SIDEBAR: Ground Game Key to Win

At least things worked out for somebody running the football on Saturday.

As senior running back Clifton Dawson sprinted for 181 more yards over the weekend, galvanizing the Harvard sideline on a blistering 58-yard score in the second quarter of the Crimson’s 38-21 win over Brown on the Bears’ home field, the image on the other side of the field was strikingly different.

That’s because there were no electrifying plays, no broken-tackles-turned-big-gains, and no big scores on the ground. Only a dominating performance from the Harvard defensive line and a combined team average of just 1.2 yards per carry on the ground for Brown, resulting in a mere 35 net yards.

“We have an expression: ‘It’s what’s up front that counts on both sides of the football,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said after the game. “Our defensive line put a tremendous amount of pressure on Brown in general, and on [Brown quarterback Joe DiGiacomo] in particular.”

That pressure held the Bears signal-caller, whom senior defensive tackle Michael Berg called one of the best quarterbacks that Harvard will face this year, to a mere 50 percent completion rate.A big part of the reason why: the line sacked DiGiacomo four times, giving the Crimson 13 total in only two games.

Junior defensive end Desmond Bryant had 1.5 sacks Saturday, while sophomore defensive tackle Matt Curtis aided with a pair, sophomore Carl Ehrlich added another, and junior end Sam Workman earned credit for half a sack. The backfield pressure also helped ease the burden on Harvard’s secondary.

“They make things a lot easier for us,” said junior cornerback Steve Williams, who had the Crimson’s only turnover—an interception early in the third quarter—thanks in part to an anxious DiGiacomo in the backfield.

“A lot of errant passes, a lot of rushed passes, the quarterback making throws he probably doesn’t want to make,” he said. “It just makes it easier as a defensive back.”

The most recent defensive performance up front came on the heels of a similar one in last weekend’s opener against Holy Cross.

Through two games, the Harvard defense has held the Crusaders and the Bears to just 75 net yards on the ground on 55 carries. That works out to an average of 1.4 yards per run.

By contrast, in those same two games, Dawson has run 49 times for 351 yards, an average of 7.2 yards per carry.

“They beat us up,” Brown coach Phil Estes said. “They were better up front, they beat us up front, and we didn’t get it done.”

The Crimson’s success against the run this year has been aided by the fact that, once Harvard jumps out to a lead, it forces opponents to alter their game plan. Despite a running back-by-committee system that picked up 207 yards on the ground against Georgetown in Week One, the Bears carried the ball 16 times fewer against the Crimson.

Not surprisingly, that means they threw 14 more passes—not the winning formula for DiGiacomo and the passing game.

“We didn’t even try [to establish the run], to be honest with you,” Estes said. “We got ourselves behind, we looked and we saw that we were going to be in a struggle here, and I think we as coaches panicked on offense and decided to throw the ball, and we played into their hands.”

The lone bright spots for Brown in the running game were the two touchdowns scored by senior back Akin Oyalowo. Still, both runs came while the game was out of hand, with Harvard up at least two scores.

Even near the end of the game, the Crimson was able to stay aggressive, thanks to the fact that so many players were able to see time Saturday. A total of 23 players made at least one tackle in the win.

“We tried to rotate guys and keep them fresh,” Murphy said. “We mixed up the looks and made it a little bit easier for our secondary guys.”

“They worked hard since last spring and all through the summer, and their goal is to be the best, not just in the Ivy League or I-AA,” Williams said. “Our defensive line is amazing.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.