Notebook: Turnovers Tee Up Harvard Dominance

Despite getting inside Harvard’s 30-yard line three times heading into the final quarter, the Lafayette football team (1-4) came away with only three points in as many quarters. The Harvard first-team defense forced four turnovers to lead the team to a win in its final non-conference game of the season.

Harvard (4-0, 2-0 Ivy), with five games left in the season, now totals 17 turnovers in 2013, just one shy of last season’s 18. After the first series of the game, when senior quarterback Michael Pruneau found senior tight end Cameron Brate for a two-yard score off of a fake field goal, the Crimson offense stalled, punting on both of its remaining first-quarter drives. Then, the defense did what it’s done all season.

On a crucial third and five deep in Harvard’s territory, a ball thrown by Lafayette quarterback Andrew Dzurik was tipped and landed in the hands of junior linebacker Connor Sheehan. Sheehan returned the interception 35 yards to give the Crimson a short field to work with. 45 yards later, sophomore Paul Stanton found the end zone to give Harvard a 14-0 lead.

“The seniority and experience in the secondary is a big part of it,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “We’ve got five senior defensive backs, and they’re really in sync.”

But the Crimson defense wasn’t done. It would pick off Dzurik again in the first half and freshman quarterback Drew Reed early in the second to bring its interception total to nine on the season. Though the offense was unable to capitalize on these picks with points, the interceptions pinned Lafayette back in its own territory and broke any momentum the Leopards were able to create.

On Lafayette’s first drive of the fourth quarter, with his team down, 21-3, Reed recovered a fumble dropped by running back Greg Kessel. One play later, Reed completed a pass to tailback Ross Scheurman that put Lafayette inside the red zone, but junior cornerback Hayes knocked the ball loose on the tackle, and sophomore linebacker Eric Medes fell on top of it.

Three plays later, Pruneau hit wide-open sophomore receiver Andrew Fischer, who sprinted 50 yards into the end zone to put Harvard up, 28-3, and effectively shut down any chance of a Lafayette comeback—one three-and-out drive by the Leopards later, Harvard’s first-team defense left the field. Medes’ fumble recovery was the team’s eighth of the season, surpassing last season’s tally of seven.

TROUBLE UNDER CENTER

While the Crimson hasn’t had its starting quarterback, junior Conner Hempel, since last week’s game against Cornell, the Leopards have been missing starter Zach Zweizig since the second quarter of their Week 3 contest against Penn.

Dzurik filled in for Zweizig, leading Lafayette to a win over Bucknell, but struggled in the first half against Harvard. The sophomore was 7-for-17 for 92 yards with two picks, leading Leopards coach Frank Tavani’s decision to replace him with Reed after halftime.

“Andrew’s done some really good things, but there were just too many bad decisions, overthrows, and you just can’t continue to do that,” Tavani said.

Reed’s entrance into the game was his first time getting collegiate playing time, and the inexperience showed early. In Lafayette’s opening drive of the second half, Reed targeted tight end Brandon Hall, but senior cornerback DJ Monroe jumped in front of Hall and handed Reed his first career interception.

The freshman would finish with over 200 yards passing, but much of this occurred against Harvard’s second-team defense after the Crimson was well ahead.

“There are some positions you can actually play as a freshman, but playing quarterback as a freshman is extraordinarily difficult,” Murphy said. “There’s so much to learn, so much to see and you can really exploit a freshman quarterback with very few exceptions.”

FOURTH QUARTER SHOOTOUT

Despite being up 21-3 entering the final quarter, the Harvard offense never let off the gas, finding the end zone twice more before time wound down. After passing for 115 yards in the first three quarters, Pruneau surpassed that number in the last 15 minutes, throwing for two touchdowns and 148 yards.

A large portion of that yardage came from the scoring drive following Medes’ fumble recovery early in the fourth quarter. Pruneau found senior wide receiver Ricky Zorn and then Fischer on back-to-back passes of 37 and 50 yards to record his longest completions of the game.

“They were blitzing almost every single play,” Murphy said. “So your choices are, you get two yards or you get more yards, and so it was an easy choice. Our philosophy is to take what they give you and try to be a balanced offense.”

A fake punt on the Crimson’s next drive extended the drive when Medes misinterpreted a coach’s signal on the sideline and gained a first down, moving the chains from Harvard’s 44-yard line to Lafayette’s red zone. But the Crimson was unable to exploit its field position as Pruneau fumbled the ball two plays later.

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samantha.lin@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @linsamnity.