Defense Keys Morris Magic

If you thought the halftime show was the hottest part of Saturday’s football game against Dartmouth, then you obviously left before the second half. And if you left before the second half, you may have walked away slack-jawed after watching Harvard’s dreams of a championship season wither while Dartmouth stomped through the Crimson defense.

But if you stayed past the horrors of the first, then you saw Harvard’s defense and the spectacular plays of junior wide receiver Carl Morris carry the Crimson to the win.

Don’t get me wrong. Freshman Ryan Fitzpatrick stepped up in a big way, hurting Dartmouth with 58 yards in 17 rushing attempts and 262 passing yards while the pressure was on. He seemed composed beyond his experience, but it helps to have a ball-magnet like Morris downfield.

“It’s great to be throwing to somebody like Carl, it’s a huge difference from last year to this year,” Fitzpatrick said. “He makes exceptional plays—like the one down the middle where he just out-jumped that guy to make that catch—[and that] makes it a lot easier.”

Morris shined in Harvard’s comeback, starting with the option pass he threw to senior Sam Taylor for a touchdown in a play that didn’t go according to plan.

“The play was designed to go off to the sideline to the near side receiver, but he was kind-of double-covered,” Morris said.

Morris followed this pass with two leaping catches. He out-sprinted and out-jumped Dartmouth to catch Fitzpatrick’s 32-yard touchdown pass, as Harvard inched forward on the scoreboard, 21-14.

On the Crimson’s next possession, Fitzpatrick targeted Morris for a 40-yard pass that brought Harvard to the 5 with Morris again leaping to catch the ball.

At halftime there was no imaginable way the Crimson could win, and even fewer ways with the absence of Neil Rose taken into account. In the face of a quarterback switch and numerous injuries to key players, Morris was the key to Harvard’s.

However, Morris’ magic depended on the Harvard defense.

“The thing that opened things up for us was our defense showing up,” said Harvard Coach Tim Murphy. “That gave us not only momentum and emotion, but it gave us field position. We had no field position in the first half and they had points on the board and it just seemed like we were fighting uphill the whole way.”

And show up they did: Dartmouth managed –9 total yards in the third quarter. The Crimson bottled up the Big Green at every turn, recovering fumbles and forcing punts to give Harvard the opportunity to tie the score.

Harvard’s defense continued to hold strong in the fourth, after the Crimson captured the lead on a 30-yard field goal. Sophomore linebacker Dante Balestracci and senior defensive end Marc Laborsky foiled Big Green quarterback Evan Love’s attempts to restart the Dartmouth offense.

Late in the fourth, with the Crimson still up by a field goal, the defense forced Dartmouth to turn over the ball deep in Big Green territory, forfeiting its final chance to grab the lead

The defense had done its job and given Harvard the chance to score. The Crimson used the opportunity to secure its victory, with junior Nick Palazzo rushing in for the final touchdown.

“We just didn’t come ready to play in the first half,” Balestracci said. “They came out with more intensity than we did and really pushed us around the first half. At halftime, we all looked at ourselves in the mirror, knew what we had to do and came out in the second half and did it.”

While I’m ecstatic that Harvard fought for the victory and I thoroughly enjoyed the drama of the second half, I worry about where the team went during the first half of the game—the team I have seen dominate for most of this season. With games against Columbia and Penn looming on the schedule, I cringe when I think about how Dartmouth just pounded its way to 21 points.

Kick-off at Columbia is at 1:30 p.m. I’ve already seen what happens when Harvard’s defense isn’t ready to play, but it’ll be uglier next weekend if the Crimson isn’t ready for its early afternoon battle.