84 Seasons of Football's Greatest Rivalry

Yale crushed Harvard, 41 to 14, in 1952. Forty of the Elis' points were not particularly galling--after all, the Bulldogs had lost only two games that fall, and no one had given the Crimson much of a chance of contain them. But the 41st point touched off a dispute that threatened for a while to strain relations between the two old rivals, and gave Boston sports writers an unparalled chance to poke fun at the Crimson squad.

The Last Yale point was tallied by manager Chuck Yeager, on a pass from quarterback Ed Molloy. Coach Jordan Oliver had slipped his little manager into the game for one play, and Yeager, wearing No. 99, went almost unnoticed as he caught the aerial on the one-yard line and went over for the score.

Many people thought the ultimate humiliation for Harvard had finally come. Crimson coach Lloyd Jordan said publicly only that "that sort of thing makes football," but insiders felt that he was less than pleased by the incident. Captain John Nichols was less reticent about his feelings, declaring, "Frankly I think it stinks." Mutterings about "good sportsmanship" echoed between Cambridge and New Haven for a few weeks before the matter slowly died.

There was nothing else very surprising about Yale's large margin of victory, although the vaunted Bulldogs' point total was their highest against a Crimson eleven since 1884. Harvard bounced back the next year, in 1953, however, and surprised an equally respected Yale team, 13 to 0. The Crimson followed again the next year with a 13-9 upset over the Eli squad that seemed headed for Ivy title.

Other surprises have marked this 84-years-old series--for instance the unprecedented 54-0 rout perpetrated by Yale in 1957. This element of the unexpected, always present in a game whose outcome rests traditionally on the uncertain factor of morale, has made the Harvard-Yale rivalry the greatest in college football.

The Game no longer decides the national championship, as it did for so many years. Nor does the Harvard-Yale contest now pit the country's greatest players against each other in head-to-head competition, as was the case for three fabulous seasons between 1929 and 1931. In those last glorious days of football at the two colleges Crimson quarterback Barry Wood and Eli halfback Albie Booth staged battles that were watched by every sport fan in the land. Still, when the ancient opponents take the field each year, a certain element exists which the trumped-up "big-time" clashes cannot equal--a hint of greatness, and a sprit of competition that has existed since 1875, when Harvard beat Yale, four goals and four touchdowns to nothing, in the series' first game.

Although the Crimson began well, the rivalry assumed a Blue tinge the next year, as Yale pulled out a highly disputed victory over the varsity at New Haven. Grumbling about unfair officiating and poor treatment of visitors echoed for weeks; the dissatisfaction even reached Princeton, where the Princetonian remarked, "Yale has been fortunate again--in its umpire."

Yale ran its victory skein to 11 before the Crimson finally notched its second win. Harvard's low point of the 11 years, and of the entire series until the debacle of 1957, was reached in 1884, when the Elis triumphed, 48 to 0 or 52 to 0, depending on which paper you read. The CRIMSON had this to say about the disputed score: "... and the ball was passed to Bayne, who slipped through. Time was called ere he could reach the line. Some papers gave this a touchdown, but Mr. Looks, the referee, said that, both time was called before Byrne went over, and also that the ball was not properly put in play." Yale records, however, still list the larger count.

The CRIMSON also noted, "Spectators to the number of 2,000 were gathered on Yale's new athletic grounds on witness the match. Among them were about thirty Harvard men, who went down from Cambridge, and several others, graduates, who come on with ladies from New York, Boston, and elsewhere." They knew they would see a one sided contest, since earlier the same year, Yale had opened its series with Dartmouth handing the Big Green a 113-0 licking.

When the varsity finally broke through in 1890, it was an occasion of high drama. After so many years of failure, the Crimson met and defeated perhaps the greatest Yale team of all. The CRIMSON gloated, "The victory is not the result of one year's training alone; it is the consummation of the work begun here years ago... Three times of late we have thought that we had it mastered, and each time Yale has sent us back to Cambridge to study it some more. But we have stuck to the task with a dogged perseverance..." Crimson right guard P. Trafford established himself as a Harvard immortal by outplaying the man many still consider football's greatest lineman--Pudge Heffelfinger, an all-time all-American.

After the 1894 game, won by Yale, 12 to 4, the series was suspended for two years as a result of the ill will created by the fray. The CRIMSON charged, "Harvard clearly outplayed her opponent at every point; in team work, in punting and drop-kicking, and, in many cases, in individual playing. Yet Yale, by a combination of good luck, and questionable decisions of the officials of the game, not only defeated Harvard, but had some points to spare..." The contest was marked by a rash of injuries, mostly to Harvard men. Indignation was widespread for a long time afterwards.

Harvard's first victory over Yale in the Stadium came in 1913, when Charlie Brickley kicked five field goals to defeat the Blue, 15 to 5, and completed his feat of scoring all Harvard's points on its way to the Big Three championship.

Two years later, the Crimson attained its greatest margin of victory, a 41 to 0 win over the Bulldogs. For Yale, it was the worst defeat in 43 years. Harte, an end, had the honor of scoring the first touchdown against the Elis in the Stadium with a 35-yard dash in the first period. Captain and fullback E. W. Mahan tallied four touchdowns to close out a brilliant career.

The triumph was Harvard's four the straight in the series, and the Crimson had outscored the Elis, 112 to 5 in those four years. Harvard and coach Percy Haughton reached the top of the Football world; a New York Times editorial declared, "Haughton is a great coach, perhaps the greatest in the annals of the American college game."

In 1929 began the era of Wood and Booth. Wood took the initial encounter, as the sophomore quarter back kicked the extra point and field goal that gave the Crimson its 10-6 margin. But even in defeat Booth stood out: only an amazing grab by Bill Ticknor prevented the diminutive halfback from scoring the winning touchdown on a brilliant, last-ditch effort.

Wood won again in 1930. He threw two touchdown passes to end A. W. Huguley, as Harvard triumphed, 13 to 0. The strong Crimson line, paced by captain Ben Ticknor, bottled up Booth almost completely and, the CRIMSON reported, made him "look like an average back, flashy but unconvincing."

But Booth wreaked his revenge in 1931. The high-flying Crimson, sporting a 14-13 win over Army, went in the 1931 meeting undefeated and united. The game had barely started when Crickard of Harvard raced all the way to the Yale seven-yard line. As the Stadium crowd waited for the first Crimson touchdown, in the expected rout, the Bulldogs stiffened and held.

See-sawing back and forth, the two teams went in the fourth quarter still tied, 0 to 0. Booth completed a pass deep in Crimson territory, and seconds later drop-kicked the ball between the uprights to give Yale a 3-0 margin, which soon became the final score. After three years of struggles, Booths had finally seen his Elis defeat a Harvard eleven.

In the eventful history of the series, the 1951 encounter also stands out as a memorable thriller. Yale came from behind to tie the Crimson, 21 to 21, late in the fourth quarter. The varsity's three scores all came in dramatic fashion--a fourth down, finger-tip catch of a pass by end, Paul Crowlcy, an 84-yard run by halfback John Ederer, and a pass interception by Fritz Drill.

As sophomore quarterback Ed Molloy, who gave up Drill's interception soon after replacing injured Yale starter Jim Ryan, grew disheartened, Eli coach Herman Hickman advised, "You pitch them out, kid, and I'll start heading out of town. We've got nothing to lose now--not even a reputation." Molloy then completed four out of five passes for 65 yards and the tying touchdown.

Possibly the best modern Yale team ever to take the field humiliated the varsity, 42 to 14 in 1956. The Bulldogs became Ivy champions, and that season scored 40 points against Penn, 42 against Princeton, and 42 aginst Harvard in their last three games. The unstoppable backfield of Dean Loucks, Dennis McGill, Al Ward, and Steve Ackerman ran wild over a Crimson defense that did well to hold the final count below 60.

Since the entire first-line Yale backfield graduated in 1957, the Crimson might have had reason to hope for a better fate that fall. But quarterback Dick Winterbauer, who completed nine of 12 passes for 165 yards and three touchdowns in only 30 minutes of playing time, led the Blue to a 54-0 stomping over the injury-riddled varsity. Never before had a Crimson team been so humbled by Yale; it set the stage for revenge.

Last year, the varsity roared back from this, its most crushing defeat to score a 28-0 win over the hapless Eli eleven. Quarterback Charlie Ravenel, a brilliant play-caller and runner all day long, gained 105 yards on 16 carries and put the Crimson ahead to stay by going over from the five as the gun sounded to end the first half. Chet Boulris, Larry Repsher, and Albie Cullen, all of whom will see action tomorrow, scored second-half touchdowns as Harvard won The Game for the first time in four seasons.

Yale has won 43 of the 75 contests played in the series; Harvard has taken 25, and there have been seven ties. Today, the teams are more evenly matched than at any other time since 1954. The Crimson has not yet completely made up for the 1957 debacle, and for the many seniors on the squad--including Boulris, Cullen, captain Hank Keohane, Jerry Weidler, Dave Cappiello, and Sam Halaby among the starters--this afternoon's contests is the last chance to erase some nagging memories