Rushing Record On Tap In Philly

So far this season, in this space, I’ve written about quarterbacks, preseason polls, football fights, and home-field advantage. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid the most compelling plotline of the season—Harvard running back Clifton Dawson’s quest to break the all-time Ivy League rushing record. Good thing I saved it for this go-round.

Barring injury or a superhuman effort by the Penn defense or a natural disaster or him running backwards on the final play of the game so he can set the mark at home next weekend, Dawson will break the 35-year old standard on Saturday. He stands just 53 yards shy of Ed Marinaro’s total of 4,715, established at Cornell from 1969 to 1971.

That’s only a three-year span because freshmen were not allowed to play varsity in the Ancient Eight in Marinaro’s day, a caveat that has the asterisk brigade out in force, with Marinaro himself leading the way and the media, including The New York Times, dutifully falling in step.

Granted, Dawson has been a four-year starter. But that factor is a major part of his accomplishment, not a critique of his statistical output. Running back is one of the most brutal positions in sports, forcing men into retirement in the midst of their primes simply because they don’t want to subject themselves to the pounding anymore. At 5’9 Dawson doesn’t have great size, yet has proved incredibly durable, not missing a start due to injury in his collegiate career. These days, he practically limps back to the huddle, hobbles to the sidelines, then breaks off a run of 25 yards where he dashes past a safety and stiff-arms a linebacker. It evokes Jim Brown, who used a similar method of self-preservation, or, more intriguingly, psychology.

The other counter arguments include the fact that the pair’s yards-per-carry are right on par and that defenses are better and faster in the 21st century. But that’s all hooey. A record is a record is a record. I know Maris had more games than Ruth, and Dickerson had more than O.J., but we remember this, the same way we’ll remember that Bonds had more chemistry than Aaron. No need to annotate.

Records are as much a part of sports as the sports themselves, and record-breaking moments—Ripken, Sampras, Hundley—have comprised some of the most vivid memories of my youth.

I’ve even had a little personal experience with records. My last year in Greenwich Village Little League, a six-foot slugger named Jonathan Trotman blasted more than a dozen home runs over the fence in left-center, shattering what was believed to be the previous GVLL season best.

Dawson is probably the best athlete I’ve ever seen in person on a consistent basis. He has run for at least 1,000 yards in each of four straight seasons (only the ninth player in Division I to do so), and has racked up 59 rushing touchdowns in that time, including a mind-numbing 19 through eight games in 2006. And now I have the chance to see him break the Ivy League’s most impressive record, a mark that has endured for decades.

So let’s relish the moment. Let’s not let Marinaro’s bitterness spoil a historic occasion. And let’s not let a little stretch of I-95 stand between us and being on hand to witness it. To Philadelphia, friends, to Philadelphia!

NO. 17 HARVARD (7-1, 4-1 Ivy) AT PENN (4-4, 2-3)

Logic dictates that something needs to change for Penn, losers of three straight overtime games, a feat of elongated heartbreak unmatched in the NCAA annals. I agree. This week, they’ll lose in 60 minutes.

The Quakers’ best weapon, running back Joe Sandberg, will be neutralized by the nation’s leading run defense (53.25 yards allowed per game). And their young quarterback Robert Irvin, who has thrown for an impressive 1,648 yards in his sophomore campaign, will be harried all afternoon by the most prolific sackers in the country (5.13 per game).

Going up against the third-best rushing defense in the Ancient Eight, expect Dawson to eclipse Marinaro late in the second quarter. And Liam O’Hagan and Corey Mazza should feast on a secondary allowing upwards of 235 yards in the air per contest.

Penn’s .500 record actually belies the strength of the team. A bounce here or there in overtime and it could easily be 6-2.

Prediction: Harvard 27, Penn 17

YALE (7-1, 5-0) VS. NO. 21 PRINCETON (7-1, 4-1)

Both of these teams have made a living in close games to this point. Princeton boasts a double-overtime, an overtime, and a three-point win (over Harvard) on its dossier. Yale has outscored its opponents by 31 points through eight games, yet has won seven. Pretty lucky, huh?

We’re past luck. The next two weeks are essentially the Ivy League playoffs, and in a postseason atmosphere, luck is out the window and balance is in.

Yale is a one-trick pony: it leads the conference in rushing offense, with senior tackle and Draddy Award (the “Academic Heisman”) candidate Ed McCarthy and sophomore tailback Mike McLeod (1,096 yards), but ranks fifth in rushing defense, sixth in passing defense, and dead last in passing offense.

The Tigers defense has much better credentials, permitting 16.4 points per game and 3.5 yards per carry. The Princeton front bottled up Dawson like he hasn’t been contained at any other point this season, and McLeod isn’t quite as good. And Tigers quarterback Jeff Terrell has been the third-best offensive player in the Ivies (after Dawson and McLeod) this season.

Princeton keeps the prospect of an outright Harvard title alive in New Haven.

Prediction: Princeton 24, Yale 10

DARTMOUTH (1-7, 1-4) VS. BROWN (3-5, 2-3)

Two senior quarterbacks, ranking second and third in the Ivies in total offense, respectively, square off in this one: Brown’s Joe “Di Cup Goes In” DiGiacomo and Dartmouth’s Mike “On The” Fritz. DiGiacomo is still stinging from the four picks he threw against Yale last week in a three-point Bears loss, and gets redemption here.

Prediction: Brown 23, Dartmouth 20

COLUMBIA (3-5, 0-5) VS. CORNELL (4-4, 2-3)

I think now is the appropriate time to mention that my preseason pick for Ivy Rookie of the Year, Columbia wideout Austin Knowlin, is the Lions’ leading receiver and currently the only freshman on the leader boards in any major offensive category, currently eighth with 33 catches and 10th with 438 receiving yards.

Prediction: Cornell 21, Columbia 7

Record to Date: 25-19

Against the Spread: 23-21

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.