ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Senior Big in Three Pick Performance

Barely holding onto a slim, 24-21 lead against Penn, it seemed as though Harvard would surrender just its second loss of the season. With only 20 seconds left on the game clock and the ball on the Crimson 12-yard line, the Quakers looked poised to win in the final seconds. But senior safety Ryan Barnes was not going to let that happen on his watch, making the key interception in the end zone that stopped Penn’s final offensive push and sealed the game for Harvard.

“I felt him staring at the receiver,” Barnes said after the game on Saturday. “And I was coming up to make a play on the guy that was open in the end zone. It was kind of an overthrown ball that I was fortunate enough to pick off.”

Barnes was injured on Oct. 25th against Princeton, but he showed no signs of slowing down as he took the field on Saturday. After seeing no action for three weeks, Barnes made up for lost time, with four tackles (three unassisted), three pass breakups, and three interceptions on the day, with two coming in the end zone.

“That’s never happened before,” Barnes said. “Some of those were probably not necessarily great plays by me. I was just in the right spot. The first one Derrick Barker actually broke the pass up, and I just happened to be in the area. The second was more of a normal-looking interception. And then the third one was kind of up for grabs.”

Nevertheless, two of his timely interceptions kept Penn out of the endzone and helped Harvard continue its current seven-game winning streak. The Quakers outmatched the Crimson in almost all aspects on the offensive side of the ball. Yet, when it mattered the most, the Harvard defense stepped its game up, stopping Penn in its tracks on nine out of twelve drives.

“That was probably our biggest weakness as a team today. We didn’t do a great job of staying on the field offensively enough and getting off the field defensively," coach Tim Murphy said. "We made them work awful hard for nothing.”

Although the Crimson defense did give up over 400 yards offensively, it followed its season-long trend of making big plays at the right moments.  But it was the play of Barnes that was the most memorable.

“You always want to try to go up and make a play,” Barnes said. “And you know, in your mind, you think somebody’s going to make a play, we’re going to get out of this situation, we’re going to get off the field. You never have doubts in your mind, and you always have to be confident in yourself … you always have to believe in yourself and your teammates that someone will step up.”

Barnes' role in securing Harvard’s victory has awarded him the titles of national Defensive Player of the Week by The Sports Network and the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week.