Crimson Stumbles Over Cornell, Nature, 9-3

It haint no use to grumble and complane

Its jest as cheap and easy to rejoice;

When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,

W'y rain's my choice. James Whitcomb-Riley

At four in the afternoon last Saturday at an embattled Harvard Stadium, the only people rejoicing were wearing muddy white Cornell uniforms.

God, as seems to be his penchant on football days in Cambridge, had sent rain all right, the Crimson had discovered to its waterlogged regret that the multi-flex finds quagmires offensive (maybe Daniel Ellsberg '52 was right), and by the time the players had retreated from God's showers to those of Dillon, the Big Red had made a real mess of the Ivy race.

For Cornell, its 9-3 triumph means that no, the Big Red will not reach November 14 without a victory. But that's about it, because one got the annoying impression that had Sunday's weather been Saturday's, Cornell would still have scored its nine points, Harvard 39, before the subs entered.

Yet even with the torrential showers and treacherous field conditions, which made ice skates the preferred footgear, a moment of sunshine did appear for the Crimson.

It came with 9:24 remaining in the third quarter, with Cornell clinging to a 2-0 advantage thanks to a first-period safety. Two penalties had pinned Harvard on its own three, and when Jim Kubacki attempted to set matters straight, he lost connections with the pigskin behind the Crimson goal line and could only fall on it for what should have been the lone Big Red points of the afternoon.

Upon receiving the second-half kickoff, however, the Crimson drove far enough downfield to set up a 25-yard Mike Lynch field goal. The 57-yard march was by no means the only time that Kubacki had generated an offense. It's simply that this was the only time when it showed on the scoreboard, as most of the 255 total offensive yards and 18 first downs came between the 20-yard lines. Nothing, in other words, outside the reach of the windshield wipers.

And even though the Crimson couldn't capitalize on a big break a few splashes later, when it recovered a Big Red fumble on the ensuing kickoff (Lynch's 33-yarder was a wide right this time after a drive never got going), it appeared that a 3-2 lead against Cornell in the slop might just be sufficient.

"You hope you're close enough to kick a field goal," Joe Restic said in a semi-stunned, semi-deserted Harvard locker room immediately after the bath. "We were, and we even had a second choice. But we did it [kick the first field goal]. Three to two should be it. The field goal should be enough."

But that's where Restic was wrong.

For with ten minutes or so remaining in the game, the Cornell punter, unheroically entitled Dave Johnson, stood gasping for air inside his 15-yard line. Had the snap from center taken too long, Johnson might have sunk into the stadium and never resurfaced, but the football arrived on time, albeit a trifle high.

Johnson had to go airborne to retrieve it, but when he came down he quickly realized that he had as much chance of getting off a good kick as the Wicked Witch of the West did when Dorothy hurled the bucket of water.

There was a Crimson defender bearing down on each side, so Johnson swam a few strokes up the middle, took a left at the line of scrimmage (his 25) and then did his own version of the individual medley for 75 yards down the left sideline.

With the achievement of the first down now an afterthought, Johnson had to avoid Bill Emper somewhere near midfield, but the funny thing is that with the exception of the Crimson captain, and one will have to see the game films to verify this, it didn't appear that any other Harvard types came within even a life jacket of rescuing the touchdown for the home folks.

"The high snap from center should have been a break for us," Restic said, with the look of one who's just received a C on a paper when he was sure he would get at least a B.

In the remaining ten minutes, Harvard had the requisite possessions to pull the game out, but it didn't have the requisite plays. A fumbled pitchout killed one opportunity, an interception a second, and if one image characterized the day for the Crimson, it was that of Kubacki slipping while trying to turn the corner.

"Jimmy's great strength is cutting," Restic said, and the weather defensed it. That's what's sad. I was really concerned all week, and then this weather. The rain was definitely worth a couple of touchdowns."

Excuses, sure, but not really. Mother nature beat Harvard more so than Cornell did, but there was one positive aspect to the day, as Brown and Dartmouth also lost.

"That helps us," Restic said, upon learning that Yale defeated the Big Green. Moments later, he inquired about the Brown-Penn game. "Look what it could have been," he sighed, when told that the Quakers had pulled off an upset of their own.

"But you can't do anything," the coach finished, "just stick it in your craw and start again." Like against Dartmouth, in Hanover, in four days, when the sun might even make an appearance, because for now, it haint no use to grumble and complane, when God sorts out the weather and sends rain.