Firkser Flashes Fast Feet as Harvard Holds off Hoyas, 31-17

While much is uncertain about the 2016 Harvard football team, one thing is for sure: Anthony Firkser can play football.

With a little over 13 minutes left in the first half, the senior halfback reeled in a deep pass from senior quarterback Joe Viviano, splitting the safeties along the way. He beat the defense to the pylon, scoring a 75-yard touchdown, his second of the game.

But that was only the beginning of the story. At halftime he’d racked up two touchdowns and 134 yards receiving. On four catches.

That production led the way for the Crimson (3-0, 1-0 Ivy) on an evening when the hosts shot to an early lead and held on for a 31-17 victory over Georgetown (3-1, 1-0 Patriot) The result moved Harvard to 3-0 on the year and extended a 16-game nonconference winning streak.

“[Firkser] is tough,” the Hoyas coach Rob Sgarlata said. “He should be playing with his hand on the ground next to the tackle, but they spread him out there, where our corners and safeties have to deal with him.”

With sophomore standout receiver Justice Shelton-Mosley out of action, Firkser had a much larger load to carry this week. The duo had combined for 366 yards through the air before this game.

Yet Firkser and the rest of the receiving corps stepped up in Shelton-Mosley’s absence. Though the 230-pound halfback was the star of the game, the rest of the receivers contributed. Nine different players caught a pass, with five earning 20 yards or more.

“I think our receivers actually stepped up a lot and helped by kind of taking what they gave us with short routes and stuff,” Firkser said. “Once we saw them start biting on some plays I was able to get more movement down the field.”

Along with Shelton-Mosley, starting offensive linemen Max Rich and DJ Mott sat out the game. Because of the lack of experience, the Crimson came out playing very much in-system. Short throws and runs up the middle characterized Harvard’s offensive drives.

The young receivers made big plays for the Crimson, though. On the first drive of the evening, sophomore Brian Dunlap caught a touchdown off a fade from Viviano in the back corner of the endzone. Twisting in midair to reel in the ball, Dunlap had to keep balance while toeing the line a la Larry Fitzgerald in Super Bowl XLIII for the score.

“That’s been sort of the character of the team for a million years,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “Not that it was perfect, not that it was always pretty - but the way that Jonesie at left guard and Danny Laden at left tackle played and having Joey Foster back, all those kids did a great job.”

The game featured three different quarterbacks for the Crimson. Viviano started, played most of the first half, and continued an efficient start to the season. Passing 21 times for 15 completions, he totaled 210 yards and three touchdowns. One went Dunlap, one went for 75 yards to Firkser, and a third came on an 11-yard strike midway through the first period.

After Viviano came out in the second quarter, sophomores Tom Stewart and Cam Tripp completed the battery for Harvard. Stewart ended with 111 passing yards, and Tripp threw a touchdown to freshman receiver Cody Chrest early in the fourth. However, the three-passer system produced four turnovers, including two interceptions from Stewart and one from Tripp.

All the credit shouldn’t go to the Crimson offense exclusively. Coming off a game in which Harvard allowed 22 points to Brown, the defensive unit proved stingier this week, holding Georgetown to 17 points. Ignoring two long scores, the Crimson conceded 116 yards and held the Hoyas to one-of-13 efficiency on third downs.

“I thought it was a great team effort,” Murphy said. “Not a particularly pretty game...but the effort was really outstanding. We had a lot of room for improvement, but we played really hard…. We have to eliminate mistakes, and if we can do that we’ll be a good football team.”

In the absence of role players on offense, the defense stepped up to provide consistency for Harvard. However, the unit was playing with a depleted linebacking corps as well. As with last week, the Crimson was forced to roll down safeties to fill in the linebacking spots, consistently playing with five defensive backs.

“[Defensive Coordinator Scott Larkee] always puts us in the right position to make plays, and going into this game we knew the game plan was pretty simple,” senior defensive tackle James Duberg said. “Once we established and showed them that they couldn’t run the ball on us, they had to go away from that and it ended up being a passing game.”

But the secondary stepped up. Specifically, senior cornerback Raishaun McGhee appeared to be playing with a chip on his shoulder after being ejected for a targeting call last week. The senior had two pass breakups and was second on the team with seven tackles.

Although many cornerbacks aren’t known for jarring hits, McGhee’s biggest plays came on his tackles. He had a huge one on a swing pass for a loss of one in the second quarter and had an important pass breakup on fourth down near the end zone after Georgetown blocked a punt.

Early in the game, Harvard seemed to be in a much tighter contest with the Hoyas than last year’s 45-0 rout. After the Crimson stormed out to a 14-0 lead, the momentum definitively shifted Georgetown’s way.

On its third drive of the game, Harvard was forced to punt, and on the very next play, senior quarterback Tim Barnes hit sophomore receiver Brandon Williams to his right on a screen pass. Williams turned upfield and took the ball 76 yards for the touchdown. Aided by a cut block that sprung him, Williams won the footrace with the Crimson defense, pulling the visitors within a touchdown.

Later in the game, junior running back Isaac Ellsworth of the Hoyas took the ball 74 yards for Georgetown’s second touchdown. It came too late, though, as Harvard was up 31-10 before the score.

“Big plays are going to happen in any football game versus any team,” Duberg said. “Sometimes it could be a mental lapse, sometimes it’s just something as simple as one guy being just an inch off.”

Besides those two lengthy touchdowns, the Hoyas hardly threatened. In the first half, for example, the Crimson had 25 first downs. Georgetown? Just three.

“Harvard’s pretty good upfront,” Sgarlata said. “They did a really good job getting pressure with four guys. There was definitely a difference between their defensive line and our offensive line, so we struggled a little bit on third down.”

—Staff writer W. Gant Player can be reached at wplayer@college.harvard.edu.