NOTEBOOK: Backs Run Over Dartmouth

In Saturday’s 42-21 drubbing of Dartmouth, Harvard football was bolstered by its ground attack, as two players rushed for 100-plus yards—the first time two Crimson players have accomplished such a feat since 1999.

“They didn’t throw the ball a lot, by design apparently, and they just felt that they could run the football,” Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said. “We stacked the front—there were more numbers there than they could block. They ran over a couple of our guys, they put a couple of guys on the sideline—just very, very physical play with a couple of different backs.”

Those couple of different backs—junior Gino Gordon and freshman Treavor Scales—combined for 233 yards on the ground, while Gordon tacked on an additional 103 receiving yards. Scales rushed for 120 yards on 20 carries, while Gordon notched eight carries for 113 net yards.

But Gordon was quick to share the credit for his outstanding day.

“My success goes completely to the line,” Gordon said. “The wide receivers don’t get enough credit blocking downfield. They did a tremendous job going downfield and making sure I had a nice area to run to.”

Gordon punctuated his performance in the third quarter with a 48-yard touchdown run, in which he broke through the line almost untouched.

“I was nicked,” Gordon said. “It was overall a good execution by the whole offense.”

“We take it upon ourselves to make sure that Gino gets 100-plus yards rushing, Treavor gets 100 yards rushing, Collier [Winters] has all the time in the world,” senior center Alex Spisak added on behalf of the offensive line. “We play like we are the best because we are the best.”

DOWN AND OUT

The overarching through-line of Harvard football’s season narrative has been its resiliency in light of injuries.

In Saturday’s game, an already-beleaguered Crimson defense was playing without the help of sophomore linebacker Alex Gedeon—who is out for the rest of the season with an elbow injury requiring surgery—or senior linebacker Conor Murphy, who sat out Saturday’s game with a sprained ankle.

“When guys go down, we know have a good core group,” senior linebacker Sean Hayes said.

Despite those losses—in addition to season-ending injuries to senior defensive end Ryan Burkhead and junior defensive end Ben Graeff—Harvard still ranks third in the league in total defense.

But the injuries aren’t just confined to the defense. Last week, senior running back Cheng Ho suffered a career-ending lisfranc fracture to his midfoot. Though relegated to the Crimson’s third-string running-back spot, Ho consistently bolstered the Harvard offense when he was called upon, like in Week 3’s contest against Lehigh, when he rushed for 132 yards on 21 carries with one rushing touchdown and one receiving.

“There’s a kid we could not have won back-to-back championships in 2007, 2008 without,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. “He’s a kid that always wore his heart on his sleeve and gave us incredible effort, production, emotion.”

PUT ME IN, COACH

The past two weeks, Harvard has taken the opportunity—late in the game with a comfortable lead—to work in some of its third- and fourth-string players.

“It’s hard to do with the schedule to get the young guys in,” Murphy said. “It’s great because the JV played [Friday]. Any time you can get guys in, it’s great. It’s great...to get some guys you don’t want to get dinged up out of the game, but it’s even better to get some young guys out there playing a varsity game in Harvard Stadium.”

Quarterbacks junior Matt Simpson and freshman Colton Chapple both took snaps on Saturday, while running backs junior Demetrius Gadson and freshman Rich Zajeski each logged three carries.

“To be perfectly honest with you, it wasn’t pretty offensively with the second unit because to some extent Dartmouth still had its first unit it,” Murphy said. “They did a great job effort-wise.”

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.