Football
NOTEBOOK: Backs Run Over Dartmouth
In Saturday’s 42-21 drubbing of Dartmouth, Harvard football was bolstered by its ground attack, as two players rushed for 100-plus yards—the first time two Crimson players have accomplished such a feat since 1999.
Tricks In Store For Ivy Football
Sure, Halloween at Harvard still has its charms. But the fact that I’m commiserating with an animated skeleton tells me that I might need a change of pace. Fortunately, the increasing monotony of college life has not extended to Ivy League football, and the Ancient Eight is still full of exciting tricks and treats.
Crimson Can’t Overlook Big Green
As Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare shows, an overwhelming favorite is prone to underestimate an opponent. While “slow and steady” might not be the best description of the Dartmouth football team, it was only six short years ago that the Big Green and its 2-4 record played the appropriately-colored role of tortoise, shattering the Crimson’s hope for an undefeated season with a 30-16 victory at Harvard Stadium.
Homecoming Weekend Could Use Some Work
Rolling out of bed to the sounds of the marching band on JFK Street, I thought that this past Saturday was going to be a football game like any other. Granted, with the visiting Princeton team was only sporting a 0-2 record this year, I knew that things would be a little different. But who doesn’t like watching your team demolish a foe that has been a perennial obstacle in each of the last three years on the road to the Ivy League championship? It was going to be a great day, and an epic win. But as I stood on the sidelines ready to watch the Crimson stomp all over the Tigers, something else was very different as well: the stands were empty.
HUMBLE HOMECOMING
Scenes like this are few and far between at Harvard football games. The lack of student attendence is, in part, due to the failure of the administration and the Harvard Alumni Association to properly advertise the event or foster a sense of community among students.
Closing In
It only took a minute and a half for the Harvard football team to begin erasing the bitter memory of last week’s loss to Lafayette. In Saturday’s contest against Princeton (1-5, 0-3 Ivy), the Crimson (4-2, 3-0 Ivy) used three plays in its first drive—a pair of one-yard rushes and a 77-yard bomb from junior quarterback Collier Winters to classmate Chris Lorditch—to tack seven points on the board, en route to a 37-3 drubbing of the Tigers.
TO SAY THE LEIST: Title Race Comes Down to Three
<p>Much of Ivy League football this year has been about unpredictability. With no stacked lineups or breakout superstars, almost any matchup could be anybody’s game. Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero outdueling Patriot League god Dominic Randolph? Columbia holding Princeton scoreless in a 38-0 blowout? Yale having the league’s best scoring defense—and a sub-.500 conference record? </p> <p> </p> <p>At this point, nothing in Ancient Eight football should surprise me. But on Saturday, something did.</p>
NOTEBOOK: Tigers Endure Punting Woes
Harvard was most dangerous on Saturday each time Princeton’s punt unit took the field. The danger came not from the Crimson’s return game, which managed only five yards on three attempts, but from the Tigers’ self-inflicted struggles. “The punt team part of our special teams had been our most consistent,” Princeton coach Roger Hughes said. “To see that go down was very disappointing.”
FEELING GEDDY
Sophomore linebacker Alex Gedeon blocked a punt in Saturday's matchup with Princeton, just one of the Tigers' several failed punts.
AROUND THE IVIES: Running Back Era Comes To Close
Yesterday morning, as I furiously typed away at a Spanish 50 composition that blatantly ripped off the plot of “Election”—the great Tom Perrotta high school novel and Reese Witherspoon’s career-launching movie—I thought to myself, “Has the recent era of great Ivy League running backs come to an end?”