SIDEBAR: Ground Game Hits a Snag

BETHLEHEM, Pa.—In consecutive weeks to open the season, senior tailback Clifton Dawson ran for 170 and 181 yards on 49 total carries.

In Saturday’s competition he managed just 94 yards on 31 carries for a 3.0 average gain, a far cry from his earlier outputs.

But it was not for lack of opportunity.

The typically pass-focused offense preferred the rush for the second week in a row: Harvard ran the ball 38 times compared with 30 passes. Last weekend the call went 44 times to the run and 23 times to the pass.

Harvard did not start off establishing the run. Dawson had seven carries in the first quarter, three coming within the Lehigh three-yard line.

But he gained just two total yards in the first 15 minutes, a strong contrast from last week’s output of 104 over the course of the first quarter.

Yet with the toughest assignment for the offensive line so far in 2006, the back had all he could handle. The line looked flat in the first quarter, letting defenders through and forcing junior quarterback Chris Pizzotti out of the pocket. Having allowed a single sack in two games entering the weekend—when quarterback Jeff Witt fell down against Brown—the squad yielded three on Saturday in addition to a number of hits and hurries on Pizzotti.

It ran into similar problems while creating space for Dawson.

The lack of protection led to a different form of offense filled with trick plays.

“It wasn’t comfortable play calling, because it’s a lot more comfortable when you’re controlling the line of scrimmage,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. “I was scrambling for a bit there.”

But even the line could not be held fully responsible. Give credit to the Lehigh defense, which shifted the story line from Dawson to his containment.

Mountain Hawks coach Andy Coen named the back as the highest defensive priority prior to the matchup, and could foresee his weaknesses.

“We have to tackle well,” Coen said before Saturday’s game. “He’s obviously a very fast player, but if you watch him, he has a lot of yards after tackles, and we just have to make sure when we contact him we put him on the ground.”

Lehigh was the first team to follow through on that task this season.

“We ran to the football,” Coen said. “We hit that kid harder than he’s been hit all year and maybe will be hit for the rest of the season...very rarely was one person hitting him today.”

The Mountain Hawks’ goal was to force Harvard to pass the ball, which seemed to be the weaker offensive option.

The early success was one of the few high points for Lehigh, as in the end the offensive line settled down and the box score told a different story.

Dawson added 92 yards and another two touchdowns in the final three quarters, bringing his total to three for the day.

And with better protection and more time for Pizzotti, the passing offense returned to full strength, throwing Lehigh off track. It became the run that set up the pass, rather than vice versa.

“I don’t know how many yards Clifton ran for, but I’ve never seen someone run as hard as he did,” Pizzotti said. “And it was the two- and three-yard runs that opened up the passing game downfield. If they can’t respect the run they could have dropped everyone back and just covered the pass, but they have so much respect for Clifton that they had to honor the run.”

With his third score, Dawson rushed his way into a tie for third with Princeton’s Keith Elias for the all-time Ivy League rushing touchdown record at 49. He needs just three to reach Brown’s Nick Hartigan ‘05, who holds the record of 52.

—Staff writer Madeleine I. Shapiro can be reached at mshapiro@fas.harvard.edu.