In a memorable, record-book-rewriting year for Harvard football, singling out one player for MVP recognition must’ve been a tall task.

But the Crimson figured it out, naming senior defensive tackle Josue Ortiz the winner of the Frederick Greely Crocker Award, annually given to the top player on the team.

A host of other seniors, including defensive tackle Ben Graeff, quarterback Collier Winters, offensive tackle Kevin Murphy, and captain middle linebacker Alex Gedeon, received accolades at the football awards banquet.

But perhaps the evening’s greatest honor went to junior linebacker Bobby Schneider, who will succeed Gedeon as the captain of Harvard football as the program enters its 139th season.

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For most, the Ivy season is over. Harvard emphatically took the title, high-stepping into history by somehow finishing three games ahead of the rest of the league with only seven conference games on the slate.

And most of the accolades have been given, too. The first team, second team, and rookie of the year awards were announced earlier this week.

But two big prizes—the largest of them all—remain: the offensive and defensive player of the year.

In all liklihood, one of two Harvard seniors—defensive tackle Josue Ortiz or cornerback Matt Hanson—will take home the defensive honor, while Dartmouth running back Nick Schwieger and Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews are the favorites to nab the offensive accolade.

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Things just keep getting better for Harvard football coach Tim Murphy.

Just weeks after setting the program’s all-time wins record with his 118th victory at the helm of the Crimson against Columbia Nov. 5, and just days after leading Harvard to a dominant 9-1 season in which it finished three games ahead of any of its competitors for the Ivy League title, Murphy was named on Monday one of 20 finalists for the 25th Eddie Robinson Award, which honors the national coach of the year.

The honor was established by The Sports Network in 1987, and is voted on by a panel of over 150 Football Championship Subdivision sports information directors, broadcasters, and selected sports writers. It was named for College Football Hall of Famer Eddie Robinson, who led Grambling State University for 56 years and is the second-winningest coach in Division I history, behind only Joe Paterno.

“When you are nominated for an award like this it generally means you had a great team and it is a reflection of what your team (players and coaches) accomplished,” Murphy wrote in an e-mail.

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Generations of Harvard and Yale students have taken part in the wonderful tradition that is The Game. Interestingly, much of what we know and love about Harvard-Yale can be traced back to the very beginning of the rivalry’s storied history.

The schools’ football teams faced off for the first time on Nov. 13, 1875. Despite the steep entrance cost of 50 cents, 2500 fans showed up to New Haven’s Hamilton Park to witness Harvard’s 4-0 victory.

The game they played was still called football, but it would hardly be recognizeable to fans of the game today. The forward pass wouldn’t be legalized for another 20 years, and the two teams had to actually agree on the rules beforehand. Only upon Harvard’s urging did players agree that either side could run with the ball.

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