Special Teams Miscues Mar Victory

In a 42-21 blowout—a gap which could have been much bigger if Harvard head coach Tim Murphy hadn’t given his second team an entire quarter’s worth of playing time—it’s hard to find fault with the Crimson. But in Saturday’s matchup with Dartmouth, there was one area where the Big Green was clearly dominant—special teams.

A missed 27-yard field goal. A fumbled kickoff. A misread on a fake field goal play. A blocked punt. From start to finish, when the Crimson’s offensive and defensive units were on the sidelines, Dartmouth was in control.

“We did not do a great job in what I call situation awareness,” Murphy said. “I felt it was a fairly obvious fake field goal situation, onside kick situation, they block a punt, all of those things. We have to finish better.”

Though the majority of Harvard’s special teams struggles had a lot to do with the Big Green’s play, the first miscue was all on the Crimson.

On Harvard’s second drive, a long series of rushes brought the Crimson deep into Dartmouth territory. Facing fourth and six from the Big Green 11, Harvard went with the safe bet—a 28-yard field goal.

But senior Patrick Long’s kick went wide right, and the Crimson wasted its first red-zone opportunity of the game.

Long has struggled making field goals all season, with only a 50-percent success rate for the season. His longest kick of the season is just 30 yards, a disappointment coming off a year in which Long set the single-season Harvard record with 13 made field goals, hitting a long of 45 yards.

But Long’s error was the least glaring of the special teams mistakes on the afternoon.

Midway through the third quarter, and with fourth and four on the Crimson 15, Dartmouth came out in what looked to be a field-goal situation.

But the Big Green pulled a fast one, executing a trick play to perfection. Reilly got the ball and rushed for 10 yards, converting for a crucial first down. A pair of quick Dartmouth rushes put the ball in the endzone.

And special teams would generate the third Big Green touchdown as well.

Late in the game, senior Thomas Hull and his punt unit came out in a fourth-and-two situation on the Harvard 28. But Hull’s punt was blocked by Dartmouth senior safety Pete Pidermann, and the ball wound up in the hands of Big Green receiver Michael Reilly, who ran it back 16 yards for a score.

With the score 42-21 and just five minutes left on the clock, the Crimson lined up expecting an onsides kick.

But Dartmouth surprised Harvard again, dropping the kick behind the front line. After a bad bounce, the Big Green recovered the ball on the Crimson 23.

“We had a deep opportunity the way they dispersed,” Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said. “As you saw, it kicked towards the kicker and spun back. I’d like to say we teach the kicker to do that, but it happened, and the guys did a nice job. That’s a tough situation—you defend the onsides, you defend deep, you give up something one way or another, but it worked out for us.”

The Big Green dominated the kick return stats as well, totaling 136 yards to the Harvard’s 66.

“I think [special teams coach Tony] Reno has done a terrific job, but we definitely have made some errors out there,” Murphy said. “The judgment error on the kickoff that they recovered, the deep kickoff they recovered. We obviously didn’t block anybody on the punt block. It wasn’t a great day on special teams, but we were thankfully able to overcome it.”

With the Harvard run game and defense shutting Dartmouth down on both sides of the ball, the Crimson could afford to get its special teams miscues out of its system this week. But big games lie ahead for Harvard—mainly the Week 9 marquee matchup with Penn which will in all likelihood, decide the Ivy title—and the team can’t afford to make so many mistakes against a stronger, more experienced team.

The Big Green exposed a weakness for the Crimson, but now it’s one that can be fixed before the Quakers come to town. And if Harvard can finally put together the complete game it’s been waiting for all season, it could be enough to take Penn down.

“We tell our guys, [special teams] has to be an aspect of the game that we dominate,” Teevens said. “But we didn’t keep them off the board, and you can’t do that…We have a lot of respect for them—they’re a very, very physical football team.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.