Don't Fear De Remer: Harvard Defense Plays Just Good Enough To Win

PROVIDENCE--It's safe to say that the Harvard football team's defensive performance against Brown on Saturday will not be heralded in the Crimson record books.

In fact, the 542 total yards that Harvard surrendered against Brown may well be among one of the worst performances in school history.

But that inflated yardage statistic means absolutely nothing, because Harvard won the game. The defense deserves praise for making just enough big plays and few enough bad ones to turn what easily could have been a 56-42 loss into a 42-37 win.

"We're a young team and we have eight new starters on defense," Harvard football Coach Tim Murphy said. "But in terms of effort and grittiness this is as good a win as we've had."

Although the game will be remembered for the offensive numbers Harvard put up in the second half, it can't be forgotten that the defense kept Brown from running away with the game in the first half when the offense was relatively nonexistent.

On the game's first drive, freshman linebacker Dante Balestracci sent a message to star Brown wideout Steven Campbell that would resonate for the rest of the afternoon. On the fourth play of the drive, Balestracci drilled Campbell in the mid-section immediately after the catch. The ball popped loose, and junior Phil Scherrer came up with his second fumble recovery in as many games.

Balestracci would go on to lead the Crimson with 11 tackles, while Campbell would never be the game-breaking player he was known to be. Although he brought down a team-leading nine receptions, the catches totaled just 58 yards.

"Campbell's a great player and a senior," Murphy said. "As clutch as he's been, we had to mix it up and confuse them all day long. In the end we did what we had to do to be successful."

The next critical defensive play came right at the end of the first quarter. Up 7-0, Brown had driven deep into Harvard territory and was facing third-and-13 from the Crimson 21. The Bears came close to keeping the drive alive, as Brown quarterback Eric Webber connected with an open Campbell just a few yards shy of the first down marker.

But junior safety Eric LaHaie made the clutch open-field tackle to keep the Bears a yard short. Brown elected to go for the field goal and the 10-0 lead. The second quarter was Harvard's best defensively, despite a 73-yard touchdown run of Brown back Mike Malan. The Crimson limited Brown's offense to 10 plays on its other three drives of the quarter. On the first stop, Balestracci and junior lineman Ryan Fitzgerald teamed up to stop Malan, and then on third down cornerback Willie Alford knocked away a high lob intended for Campbell. The other two stops of the quarter would be much of the same--shutting down the run, then silencing Webber, who was left with negative passing yardage for the quarter.

The defense was at its worst immediately following the first pair of Harvard scores, surrendering quick touchdowns and keeping the deficit at 10. No single play was uglier than the Malan touchdown run, when the Crimson defense allowed him to plod untouched down the sideline.

But credit the Harvard defense for coming up with the first stop of the second half. For the first 10 minutes after the break, it looked as if the two teams would be exchanging scores forever, but Harvard stopped the Bears cold at the Crimson 35 on their second drive.

It was the usual suspects combining for the stop again, as Balestracci took down Malan on first down, then Fitzgerald and LaHaie batted down Webber's passes on second and third down, respectively. On fourth down, the Crimson pass rush forced Webber to make an errant throw.

By far the three most critical plays of the game were sophomore Carl Morris' two long touchdown receptions and sophomore Sean Meeker's 43-yard reverse. But what made the 21-point swing from a 31-21 deficit to a 42-31 lead possible was the defense's ability to quickly stop the Brown offense in between the three scoring drives.

After the first Morris touchdown, the Harvard defense summarily gave up a 40-yard pass to Brown tight end David Brookman. But the Crimson shut down Brown from there, as tackles from junior linebacker Mike Cataldo and junior corner Andy Fried shut down Malan, and Fitzgerald tipped yet another Webber pass on third down to kill the Brown drive.

The Crimson got the ball back just 1:41 after its previous score. That made Brown's defense--still reeling from Morris's first 63-yard touchdown reception--susceptible to Morris's 80-yard touchdown reception that immediately followed.

Following the second Morris touchdown, the Harvard defense would stop the Brown defense short of midfield. Junior tackle Kyle Sims and sophomore safety Niall Murphy broke up passes on first and second down, respectively, setting up one of the more violent plays of the game.

Webber threw the ball high to Campbell along the left sideline well past the first down marker. As Campbell leapt into the air to catch the ball, Murphy and Fried came barreling into him, and the players fell down in a heap out of bounds. The referees decided that Campbell's momentum would have pulled him out-of-bounds regardless, so the pass was ruled incomplete, and the Brown drive was over. But Murphy, for his self-sacrifice, was left sprawled on the sideline with a concussion.

The Brown touchdown drive that followed the Meeker reverse had to worry anyone who remembered the 13-point lead Harvard blew against Cornell last year. But the Crimson deserves credit for forcing the Bears to march slowly down the field and preventing any form of a quick strike. It took the Bears 14 plays and 4:18 to drive down the field, and that turned out to be just enough time for the offense to run out the clock.

In the final 3:35, the consistent Harvard offense proved to be the best defense. Unlike in the Cornell game, where the Harvard offense went three-and-out to set the stage for the Big Red comeback, the Crimson managed to drive 53 yards due to sustained running from sophomore back Nick Palazzo and Morris's ability to get open for short, high-percentage, and clutch receptions.

Even though the Crimson defense gave up 37 points on the day--seven more than in any single game last season--the defensive players made all the plays necessary to win while the Brown defense faltered. Although it was the offense breaking all the records, the defense earned the same right to celebrate in the end.