BROWN OUT

The difference was day and night.

Last week, Harvard dropped an error-riddled game to Holy Cross. After controlling the first quarter, the Crimson had to play catch-up all day.

But playing Friday night under the lights, it was a different story. Harvard (1-1, 1-0 Ivy) took the lead on a touchdown late in the first quarter, and the team held it all night, beating Brown (1-1, 0-1), 24-7. With the win, the Crimson remains undefeated all time in night games at home.

Harvard coach Tim Murphy took a major gamble in the first quarter. It paid off for the Crimson, putting the team in position to take the early seven-point lead over the Bears and setting a tone for the rest of the game.

On fourth and three, the Crimson faked a field goal from the Brown six-yard line. Junior quarterback Colton Chapple—holding the kick—scrambled for five yards for the first down, and Harvard scored on its next play.

“We had talked about it early in the week, that the way they run their field goal [defense], they’re going to wait until the last second, and they’re going to leave,” Murphy said.

Treavor Scales scored on the ensuing play on a one-yard run. It was his only touchdown of the night, but the back ran for 129 yards in the home opener.

The Crimson added its second touchdown early in the second frame on 20-yard pass from Chapple to sophomore tight end Cameron Brate, pushing its lead to 14-0.

Chapple—starting in place of injured senior Collier Winters—was a solid substitute all evening, throwing for two touchdowns and 207 yards in his first start of the year. Winters suffered a minor hamstring injury in last Saturday’s game and was scratched from the start early in the week, Murphy said.

“He was still bugging me right up until game time, but I made the decision early in the week because it wouldn’t have been fair to the team to invest practice time in him if he was going to go down,” Murphy said. “It was an easy decision.”

Throughout the night, both teams—and a crowd of 18,565—battled heavy rainfall, and a slippery ball seemed to especially impact the Bears offensive effort, as Brown suffered several critical red-zone turnovers.

With the Bears on Harvard’s nine-yard line, Brown quarterback Kyle Newhall-Caballero threw his first interception of the night. Senior defensive back Dan Minamide caught the errant toss and took a knee for the touchback.

“He was kind of staring it down the entire time, and I think our coaches did a great job game-planning,” Minamide said. “I knew they wanted to get the ball to [Alexander Tounkara-Kone]—he’s their stud … I ended up just being in the right place, and Kyle threw it right to me.”

But the Bears’ biggest blunder of the night came at the start of the fourth quarter. After a 30-yard touchdown pass from Newhall-Caballero in the third frame, Brown was down seven with the ball on Harvard’s two. The Bears looked poised to tie the game.

Newhall-Caballero botched the snap, and the Crimson recovered the fumble on its own one.

“When it comes down to it, we dropped one in the endzone, and then we fumbled one on the one-yard line. And that certainly makes a difference in the game,” Brown coach Phil Estes said. “We just squandered too many opportunities.”

After a second blown red-zone opportunity for the Bears, Harvard controlled the rest of the night. Chapple found a wide-open senior wide receiver Adam Chrissis down the right sideline for a 59-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, pushing the score to 21-7.

Just 15 seconds later, junior defensive end John Lyon intercepted Newhall-Caballero’s deflected pass to give Harvard excellent field position on Brown’s 30.

It was Newhall-Caballero’s second of three interceptions, and a Harvard field goal with three minutes left in the game all but sealed the Crimson win.

“We really did a good job on the back end. We got good pressure up front, and we contained [Newhall-Caballero],” Murphy said. “[On Friday night], the errors were small—they weren’t glaring. We kept the ball in front of us.

With the win, Harvard maintains a streak of not losing two consecutive games that dates back to the 2007 season.

“At the beginning of the year, we have to develop an identity as a team, and I think tonight we developed an identity,” Murphy said. “We’re a tough, physical team.”

—Staff writer E. Benjamin Samuels can be reached at samuels@college.harvard.edu.