Ain't Gonna Take More

With the Division I-AA championship an impossible dream and the Ivy League championship a mathematical impossibility, there's not a lot on the line for either Harvard or Yale at The Stadium this afternoon.

This Game is for bragging rights--which school has the right to stick its collective chest out further for the next 12 months.

But nothing official on the line means exactly that to the players--nothing.

It's like the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers playing in late September after both teams have been eliminated from the playoffs: The fans will still turn out. Hostilities will still flare. People will still paint their bodies and run around half-naked in freezing weather.

The Game is all about emotion. That's why the key statistic for this, the 109th playing of The Game, is not rushing yards, special teams play or unassisted tackles but this:

Yale has won the last two meetings.

Not one player on the Harvard squad has defeated Yale. The seniors have it especially tough: their freshman year, their freshman football team lost to Yale as well. That makes them 0 for 3.

What's going to decide this match? Pure, unadulterated frustration.

Harvard (2-7 overall, 2-4 Ivy) hasn't let Yale (4-5, 2-4 Ivy) win three Games in a row since the Crimson dropped The 1957 Game 54-0, the largest loss ever to the Elis.

It just ain't gonna happen again. The seniors are too pissed off.

"It's about redemption," senior free safety Rob Santos said. "I have yet to beat Yale and it's a big thing for me."

Santos's statement, while delivered with conviction, was no match for that of senior linebacker Monte Giese:

"The last two years, I would get on the field towards the end of the game, and when Yale won their fans would come pouring out of the stands. It was so...I hate that team. I hate that team and I hate their fans.

"There's a tremendous revenge factor," Giese added, as a kind of afterthought.

This is the kind of talk coaches like to hear, especially when it comes from their starting middle linebacker. Restic is starting nine seniors on the defense, and every one of them is drooling at the thought of leveling anyone in a blue uniform.

There are six more on offense: Captain Robb Hirsch, halfback Kendrick Joyce, split ends Colby Maher and Chris Taylor, fullback Mike Hill and tackle Jeff Landry. You'll be seeing a little extra from these guys today. Remember: no wins, three losses.

Only one starter--defensive end Kayode Owens, who took a year off--was around when Harvard won in 1989. And he's not happy, either: "I don't think there's anything that can save this season besides a win against Yale," Owens said.

There's no way Yale can match this rhetoric. "I want to have beaten Harvard all three years I've played" just doesn't carry the same inspirational weight as Taylor's "never, ever beaten them and I want to get them."

The seniors are back--for the fourth time--and they're pissed off. And this time, it's personal.