Scoring Spree When He Ran for a Two-Point Conversion Late in the Opening Game, a 30-22 Loss at Holy Cross
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JOHN HARVARD'S JOURNAL These things are the opposite of pro- ed. I’ve been able to characterize myself as And if nothing else, I’ve been persuaded found and surprising. They are normal, a statistic, and to compare that statistic to get a Red Sox cap. which has made them invisible, un- with other statistics in the city, so that my thought-about. But against the varied life feels less like an isolated singularity, Berta Greenwald Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow backdrops of the city, different features and more like one life out of many inter- Katherine Xue ’13 has rediscovered her deep, abid- stand out in relief. One of the greatest connected ones. I think that getting out of ing love for maps. gains from this course has been context Cambridge has made my world just a tiny For more on the “Reimagining the City-Univer- and contrast, a highlighting and re-evalu- bit bigger and richer, and added a little sity Connection” conference, see www.harvardmag. ation of norms and things taken for grant- more complexity and ambiguity. com/harvard-and-boston. SPORTS jury, Harvard partisans were relieved to find that their team had another talented passer in reserve. Winters pulled a hamstring muscle Scoring Spree when he ran for a two-point conversion late in the opening game, a 30-22 loss at Holy Cross. Colton Chapple, a junior from The football team won the Ivy trophy, and records fell. Alpharetta, Georgia, got the starting as- signment against Brown a week later. A third-stringer when the 2010 season began, n their WISDOM, the football gods mouth in a blizzard. With a fast-paced no- Chapple had started three games, but had decreed that the quest for the 2011 huddle offense that featured a two-tight- completed just 30 percent of his passes. Ivy League football championship end set, the Crimson bedeviled opposing His work on a rain-soaked night at the should not go down to the wire. defenses. Stadium showed great improvement. He IA week before the season ended, Har- Head coach Tim Murphy described the ran the offense with assurance, and in the vard eliminated its last remaining rival for squad as “mentally tough, relentless, re- final quarter, with rain falling in sheets, the Ivy title by drubbing Pennsylvania, 37- silient, selfless. The chemistry was excep- he unloaded a 56-yard touchdown pass to 20, at the Stadium. Brown, the only other tional. They loved playing together.” receiver Adam Chrissis ’12, giving Harvard contender, had just lost to Dartmouth. Resilient indeed. When three offensive a decisive 14-point lead in a 24-7 win over With two league losses apiece, Penn and linemen were lost before the season, un- one of the Ivy League’s strongest teams. Brown were out of contention. For Har- tested underclassmen—including a fresh- Chapple played for only two periods in vard, still unbeaten in Ivy play, the cham- man tackle—stepped up. By midseason, a 31-3 walkaway at Lafayette the following pionship was guaranteed. the O-line was widely regarded as the Ivy weekend. He’d connected on 14 of 18 pass- Harvard teams had previously won League’s best. Though opposing teams es for 121 yards and a touchdown when a or shared 13 Ivy trophies, but none had scored first in five of the last seven games, hard hit put him out of the game with back clinched an outright title before the last the Crimson offense was quick to strike tightness. He was weekend of the season. That feat was back. When veteran quarterback Collier mobile enough a topped off by a 45-7 blowout at Yale Bowl, Winters missed four games with an in- week later to en- Harvard’s tenth victory in the last 11 meet- ings with the Blue. The team was a powerhouse, averaging 37 points per game and establishing a Har- vard scoring record of 374 points for the season. The modern record of 339 points had been set by the undefeated 2004 team. Like that one—once described by the Boston Globe’s John Powers ’70 as “an all- terrain, all-weather scoring machine”— the 2011 team could score points whatever the conditions. Harvard beat Brown in a drenching rainstorm, and routed Dart- Quarterback Collier Winters dove for Harvard’s third touchdown in a 37-20 defeat of Penn, and later watched from the sideline as the defense scored a bonus touchdown on an interception return. The Penn victory clinched an Ivy championship for the Crimson. 66 January - February 2012 joy a career day at Cornell’s Schoellkopf reached the 40-point level in Field, where Harvard outscored the Big four consecutive matches. Har- Red, 41-31. The two teams struggled vard was now the only Ivy team mightily for three periods, with the lead without a league loss, a game changing hands five times, but Harvard ahead of Brown, Penn, and Yale finally pulled away, scoring 21 points in a in the standings. Brown had seven-minute stretch. Chapple completed dealt Penn its first league defeat, 23 of 38 pass attempts for 414 yards—the 6-0, on that snow-swept week- second-highest single-game yardage in end, ending an 18-game Ivy win- Crimson annals—and four touchdowns. ning streak. Penn had beaten Back at the Stadium, he outdid himself Yale a week earlier. in a 42-3 rout of Bucknell. He threw five At Manhattan’s Wien Stadium the With a 32-yard interception return in the scoring passes, matching a 58-year-old next weekend, a hard-charging Colum- fourth quarter, captain and linebacker Alex Gedeon scored Harvard’s final touch- Harvard record set by Carroll Lowenstein bia defense sacked Winters five times, down of The Game. ’52 (’54), and becoming the first Harvard but the versatile quarterback had another passer to throw for four touchdowns or outstanding day in a 35-21 defeat of a win- tackles, two quarterback sacks, and his more in consecutive games. All five scor- less but spirited Lion squad. He complet- pivotal fumble recovery. The Quaker run- ing passes came in the game’s first 35 min- ed 20 of 30 passes for 323 yards and three ning attack was held to 24 yards rushing. utes. Chapple watched most of the second touchdowns, scoring another touchdown half from the bench while the reserves afoot. With the ivy titLe in hand, Harvard mopped up. Next came Penn, the defending Ivy traveled to Yale Bowl to put a finishing Chapple had now thrown for a league- champion for two seasons running. The touch on an epic season. After a Yale scoring leading 12 touchdowns, and had the Ivies’ Quakers and the Crimson had jousted for drive in the opening period, a shape-shifting top passing-efficiency rating. But when Ivy supremacy for the past decade, and had Crimson defense kept the Blue in check for Princeton came to the Stadium, it was Win- split, 5-5, in their last 10 meetings. Penn the rest of the game, breaking Yale drives ters who started at quarterback. None the had won handily in the last two contests, with a forced fumble, a blocked field-goal worse for his four-week layoff, he put on a knocking Harvard out of title contention. try, and three interceptions. Yale was out- spectacular show, completing 34 of 42 pass- But now it was Harvard’s turn. played on both sides of the ball. Harvard got es for 403 yards and, yes, five touchdowns, Penn took a 7-0 lead late in the first three first-half touchdowns and struck for adding another touchdown on foot. quarter, but the Crimson defense got a three more in the final quarter. Harvard needed all the offense it could game-changing takeaway on the Quak- The first-half scores came on a four- muster that day. Ahead 42-16 in the third ers’ next series, when tackle Josue Ortiz yard dive by Winters; a 20-yard pass from quarter, the team had to fight off a furious ’11 (’12) forced a fumble and recovered the Winters to senior receiver Alex Sarkisian; Tiger rally that cut the lead to three points ball at the Penn 24-yard line. On Harvard’s a fake field goal that had the kicker, David in a 10-minute span. But two late-game first play from scrimmage, Winters found Mothander, slanting into the end zone touchdowns gave Harvard a 56-39 victory, tight end Cameron Brate ’14 on a crossing from seven yards out; and an authentic 21- its fourteenth in the last 16 meetings with route in the end zone. That started a run yard field goal by Mothander as time ex- Princeton. of 37 consecutive points that put Harvard pired in the half. in front, 37-7, midway through the final After a scoreless third period, Harvard After record pass- period. The points erupted again with an 11-yard rushing ing displays in a three- A Championship Season came on a 14-yard touchdown by Zach Boden, a swing pass game stretch, the at Holy Cross L 22-30 run by Zach Boden, from Winters to tight end Kyle Jusczcyk Crimson unlimbered Brown W 24-7 a 35-yard field goal ’13 that Jusczcyk turned into a 60-yard its rushing attack in at Lafayette W 31-3 by David Mothander touchdown, and a 32-yard interception a snowy night game at Cornell W 41-31 ’14, a four-yard run by return by linebacker and captain Alex against Dartmouth. As Bucknell W 42-3 Winters, a two-yard Gedeon.