Crimson Secondary Suffers Without Waller

NEW YORK--In the middle of the first quarter on Saturday, senior cornerback Kane Waller dove into a Fordham Ram to make a tackle.

He wound up with a sharp Ram's horn deep in his thigh.

Actually, it was more like a cleated foot, but it did about as much damage as a horn would have done.

Waller played with the pain through the rest of the first half, but when he showed it to the Harvard trainers at halftime, he was told to rest for the second half, according to his teammates.

It seemed like an all-right plan at the time--Harvard did, after all, lead 34-3. To even the most casual observers, the Crimson (3-2, 1-1 Ivy) seemed well on its way to emasculating the hapless Rams in a second-half romp.

But all those Fordham fans who left early to catch the start of the Yankees-Red Sox Game Three missed quite a football game.

Fordham quarterback Matt Georgia finally decided to act like a quarterback, and running back Al Lundy remembered how to gain positive yardage.

They appeared to catch the Crimson defense completely off-guard.

Without Waller, Head Coach Tim Murphy decided to rotate junior Chris Verdini and sophomore Dan Miree at the cornerback position, neither of whom had seen significant action for the Crimson.

For Miree, it wasn't just his first varsity snap in a Harvard uniform. It was his first time at boundary corner--Waller's position.

Before Waller went down, he and sophomore Willie Alford had seen 100 percent of the action at corner this season. So when Miree and Verdini came in to face a rejuvenated Fordham offense, there were some early struggles.

"It's kind of sad that they had to come into that situation when [Fordham] was already throwing the ball a lot," Alford said. "[Fordham was] already into the groove, and they kind of just got thrown into the fire."

Miree will be the first to tell you that he struggled coming off the bench.

"I made some mistakes--which is going to happen, especially being the first time [Verdini and I] were getting a lot of action," he said. "There was some stuff we could've cleaned up technique-wise and done better."

Willing to exploit the green secondary, Georgia and wide receiver Kendal Creer went right after the new guys, and with Waller watching from the sidelines, Georgia led his team back into the football game.

He was 20-of-34 for 234 yards and three touchdowns in the second stanza, hooking up with Creer for six catches, 85 yards, and a touchdown.

Verdini, Miree and Alford also had their struggles with Fordham's closest thing to a star receiver--Gerry McDermott, who avenged a weak first half with seven catches for 101 yards in the second half.

With the Fordham passing attack cooking, the Harvard defense was spread too thin to contain Lundy, who ran for 70 yards on 17 carries in the second half.

And as result, Harvard found itself mired in a football game when it should have had a snoozer.

"We were very disgusted with ourselves," Alford said. "It was the worst way to win a game. We weren't very happy with our play."

The real problem seemed to be that Fordham brought too much emotion for Harvard to handle.

As the Crimson quickly notched 21 points in the first quarter, the Fordham bench was in shambles. Players stood in scattered clumps, helmets in hand, and even the coaching staff paced the sidelines with their heads hung low.

"Here we go again," the now 0-6 Rams seemed to be saying.

But when they came out for the second half, they struck quickly off a Chris Menick fumble, and all of a sudden it was Harvard that appeared to be playing with cobwebs.

Just like that, the Fordham bench was fired up. The guys were standing together with their helmets on, and jumping and cheering wildly for even the mildest Crimson setback.

Harvard, meanwhile, strung together a frustrating succession of three-and-outs.

"We let Fordham get momentum and that's what killed us," Miree said. "It snowballed."

But both Miree and Alford don't expect much punishment from the Harvard coaches in practice this week. They spent yesterday reviewing Saturday's film and will now turn their focus on the Princeton Tigers.

"It was definitely a weekend fluke," Alford said. "I'm pretty sure it'll never happen again."

"After today that's all behind us," said Miree yesterday. "It's all about Princeton now."