Allard Earns Eastern Honors

Harvard quarterback Don Allard's record-breaking performance at Harvard Stadium on Saturday earned him two top Eastern football awards, it was announced yesterday.

The senior quarterback was named the ECAC Offensive Player of the Week for Division 1-AA and also was voted by the New England Football Writer's Association as the recipient of this week's Golden Helmet Award The Golden Helmet, given to both the outstanding University-division and College-division player in New England each week, will be presented to Allard this afternoon at the Harvard football luncheon.

Allard, a Winchester native, received recognition for the record-setting, 358-yard passing performance he turned in against the University of Massachusetts on Saturday. In the game, he completed 18 of 29 passes, including two for touchdowns, and ran for two other scores, leading the Crimson to a 31-14 upset of UMass. . . Allard's passing yardage total puts him atop a list that includes such distinguished Harvard quarterbacks as Larry Brown '79, Jim Stoeckel '74 and Jim Kubacki '77.

While the Harvard passing attack was flying high, the running game was barely chugging along For the day. Crimson ball carriers picked up just 31 yards on 40 cames, which translates into a paltry 08 yards per attempt The Harvard halfback tandem of Scott McCabe and Tim McGugan which churned for more than 180 yards last week against Columbia, was held to 11 yards on 17 carriers. The reason: The UMass defense geared itself almost entirely to stopping the Harvard ground game by having its linebackers charge and fill up the holes on nearly every play. "They sent a lot of blitzes." Crimson captain and offensive guard Greg Brown said. "It tough to run when they're sending everybody."

Obviously, Allard and the Multiples were able to take full advantage of the UMass defensive strategy, finding tremendous gaps in the secondary all day long. "They play the run so tough," said Allard. "We were looking for the big play" UMass Coach Bob Pickett, despite his team's success against the run, was less than pleased "We thought we could play better defense than we did," he said after the game "I'm not going to boast about the run defense when they threw for over 300 yards.

One Harvard receiver who accounted for a good portion of that yardage was tight end Peter Quartararo. He combined with Allard on a 71-yard pass play in the second quarter that brought the ball all the way down to the UMass one yard line, setting up the touchdown that put Harvard ahead to stay. It felt great, Quartararo said, when asked what it was like to be on the receiving end of such a big gain. That's the longest pass play I've even run" It looked at first as if Quartararo would make it all the way, but he was caught from behind at the last moment by corner back Dwayne Lopes. "He had an angle on me," the Harvard senior said. I should've dove for the end zone. Had the tight end broken the plane of the goal line Quartararo and Allard would have gone into the record books as combining for the eighth longest pass play for a touchdown in Harvard history. The record is an 85 yard Chet Boulris to Hank Keohane bomb vs. Yale in 1959. Allard did throw for one long ID in the game a 62 yarder to flanker Jim Garvey also in the second quarter.

Injuries: Adjuster Louis Varsames, who hyper extended his knee against. Columbia, missed practice all week, but was able to put in a fall game against UMass. He doesn't expect to miss any time in the future, either...By the way, senior Varsames, the only returning starter in a rapidly maturing Harvard secondary, drew raves from Picket in the post-game press conference...Still no word on Ron Cuccia's status for the Army game. He was in street clothes for UMass.

Allard picked a good day for his big game. A lot of pro scouts, most notably Boston Breaker (USH) Head Coach Dick Course were on hand for the game. Harvard's junior line backing due of Joe Azelby and Andy Nolan must have impressed as well, leading the Crimson with seven tackles and three assists each on the day.