Mathews Wins Quarterback Battle, Loses War

Saturday’s matchup didn’t seem like a fair battle. When the Harvard football team came running onto Schoellkopf Field, four offensive starters—quarterback Conner Hempel, running back Zach Boden, and offensive tackles Anthony Fabiano and Parker Sebastian—had one thing in common: all were dressed in warm-ups.

Comparing a backup quarterback who had never started a collegiate game leading an injury-riddled offense with the one-man show of Cornell’s offense seemed like matching David against Goliath.

After all, Goliath—Jeff Mathews, Cornell’s third-year starting quarterback—was entering his 33rd game starting and had just become the Ivy League’s all-time leading passer.

Even behind a relatively inexperienced offensive line that was going through injuries of its own, Mathews had nearly reached 1,000 passing yards in just three games. With numerous accolades and Ancient Eight records already under his belt, the senior seemed a lock for Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year.

In contrast, David—Hempel’s backup, Michael Pruneau—was on the road, facing his first career start after missing all of his junior season with a torn ACL. Pruneau saw some playing time last week against Holy Cross when Hempel came out of the game with a hyperextended knee, but his performance was unimpressive—he totaled just 49 yards in the two quarters that he played.

Part of that was due to an offensive line that had lost both its starting right and left tackle. Pruneau was going to have to throw behind a line that gave up six sacks in Worcester. With the knee still bothering Hempel, Pruneau was given the reins again.

By all accounts, Goliath should have crushed David. And maybe if it was simply Mathews v. Pruneau, it might have been a knockout. It certainly seemed like it might be that way when Harvard’s first drive ended with Pruneau throwing the ball into the arms of Big Red corner Michael Turner.

But college football is not, as Jeff Mathews found out the hard way on Saturday, a one-man show. As it had in the previous three games, the Harvard defense came up big in the first half to keep the Crimson in the game while the offense was sputtering.

Mathews appeared to be picking apart the secondary—until he came close to the prize. Despite finding the red zone three times before halftime, the Big Red came away with just three points, courtesy of one missed field goal and another blocked. When Cornell came near the end zone, it was as though Mathews’ field shrank and the passing imbalance became amplified.

But once the third quarter began, the Cornell offense—which appeared to be made up entirely of Mathews and his receiving corps—clicked. Mathews connected with receivers on back-to-back 75-yard drives for scores to pull within three.

Then Mathews made a costly mistake. Trying to force the ball to a receiver inside Harvard’s 10-yard line, Mathews threw it up and Crimson safety Reynaldo Kirton snatched it out of the air.

Later, Mathews would say that he shouldn’t have made that pass, but by that point, he was the only one of the Big Red creating any offense. Even when the Crimson knew that Cornell was almost certainly going to throw the ball, Mathews would scramble out of a pocket that continually collapsed around him and make heroic throw after heroic throw to keep the Big Red in the game.

By the end of the game, the player who Harvard coach Tim Murphy describes as one who he “would draft in the first couple of rounds [of the NFL draft]” had hit 472 yards passing, the most ever recorded against a Harvard defense, and two scores.

And yet, Cornell came out on the losing end of another battle. Because where Pruneau could look to players like tailback Paul Stanton to pick up the slack when he hadn’t yet found his rhythm, there was nobody supplementing Mathews. Of the Big Red’s 457 total offensive yardage, he was responsible for a whopping 456.

Each piece of the puzzle that was Harvard’s team played a part in the win. There was the defense, which picked off Mathews twice and took away any run game that Cornell had. There was the special teams unit, which blocked a field goal and for the most part ensured that the Big Red had the length of the field to travel. And there was the offense, which finally came together as a cohesive unit in the second half, when Pruneau passed for 200 yards and two touchdowns.

For Cornell, Mathews seemed to be the only functioning piece of the puzzle. He wasn’t flawless. But as leader of a team that totaled negative 15 rushing yards and playing with a defense that gave up over 40 points in its last two games, there was nothing more Mathews could have done to try to win this game. And so, David triumphed once again.

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samantha.lin@thecrimson.com.