Football Notebook: The Other Offensive Miscues

The Harvard Football Team administered another drubbing to a sub-par Ivy opponent on Saturday, beating Columbia, 34-0.

But, unlike last week against Dartmouth, the Crimson didn't execute its offensive game plan particularly well, despite totaling 527 total yards from scrimmage.

Punt? Yeah Right.

Strange as it may seem, Harvard did not punt the ball once against Columbia--a statistic better suited to video-game football than real life.

All of Harvard's possessions ended either in Crimson scores or turnovers.

Junior quarterback Neil Rose threw three interceptions, all to sophomore free safety Philip Murray.

Harvard opened strong, scoring touchdowns on its first two drives. All but one of the plays on the initial drive were passes from Rose to his wide receivers and all but one of those passes were directed to junior wide receiver Sam Taylor.

Taylor has emerged over the past couple of weeks as Rose's favorite target over the middle.

Specializing in the slant and the square-in route, Taylor did an excellent job of finding holes in the middle of Columbia's zone.

As he has all season, Taylor paid for his catches by taking vicious hits from the Columbia safeties as soon as he caught the ball. But, as he has all season, Taylor continued to run his routes. On the last play of the drive, he caught a 29-yard pass on a flag route to the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

Though Rose's touchdown strike to Taylor was a perfect pass, it seemed that Rose, at least yesterday, had trouble throwing the deep ball.

On Harvard's third drive, Rose saw sophomore wide receiver Kyle Cremarosa break open on a post route, but Rose both released the ball late and floated the pass. Murray, who was dropping into a deep zone, got a good break on the ball and picked it off.

On the next drive, Rose dropped to pass on Harvard's 40-yard line and spotted Morris downfield.

But once again, Rose threw the ball late, lofting the pass. Murray intercepted it at Columbia's 25-yard line.

Time Management Skills

Up 24-0 at the halftime, the Crimson came out throwing in the second half. Though Columbia was unable to mount much of an offensive effort against the stifling Harvard defense, the decision to throw the ball to start the half was unorthodox.

"We wanted to go out and be aggressive and not go into a shell," Coach Murphy said. "We're a pass team first, we set up the run with the pass."

Harvard's first three possessions of the second half ended in turnovers. On the first drive, Rose threw a pass underneath that was picked off, again by Murray, who was playing close to the line of scrimmage as a cornerback.

Harvard's next possession ended after a fumbled snap in which it seemed that Rose pulled out of his stance a split-second too soon.

The third drive of the second half ended when Rose completed a long pass to Morris, who was immediately drilled by three Columbia defenders.

As a result of the contact, Morris fumbled the ball away.

The times taken off of the clock on those drives were :44, 1:02 and 1:51 respectively for a total of 3:37 minutes. So, out of the first 11:20 seconds of the second half, which was the time elapsed when Morris fumbled, the Crimson offense really controlled the ball for a total of 3:37.

Of the nine offensive plays that Harvard ran in those three drives, six were passing plays and three were designed running plays. Had the Crimson run the ball effectively in the third quarter, Columbia's offense would have had no chance to get back in the game.

Wright Comes Through

Against the Lions, Harvard did something that it hadn't in six weeks: hit a field goal. What's more, the Crimson made not one, but two three-pointers.

Freshman kicker Robbie Wright converted both of the attempts, one from 29 and one from 32 yards away.

Wright, who was 0-of-3 on field goal attempts this season but 22-of-22 on extra point kicks, made a strong case for himself and the field goal unit going into the last two games of the season.

"[The field goals] may have been the most positive thing," Murphy said. "If we need to win the game with a field goal, whether it's at Pennsylvania or at Yale, he'll do it."

Though both field goals in this game came while Harvard enjoyed a large lead, Wright must have felt the pressure that had been building throughout the season as Harvard kickers proved unable to come through.

Both kicks went down the middle and would probably have been good from five to ten yards further away.

Weak Option

All season, Harvard has run two kinds of option plays, the strong option and the weak option. In the strong option, the play is run to the tight end side of the formation. Conversely, the weak option play happens away from the tight end.

An option play is called an option play because it gives a defensive player the "option" to tackle one of two offensive players, the quarterback and running back. But, if the defender decides to tackle the quarterback (who initially has the ball) the quarterback will pitch the ball to the running back.

Conversely, if the defender commits to the running back, the quarterback will keep the ball and run with it.

Teams run variations of the option, and one of the changes that teams make is that they select different defensive players to "option" for different formations.

In Harvard's case, this means that sometimes the option runs well and sometimes it runs badly.

When the Crimson run the option to the weak side, away from the tight end, they elect to option the defensive end. This is a poor tactic.

Understanding why the option is bad requires looking at it from the perspective of the defensive end. Normally, the defensive end lines up just to the outside of the offensive tackle and inside the tight end.

But, since Harvard is running the option away from the tight end, no one is lined up outside of this defensive end.

As the ball is snapped, the defensive end is unblocked, as he is the player being "optioned."

He sees the tackle going to block an interior defensive player such as an inside linebacker or defensive tackle. When a defensive end sees the offensive tackle do this, he is coached to squeeze down inside towards the offensive guard and center in case one of them is trying to pull and block him.

Instead, when the defensive end squeezes inside, he sees the quarterback running down the line with the ball. Like any good defensive lineman, when this end sees the quarterback, he hits him as hard as he can.

The quarterback, for his part, pitches the ball to the running back just before he gets flattened. All of this happens in the split second after the ball is snapped.

The end result is that the running back has the ball much earlier than he normally does on an option and the play effectively turns into a toss-sweep with fewer blockers.

All season, the option play to the weak side has been ineffective. By this point in the year, however, Rose knows he will be hit hard by the defensive end. He pitches almost immediately after the snap, before the end has a chance to lay him out.

Freshman backup quarterback Conor Black entered Saturday's game without that experience. When he came in near the end of the game, he ran the weakside option play and took one of the most vicious hits of the entire game--all for the sake of a play that gained three yards.

It's a simple point, but the play works better when you block the really big guy who wants to kill your quarterback.