MAD ABOUT YOU: Sloppy Play Must End With Penn, Yale on Deck

Making my second trip to Wien Stadium to cover football, I expected much of the same from the Big Apple and its lovable losers as I witnessed during my first visit—a rout.

Two years ago, I questioned why the Ivy League had not instituted a slaughter rule to put teams like Columbia out of their misery, to save them the embarrassment of games like the Crimson’s victory in 2005.

Coming into Saturday’s matchup, plain numbers favored a repeat of 2005. Harvard entered the game undefeated in the league—two plays away from perfect overall—with a talented receiving corps, a senior quarterback who has come into his own, and a running back who finally broke out for a big game the weekend before. The Lions were conceding 267 yards per game on the ground and 418 total.

The gameplan seemed simple: put the ball in sophomore tailback Cheng Ho’s hands and let him run wild, while occasionally throwing the ball to keep the Columbia defense honest.

It was a sure-fire way to trample the Lions, right?

Wrong. The final score was a measly 27-12. The Crimson started off on the right path—its first drive began with a multitude of running plays and ended in a touchdown—but miscues on both sides of the ball prevented any real dominance. At halftime a single score divided the two teams. One score. Against a 1-6 squad.

Assigning blame is tough. The defense did everything it could to extend Lions drives, with personal fouls, facemasks, holding, pass interference, you name it. But don’t discount the offense. False starts and illegal shifts routinely saddled Harvard with third-and-long. With special teams fouls thrown in, the squad tallied 14 penalties for a loss of 98 yards on the day.

Some may say all that will show in the standings is that ‘W,’ and the Crimson remains undefeated in the Ivies in its quest for its first title in three years, but a game like this is enough to worry Harvard supporters. The team that showed up in New York on Saturday is not one that will beat Yale on Nov. 17, or even Penn this coming weekend, for that matter.

Every game this season I have wondered when I’ll see that decisive victory, the one in which the Crimson finally breaks free of its growing pains and shows its full strength. And every time Harvard makes a few bad decisions or commits a few big penalties I say to myself, “It’s early, every team has to find its own rhythm.”

Yet here I sit, eight games into the season, still waiting for that pristine game to happen.

According to head coach Tim Murphy, it’s only a matter of time before it does.

“We feel like we could beat anybody,” he said. “But, the caveat to that is we have to be a mistake-free football team to do it. We’re not a dominant football team. We had too many penalties today, and that’s the thing that has to be addressed first.”

All I can say is: the sooner the better. The Bulldogs and Quakers are not getting any softer. Penn’s defense demonstrated its ability Saturday, shutting out Princeton, and Yale tailback Mike McLeod continued to dominate Ivy defenses by putting up 151 yards in the first half of the Bulldogs’ 17-7 victory over Brown.

Although Harvard does not have to travel to Franklin Field—one of the least hospitable home fields in the league—to face Penn, the Quakers are by no means going to hand the Crimson the game.

Harvard has the talent, whether it will finally put it all together on Saturday is the real question.

“We’ve challenged our guys, and we’ll rise to the challenge, but [penalties] certainly [have] been a factor in stalling a few drives and we’ll work on it like crazy in practice and we’ll get it fixed,” Murphy said.

The Crimson faithful are waiting. Let’s just hope they don’t have to wait too long.

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