Ground Game Finds its Stride

Backed up on its own 26-yard line on third down, the Harvard football team needed 15 yards for a first.

Gino Gordon gave it 74 and a touchdown.

The senior tailback ran to the right side of the field, where sophomore guard John Collins and senior right tackle Brent Osborne had carved out a hole, before cutting all the way back to the left, where he escaped one last Lafayette defender, a safety, and sprinted untouched into the endzone.

The senior’s touchdown, his second of the game, epitomized what Saturday meant for the Crimson running backs and the offensive line that opened up the field for them: they needed to make noise and performed a symphony.

The entire contest against Lafayette was kind of like a third-and-15 for Harvard’s ground game, which seemed to take some steps backwards against Holy Cross and in last week’s 29-14 loss to Brown. And just like Gordon’s run, Harvard’s running backs did more than was necessary at the time.

“[In] the Brown game...they kind of took it to us and kind of beat us up a little bit,” Gordon said. “We kind of wanted to come into this game and prove not only to our coaches but to ourselves that we can still be a physical team, and that we can assert the run.”

The Crimson’s trio of running backs took it a step further, posting 311 yards on the ground for Harvard’s highest rushing total since 2008.

All three backs found the endzone, but Gordon led the way with 170 yards on 12 carries for an average of 14.2 yards per carry. His 74-yard run was the longest since Clifton Dawson ’07 put up a 74-yarder of his own against Dartmouth in 2006.

“Typical Gino in this respect,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. “Since the day Gino walked in here four years ago, he’s been extraordinarily reliable and productive, even as a freshman. He’s just one of those kids you can always depend on—makes great decisions, great leadership, a complete player in that he’s a great blocker and a great receiver as well as an outstanding ballcarrier. You know, he makes our job easier as coaches.”

But Gordon’s performance was far from a one-man show. His offensive line kept the Leopard defensive line from being a factor in the game. When the Crimson rested Gordon after his second touchdown, sophomore Rich Zajeski stepped in without missing a beat, rushing for 59 yards on 11 carries with one touchdown and a long of 23. Not to be left out, sophomore running back Treavor Scales ran for 37 yards on eight carries and managed to make a trip to the endzone himself, a five yard run with 3:20 left in the second quarter. Meanwhile, senior wide receiver Mike Cook actually had the highest yards-per-carry with 16.5. Cook had 33 yards on two carries, both on endarounds. Cook wasn’t the only wideout to run the football; classmate Marco Iannuzzi ran for 10 yards on the second play of the game. And for sophomore quarterback Colton Chapple, the extra time and protection took off some of the pressure of making his first start for Harvard.

“Our offensive line—I just want to mention them by name, [senior] Chris LeRoy, [sophomore] John Collins, [senior] Brent Osborne, we’ve got [junior Kevin Murphy], and [senior] Matt Bush—they just did a great job protecting me, opening holes for the running backs,” he said. “The game really went to those guys. They controlled the line of scrimmage all game.”

Continued dominance by the running backs and the offensive line will be essential down the road. When the Crimson knocked off an easy 34-6 victory over Holy Cross in the season opener, it seemed hard to imagine that Harvard would be unprepared for a league game—certainly not as unprepared as the team was against the Bears. Perhaps the Crimson’s passing game went too well against the Crusaders—Harvard hardly seemed to need a running game.

But the loss to Brown and losing starting senior quarterback Andrew Hatch was a wake-up call.

If Hatch can come back strong, the reinvigoration of the running game may give the Crimson that balanced attack it will need in tough Ivy matches against teams like Penn.

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