Football Runs Flat Into Bulldogs for Second Straight Year

Harvard scored on its first drive and then never again. The ball sailed through the uprights 7:37 into the first quarter. The 50-yard campaign into Yale territory represented the longest of the afternoon for the Crimson.

A facemask penalty tacked on to a sack, pushed the team to the Bulldog four-yard line before the drive sputtered to a halt. Yale’s defensive big-men forced the Crimson backward on the following three plays, forcing the three-point try. Harvard never again broke the Bulldog 20.

TRENCH WARFARE

The Crimson’s lackluster offense can be attributed to the Yale’s smothering defensive line.

“We knew going in that, wow, they were an incredibly seasoned, talented, big, strong, physical defensive front seven,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “They had two 300-pounders in the middle that are great kids, great players, great athletes. Tremendous football team.”

On 31 attempts Harvard managed only 26 yards. At the half, freshman quarterback Jake Smith served as the squad’s leading rusher with seven. The team managed a net of six. Overall, the Crimson averaged .8 yards per attempt.

Running back Zane Dudek paced the Bulldogs with a team-leading 64 yards, more than doubling Harvard’s mark by himself. Melvin Rouse II forced another 42 on five attempts. The team racked up 118.

It wasn’t just the Crimson run game that suffered as a result of Yale’s defensive line performance but Smith, and then senior Joe Viviano. Both were rushed in the pocket consistently throughout the afternoon. The quarterbacks were pulled down six times for a total loss of 44 yards. Bulldog quarterback Kurt Rawlings only fell to the ground behind the line twice.

Overall, Yale offense combined for 295 yards while Harvard’s found only 164.

“This game today was won in the trenches,” Murphy said. “Nothing came easy today, to state the obvious. Nothing came easy for us today offensively.”

DROPPING THE BALL

The Crimson put the ball grass—more of mud by this point—twice during the game. The Bulldogs picked it up both times.

The two fumbles came as a result of pitches, which could have been foreshadowed earlier in the game. As Smith escaped left and the defenders pulled him down, he sent the ball flying in running back Aaron Shampklin’s direction. The clearly surprised freshman pulled down the projectile, but was immediately wrapped up.

Later, Smith went for the pitch again on much the same type of play. Still not expecting the ball, this time the tailback failed to pull it in. The pigskin hit the ground and was swooped up by Yale’s Malcolm Dixon. The sophomore defensive back carried the ball 19 yards to the end zone to extend the Bulldog’s lead to 11.

“I saw the quarterback pitch it,” Dixon said. “I saw him slip. I saw the end zone. I saw the ball. That was pretty much it.”

Exactly three plays later, Harvard went to the pitch option. Smith’s toss to Shampklin hit the running back in the hands and fell again to the ground. Yale recovered. The Bulldogs burned the remaining time in the second half and tacked on a field goal to head into the half up 14. The Crimson didn’t pitch the ball again.

JUSTICE’S LEAGUE

Nine quarters. That is how long it has been since the Harvard offense last converted a six point scoring play.

A two yard pass from Viviano to senior tight end Jake Barann in the third quarter of the team’s last victory against Columbia is the Crimson’s most recent touchdown. But junior receiver Justice Shelton-Mosley sure got the team close.

The first drive of The Game was Harvard’s most productive, and Shelton-Mosley led the campaign. The first play from scrimmage, Smith found the Shelton-Mosley who extended to catch for a 21 yard gain—his longest of the day.

The Crimson went to the ground and found Yale’s wall of a front seven waiting. Smith returned to Shelton-Mosley again, this time for nine. Three plays later, the junior wide out hauled down another for 18 to the Bulldog’s nine-yard line. After that, offensive production essentially halted.

“[Yale does] a great job of man coverage,” Murphy said. “They’ve sort of mimicked what Columbia has done, and they’ve got a big, strong front seven, and they’ve got big, strong secondary guys and they just play right in your grill, and they do a great job making it really challenging just to get off the ball, and in these conditions even more challenging.”

On the afternoon, Shelton-Mosley led Harvard with 77 yards and seven receptions. No other Crimson receiver managed to pull down more than one pass. The performance was Shelton-Mosley’s best of the season.

“I mean Justice is just one of those guys that he gets more than his share of double coverage every week,” Murphy said. “He’s our best athlete. He’s such a great kid, he’s such a champion that he … [made the most] against man coverage the whole day and also most of the time with man coverage the safety was over the top of him as well.”

Although, it’s not offensively where the wide out has dominated this season. Shelton-Mosley has been a reckoning force for the special teams. Prior to The Game, the junior was ranked number one in the FCS for both punt returns for touchdowns (two) and punt return average (18.8 yards).

The Bulldogs did everything in their power not to kick him the ball. In a game with 162 more punt yards than offensive production, Shelton-Mosley managed only one returnable kick, and pushed that for 18 yards. The rest of the time, Yale booted the ball out of bounds or high enough to force a fair catch.

Even on kickoffs, Yale frequently squibbed the ball up the biddle or chipped it to the bigger members of Harvard’s return team. Shelton-Mosley only clocked on kickoff return for three yards.

—Staff writer Cade Palmer can be reached at cade.palmer@thecrimson.com.