Comeback Crusade

With a crimson-colored harvest moon rising behind the Eliot Bell Tower Friday night, Harvard football rallied with three fourth quarter touchdowns to trump Holy Cross, 25-24, in front of 20,462 fans at Harvard Stadium. Despite tepid offense to start the Crimson’s second annual night game, the defense kept the squad poised for the fourth quarter comeback.

“Our defensive coordinator, Coach Doherty, he challenged us a lot in practice, and the coaching staff did a great job of putting us in the right position,” said Harvard captain and defensive tackle Matt Curtis.

Down 24-12 with nine minutes to go in the fourth, a series of handoffs from senior Chris Pizzotti to sophomore Gino Gordon moved the Crimson from its own 34 to the Crusader 29. After a 28-yard pass to junior receiver Matt Luft, Pizzotti carried the ball in for his first rushing touchdown of the night, bringing Harvard to within five.

Then the defense took over, wasting no time in holding preseason All-American quarterback Dominic Randolph and the Holy Cross offense to a three-and-out, 58 second possession.

Pizzotti then took the reigns, splitting completions between Luft, Gordon, and sophomore wideout Chris Lorditch, and again ramming home a quarterback sneak from the Crusader 1-yard line to take a 25-24 lead with 1:43 remaining. The defense held Holy Cross on downs to preserve the win.

“We wanted to really try to wear them out a little bit,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. “We felt like we really are a team that sets up the run with the pass, as opposed to the other way around, and we feel like that’s our strength.”

After Holy Cross’s first possession, which ended in the first of six three-and-outs, Harvard came out firing, as Pizzotti passed on the first six plays, driving down the field for 47 yards. But then, the beast that proved to be a recurring problem for the Crimson offense—the red zone—reared its ugly head.

On first and goal at the four, Pizzotti rushed for a loss of two yards. Then a holding penalty moved the ball back to the 16. A short pass to sophomore receiver Marco Iannuzzi gained four, but an incomplete pass intended for sophomore wideout Levi Richards resulted in Harvard having to settle for a field goal from junior kicker Patrick Long.

The Crusaders seized the momentum with the next possession, faking a punt on fourth and seven, turning it into a 22-yard gain to the Crimson 23 and a first down. The drive finished with a touchdown pass from Randolph to Jon Brock and a successful extra point kick from Matt Partain, giving Holy Cross the 7-3 lead.

Harvard’s second possession started off with a 15-yard run by Ben Jenkins, the junior safety-turned-tailback, but ended much like its first. After getting a first down at the Crusader 19 with a 12-yard pass to Iannuzzi, an incomplete pass and two short rushes forced Harvard to settle for another field goal.

“Third down is something we really excelled at a year ago,” Murphy said. “We were one of the tops in the country. We want to give a lot of credit to Holy Cross, and I’ll take the responsibility for some of our calls in that situation that we didn’t execute.”

It was all Crusaders in the rest of the first quarter and into the second, as Holy Cross took a 17-6 lead into halftime.

The Crimson came out of the locker room full throttle, as Pizzotti connected with Iannuzzi for a 54-yard pass down to the Crusader 13. Fellow senior quarterback Liam O’Hagan came in for his first touches of the game. After an 8-yard run moved the ball down to the five, Holy Cross’s Andrew Cialino intercepted O’Hagan’s pass at the one, returning it to the 10.

“The bottom line is, you can’t just have a guy as a runner,” Murphy said of O’Hagan, who has proven to be the more fleet-footed of the two quarterbacks. “For the simple reason that then you become predictable on offense...We probably should have just eaten the ball and gone on with the next play. Again, Holy Cross did a good job defending it. [O’Hagan will] be back in those situations.”

Harvard’s momentum continued to mount through the third quarter, as sophomore safety Collin Zych silenced a Crusader red zone threat, intercepting Randolph’s pass in the end zone for a touchback.

“I mean, that’s what Coach stresses, never throw picks in the end zone, never have turnovers in the end zone, and you just can’t do it,” Randolph said.

Senior linebacker Eric Schultz quelled another Holy Cross red zone attempt at the Harvard 1-yard line. Finding a hole in the offensive line, Schultz busted through to Randolph, sacking him to force the ball loose and recover the fumble.

“Coach Doherty has been talking all week about how, if it’s third and goal at the goal line and we have our backs to the wall, we’re still going to believe that we’re going to win that situation,” Schultz said. “It was just a fortunate play at a pivotal time in the game.”

Pizzotti wasted no time, serving up a 68-yard pass to Iannuzzi for the touchdown on the third play of the possession.

“We gave up big, big plays, made brutal mistakes in all three phases of the game, and we let a team come back and beat us,” Holy Cross coach Tom Gilmore said. “Give all the credit in the world to Harvard for coming back and being able to do that.”

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.