Football Defeats Yale Four In a Row

Ten wins, no losses, and no ties. The last time the Harvard football program was that good, the forward pass was still illegal and Soldier’s Field was a little less than two years from construction.

More than a century later, the Class of 2005 provided its long-departed brethren with a performance in every way equal to the Class of 1902’s, establishing themselves as Harvard’s most successful team in the modern era.

Of course, like any great legacy, their success is due in part to fortuitous timing. Few of the seniors who would anchor their perfect final season played more than minor roles as freshmen when the Crimson posted a 9-0 record—its first undefeated, untied slate since 1913—en route to the 2001 Ivy League championship.

Not even future captain Ryan J. Fitzpatrick ’05 would earn Harvard’s major ‘H’ distinction for his contributions that first year, despite orchestrating a 21-point second-half comeback against Dartmouth, salvaging the blemish-free campaign, and setting a school record for largest come-from-behind victory. (Tight end Adam Jenkins ’05 would be the only freshman designated as a major ‘H’ recipient.)

“We knew that as a senior class we had to do something our senior year,” Fitzpatrick says. “It’s great to have rings on our fingers and go 9-0 and have that experience our freshman year, but it was what we were going to do our senior year that would decide how we were going to be remembered.”

This year’s seniors had largely remained bit players their sophomore year, but entering their junior season, the Class of 2005 seemed poised to duplicate the success they had been party to as rookies. And despite concerns that the Crimson’s offense would suffer without the record-holding tandem of quarterback Neil T. Rose ’02-’03 and wide receiver Carl E. Morris ’03, Harvard pummeled its first four opponents, tacking a whopping 150 points on the scoreboard.

But the Crimson’s scoring juggernaut, anchored by Fitzpatrick, would not reach week five of its season intact. With Harvard ahead of Cornell by 27 points in the fourth quarter and cruising to its fourth win of the season, Fitzpatrick took a bad hit and tumbled to the unforgiving Astroturf of Schoellkopf Field, his fall cushioned only by his throwing hand.

“I can remember it very vividly right now,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said after the season. “[I said,] ‘You OK?’ ‘I think I did something to my hand.’ For Fitzy to say something like that, I knew something was wrong. So I said, ‘Can you play?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t think I can take a snap, but I can go shotgun.’ And right then I knew.”

Fitzpatrick would be sidelined for the better part of the next month, returning to the field only against Dartmouth to lead an aborted comeback effort. The Crimson went just 2-2 without him in the starting lineup, effectively ending its title hopes and deferring any aspirations to legacy.

A 35-point drubbing of Holy Cross in the 2004 season opener suggested that the promise of yesteryear might be realized in a second go-around, but an unexpected obstacle in week two threatened to derail any dream season. Eager to play the role of spoiler, Brown scored the contest’s first 21 points and rolled into halftime with a comfortable 31-10 lead.

“If we would’ve lost that game, a lot would have changed,” Fitzpatrick said. “[But] we sort of had that feeling coming out on the field that we were invincible....We were down by 21 points, and I don’t think there was anybody on the team that felt like we were getting beat that day.”

Harvard scored 25 consecutive points to retake the lead moments into the fourth quarter, and went on to win, 35-34.

In just under two hours, the season had turned. Harvard rolled into its rematch with Dartmouth at 6-0, undoubtedly headed for the finish that had eluded it a year earlier. But the Crimson’s offense sputtered. The Big Green capitalized, scoring a touchdown with 2:15 to play to pull within one, then kept its offense on the field to attempt a two-point conversion.

But the pass would find only Harvard cornerback Daniel I. Tanner ’07, who batted the ball to the ground to narrowly preserve the Crimson’s lead. Harvard would turn the ball over on downs moments later, providing Dartmouth with one last chance, but the defense stood pat, allowing the Crimson to escape with the victory.

Again awoken by its brush with calamity, Harvard rallied in the weeks that followed, crushing defending champion Penn, 31-10, to secure the league crown, then routing Yale at home, 35-3, to close its historic run and establish itself as the only class whose members defeated the Bulldogs four years running. (Harvard did sweep Yale from 1912-1915 and 1919-1922 but, because freshmen were not allowed on the varsity at that time, only the members of the Class of 2005 actually won on four occasions.)

“The one thing we were told when we came in here as freshmen was, ‘You’re always going to be remembered by how you play against Yale,’” Fitzpatrick said at the time. “I worked reunions and all the alumni that came back [said], ‘You guys have done well versus Yale the past few years,’ and ‘Oh, we beat ’em three times when I was here. It was great,’ and that’s sort of how they define their careers at Harvard, is winning the big game.”

Of course, that is the way the Class of 2005 will be remembered also. But with 33 wins—the most in any four-year period since 1909—two perfect seasons, two Ivy titles, and an NFL-drafted quarterback to its name, limiting its accomplishments to just four wins over Yale would be selling its members more than a little bit short.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.