Football Notebook: Punter’s Sin Leads To More Heroics by Confesor

As he began his postgame press conference, Harvard football coach Tim Murphy made it clear that he had no confessions to make about the Crimson’s special teams breakdown in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s win over Holy Cross.

Well, make that Confesions.

“With God as my witness, I told our punter not to kick it to him that last time,” Murphy said, referring to Ari Confesor’s touchdown on an 85-yard punt return with 5:10 to play in Harvard’s 28-23 win. “I told him to not even think about it. I was flabbergasted.”

Murphy certainly had reason to warn his team. Confesor finished with an eye-popping 318 all-purpose yards on the day, including 158 yards on five kickoff returns and 103 on three punts.

Oh, and he also had four catches for 57 yards on offense. And a touchdown catch.

This isn’t a new trend for Confesor, either. He entered Saturday’s game as the national leader in all-purpose yardage after racking up 173 in Holy Cross’s 41-13 win over Georgetown last week, even though the Hoyas kept the ball away from him on kickoffs.

“He’s good—really quick,” said Harvard safety Niall Murphy, who made six tackles and recorded an interception in the game. “We were really worried about him. They put him in the backfield, too, just trying to get him the ball. We were always watching him.”

Seeing Confesor hasn’t been the problem for defenses this year, though. Catching him has.

M*A*S*H Unit

When the 10,107 fans at Harvard Stadium watched Crimson quarterback Neil Rose sit on the field after a blow to the head in the third quarter, they saw something that Harvard players and coaches had witnessed enough of during preseason practice:

Injured quarterbacks.

Rose’s cranium has now joined his back and Ryan Fitzpatrick’s elbow as areas of concern among Harvard signal-callers.

Murphy said after the game that Rose has had only “four practices since the Yale game last year” and missed the first two weeks of fall camp.

Fitzpatrick, meanwhile, has not participated in a full practice for two weeks, according to Murphy.

“This hasn’t been an optimal situation for us,” Murphy said.

Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick showed plenty of gusto in relief of Harvard’s all-league QB, running a pair of naked bootlegs around left end for crucial first downs to ice the game on the Crimson’s final possession.

On the second such play, he fancied himself a fullback, lowering his shoulder into Holy Cross cornerback Dave Seger and falling forward past the sticks for what proved to be the game-clinching first down.

New-Name Defense

Harvard is without seven of its defensive starters from last season, but that certainly didn’t show in its efforts Saturday.

Junior linebacker Dante Balestracci, a back-to-back All-Ivy League selection, said he didn’t sense much difference in the players surrounding him.

“The changes are really only in the faces,” said Balestracci, who led Harvard in tackles with nine and forced a fumble. “The only question was if we were going to jell by the first game, and we did that.”

Balestracci keyed a stingy front seven that held Holy Cross to just 45 net yards rushing.

The Crimson defensive backfield, meanwhile, had a decent showing as openers go.

Senior Xavier Goss, who made the switch from cornerback to free safety this year, played well against both the run and pass, finishing with eight tackles.

Fellow defensive backs Niall Murphy and Benny Butler also had big games and were right behind Goss with six and five tackles, respectively.

—Staff Writer Jon P. Morosi can be reached at morosi@fas.havard.edu.