Harvard to Host Brown in Ivy Opener

It has been 15 years since the Brown football team has come away from Harvard Stadium with a win, and this weekend, it will get a chance to break that streak.

On Saturday night, the Crimson (1-0) will welcome the Bears (1-0) to Cambridge for both teams’ Ivy League openers. The game is the first of the season with implications for the Ancient Eight title race, in which both Harvard and Brown—ranked second and third, respectively, in the preseason Ivy poll—will be strong contenders.

“Every game is huge in the Ivy League,” said senior tight end Cameron Brate. “A loss in the first Ivy League game can really put you back in the Ivy League, so we really have to show up on Saturday night and bring our ‘A’ game, and we’re definitely rising to the opportunity.”

Questions plaguing Harvard in the preseason seem to be somewhat answered following a commanding victory over San Diego last weekend in the season opener. Junior Conner Hempel proved that he could hold his own as a leader in the offense, racking up 383 offensive yards and four scores in his first game as the starting quarterback.

Despite a preseason competition that saw the junior competing with senior Michael Pruneau for the starting job, Hempel was able to establish a rhythm with his wideouts, finding seven different receivers for double-digit yardage on Saturday.

“He’s been here the past two summers, and the summers are really important for us,” Brate said. “The receivers and quarterbacks do a lot during the summer, so getting all of those reps with Conner the past couple of years has really helped. Although it’s his first year starting, we’ve gotten a ton of reps over the past couple of years.”

But even with excellent protection by the offensive line on Saturday, the Crimson struggled to get anything going on the ground, with its two first-team running backs—sophomores Paul Stanton Jr. and Zach Boden—combining for less than 100 yards.

“We have to be a balanced team to reach our goals,” coach Tim Murphy said. “We don’t want to be a pass-happy team, we want to be a balanced team. [Against San Diego] we were getting some not-so-great looks to run the ball and some great looks to throw the ball, so we take what people give us. But at the end of the day, we want to be a balanced team that can win on cold, windy, rainy, or snowy day.”

Facing a Browns defense that held Georgetown scoreless until the last 30 seconds of the game, the backfield will need to create more plays to open the field up for Hempel.

“I don’t think it’ll be a super high scoring game because both teams are known for playing strong defense,” Murphy said. “Their first defense didn’t give up a single point last week against a Georgetown team that scored 50 against Davidson, so right now their defense on film looks unbelievable.”

Although the Harvard defense produced a fumble return for a touchdown to put the Crimson on the scoreboard first and a late interception to seal the San Diego game, it also struggled with stopping short gains on long drives. This allowed Toreros quarterback Mason Mills to tally nearly 300 yards passing and dominate the time of possession battle, tiring the defense and giving the offense only 16 plays before halftime.

Against veteran Browns quarterback Patrick Donnelly, who led his team to a 45-7 demolition of the Hoyas, Harvard will look to create more pressure than it did on Mills to give Hempel and company more chances to get onto the scoreboard.

“The bottom line is, we have to play more consistent football, we have to play more balanced football,” Murphy said. “We can’t let people dominate the clock and keep our offense off the field because with our type of offense, we have a relatively lot of quick-scoring strikes, a little bit like Oregon, so we need to have the ball more.”

Playing under the familiar lights of Harvard Stadium should give the Crimson some confidence—the team has not lost at home since October of 2010. But against one of the better teams in a competitive league, Hempel knows that a surging Brown team can be dangerous.

“Coach Murphy said that the Ivy League is stacked this year, and I don’t think there are any weak links,” Hempel said. “There’s no game that we can or should take lightly. It’s honestly a toss up in the Ivy League—it’s going to come down to who finishes in the end.”

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

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: Sept. 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the team that Brown football defeated by a score of 45-7 last weekend. In fact, the Bears beat Georgetown, not Georgia.