Football Faces Off Against Penn for Share of Ivy Title

Harvard football has never won four straight Ivy League titles. Period.

Tonight at 8 p.m., the Crimson (7-1, 5-0 Ivy) has a chance to change that. Squaring off against second-place Penn (5-3, 4-1 Ivy), Harvard can clinch at least a share of the championship. Lose, and the Crimson will drop into a tie.

More is on the line than an unprecedented four-peat. Last season at Harvard Stadium, the Quakers shattered a 22-game win streak, an undefeated season, and Harvard hearts with a 35-25 upset.

Not even a Crimson victory over Yale—and therefore a banner split between Harvard, Penn, and Dartmouth—could erase the pain of that loss. Sometimes sorrow sticks.

“The senior class from last year was a great bunch of guys,” senior halfback Anthony Firkser said. “Having to lose to that [Penn] team ruined our perfect season. And seeing how those guys handled it was tough.”

Tonight, then, is the grittiest of grudge matches. It is the clash of titans that pundits envisioned when they picked the Crimson and the Quakers to finish one-two in preseason polls.

Harvard and Penn—these are the contestants. And history or hysteria—these are the stakes.

“It’s definitely our biggest game of the year up to this point,” senior safety Kolbi Brown said. “The emotions will be high on both ends.”

Heading into last week, the Quakers had not suffered a conference loss. After dropping decisions to Lehigh and Fordham, Penn had steamrolled through five straight wins.

But a 28-0 defeat to Princeton—which also has one Ivy loss—derailed any momentum. Now the Quakers enter this weekend with a dangerous combination: underdog desperation and top-notch talent.

Three players headline the Penn offense. Senior Alek Torgersen quarterbacks the team. No Ivy League player has thrown more interceptions (14) or fewer interceptions (three). A sophomore starter, Torgersen made the All-Ivy first team as a junior. Oh, and the 230-pound veteran averages over 40 rushing yards per game.

Torgersen’s favorite target is junior wide receiver Justin Watson, a third-team All-American in 2015. The Bridgeville, Pa. native is the only Ancient Eight player to log more than 110 receiving yards and eight catches per game. Last year he burned the Crimson for 249 all-purpose yards.

Running back Tre Solomon rounds out the attack. The junior tops the league with 89 rushing yards per game, part of an attack that averages over 175 yards on the ground.

Facing these potent weapons, Harvard will deploy a defense that ranks second in the conference in rushing defense but has given up at least 20 points in the last four games.

“Coaches drew up a great scheme for us, just like they do for every team,” Brown said. “We’re trying to go out and execute that scheme.”

The defensive line has played a steady role. Paced by sophomore defensive end D.J. Bailey, the Crimson leads the Ancient Eight with 22 sacks. But injuries have forced the linebacker core to depend on raw talent, and talented quarterbacks have sometimes picked apart the secondary.

Can Harvard clamp down on the Torgersen-Watson-Solomon triumvirate? If so, then the achievement would rank as the defensive feat of the year.

Penn’s defense has weaknesses of its own. The bad news started in week five, when senior linebacker and predicted tackle leader Donald Panciello went down with an injury.

Linebacker Colton Moskal (75 tackles) has played well in his teammate’s absence, but collectively the Quakers sit sixth in the Ivy League in yardage allowed. A toothless defensive line has combined for nine sacks—worse than all conference foes.

This week, Penn confronts a Harvard offense that has performed effectively, if not efficiently. After eight weeks, the Crimson has committed 18 turnovers; only Cornell has matched that total.

But the athleticism of senior quarterback Joe Viviano has compensated for any struggles. He averages 231 yards per game and has tossed 13 touchdowns.

Shelton-Mosley and Firkser have grabbed eight of these scores. The two targets both average over 75 yards a game. Recently sophomore Adam Scott has joined the mix: Last week he was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week after recording 109 receiving yards and two touchdowns.

Especially in 2016, however, these two football teams are more than the sums of their parts. More accurately, they are the sums of their histories—long narratives that include a combined 34 Ancient Eight titles.

Tonight Harvard has an opportunity to add one more.

“We know this is the biggest test of the year right now,” Firkser said. “Our team is definitely mentally prepared.”

—Staff writer Sam Danello can be reached at sam.danello@thecrimson.com.