NOTEBOOK: Third Down Dooms Crimson in Loss

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Football teams may have four chances to go 10 yards, but it was the penultimate ones that separated Harvard and Brown Saturday in Providence.

Neither the Crimson nor the Bears were successful on first or second down, forcing both offenses into third-and-long situations. But while Harvard withered at the pressure of long yardage, Brown was able to convert on nearly half its chances, going 8-for-19.

“We don’t design it that way, but we practice third-and-long a lot,” Bears coach Phil Estes said. “It’s kind of a negative thing when you think about it, but it’s one of those situations you find yourself in a lot, and our guys ran some great routes, and our quarterbacks made some great reads.”

On those third downs, Brown took advantage of a Crimson zone defense that frequently left wide receivers open in the secondary. Meanwhile, the Harvard blitz was strong enough to force the Bears’ quarterbacks, Kyle Newhall-Caballero and Joe Springer, out of the pocket, but both signal callers still had plenty of time to escape and find their receivers, who had often been neglected by a Crimson defense that seemed more focused on the line of scrimmage.

“We expected that we were going to get a little more man [coverage], so we had some max protects, and they didn’t [use man],” Estes said. “They actually gave us some cover threes, some cover ones, and we just throw in some curl routes and a dig route, and [the receivers] were there and made some big, big catches and moved the ball pretty effectively.”

Harvard, meanwhile, was unable to match Brown’s performance under pressure and only converted one of its 10 third downs. Unable to establish its ground game, the Crimson offense was forced to rely on senior quarterback Andrew Hatch’s arms and legs to get all of its yardage. Because the Bears were able to limit Hatch’s options, they knew exactly what he was going to attempt on third down plays and were able to stop it.

“We kind of had [Hatch] on the ropes a little bit, guessing where the pressure was coming from,” said Brown senior linebacker Chimso Okoji. “We held him 1-of-10 on third down, which was really big for us. We had first and second down to hold them and then make them go to work on third down, and we were able to do that.”

MONEY IN THE BANK

Some athletes spend a career trying to make school history. It only took Alex Norocea two games. The Bears freshman kicker hit five field goals Saturday night, tying Brown’s school record.

“Alex Norocea is ice for us,” Estes said. “Late in the game, sometimes, that’s the difference.”

There was no such late game drama this year, but perhaps Estes was referring to the teams’ meeting a year ago—a 24-21 Harvard victory—when he chose to attempt the winning touchdown rather than trusting his kicker at the time, Drew Plichta, to make a 42-yard field goal.

This year against the Crimson, Estes didn’t hesitate to use Norocea, including on a 44-yard kick midway through the third quarter.

“What a difference that makes,” Estes said. “It’s a whole different kind of weapon that you’re playing with now...we get inside the 30 or thereabouts, he’s money...we’re still trying to get the first downs, get the drive going, but it really does make a difference to have him to make some big plays for us.”

MARCO POLO

For most of the game, Harvard could not have looked more different than the team that dismantled Holy Cross the week before. But for two plays that sandwiched halftime, the Crimson looked like its old self.

With seven seconds left in the half, Harvard, facing a third-and-10 on Brown’s 21-yard line, made its one third down conversion of the game count when Hatch found senior wide receiver Marco Iannuzzi in the endzone to put the Crimson on the board after nearly 30 minutes of futility.

The next time he got on the field—the opening drive of the second half—Iannuzzi found the endzone again, this time on a 95-yard kickoff return. The senior started heading to the right, where his teammates had begun to set up blocks, then cut across the field where he escaped a Bears defender and ran untouched into the endzone.

“I think we came together as a team on those two plays,” Iannuzzi said. “the team was perfect [on the kickoff]. Anyone could have ran that one right through to the line...It was perfectly schemed and perfectly played out.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.