But only in the third quarter, when the junior was firing with more accuracy than the marksmen of Seal Team Six, did I realize that he was having a huge game.

Chapple became simply unstoppable, placing the ball where only his receiver could get it. On one play near the end of the third quarter, Chapple hit senior wide receiver Alex Sarkisian downfield for a touchdown. As the ball approached Sarkisian, two defenders converged, leaving what looked like no room for the ball to get through—yet it did. I’ve watched the replay a couple of times, and I still don’t understand what happened.

But I shouldn’t be surprised. In the second half, Chapple was a magician with the football, making the improbable look easy.

Chapple currently boasts a 5-1 record lifetime as a starter. Yet before the Cornell game, Harvard coach Tim Murphy said he hadn’t thought much about the possibility of having a quarterback controversy on his hands.

“If all of a sudden, Colton goes out there and throws for 350 yards and six touchdowns, then we’ll be happy to have a controversy,” Murphy said a bit incredulously prior to Saturday.

Well, Coach, do we have ourselves a controversy now?

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.