Brown Stadium’s newly unveiled led video scoreboard got a workout on Saturday.
Racking up 21 fourth-quarter points for the second straight weekend, Harvard’s defending Ivy League champions outscored Brown in a televised twi-night contest, 45-31.
The Crimson onslaught was spearheaded by senior tailback Treavor Scales, who ran for 136 yards and a career-high four touchdowns, and senior quarterback Colton Chapple, who completed 30 of 40 passes for 351 yards and one touchdown.
The game was the Ivy League opener for both teams. Harvard has now won 12 of its last 14 Ivy openers, and is sporting an 11-game winning streak—which qualifies as the nation’s longest—dating back to the second game of the 2011 season.
Brown’s offense looked unstoppable at the outset. The Bears took the opening kickoff, drove downfield in eight plays, and scored with the game less than four minutes old.
But Harvard also scored on its first possession, with Chapple throwing five straight completions in a drive capped by a 22-yard field goal by David Mothander ’14.
The Crimson gained the lead in the second period, when Scales dove across the goal line for his first score of the day after a 98-yard drive sustained by the passing and running of Chapple. “Any time a team can do that, it takes away all the momentum we have from a great punt, sticking them on the two-yard line,” said Brown coach Phil Estes after the game. “We put them in bad field position, and they found a way to get out.”
The next Crimson score came on a 30-yard pass from Chapple to receiver Seitu Smith II ’15, who made a dazzling over-the-shoulder catch.
Harvard held a 17-10 lead at halftime, and extended its margin to 24-10 on an option pitchout to Scales midway through the third period. But Brown refused to fold, matching that Crimson touchdown drive and two later ones with scoring drives of its own.
Harvard briefly regained its two-touchdown edge at the start of the final quarter, when Chapple took the ball on a keeper play and scored from six yards out.
Brown answered with a 16-yard scoring pass from senior quarterback Patrick Donnelly to receiver Alex Viox, but two more touchdowns by Scales effectively put the game out of reach. The first came on an inside trap play at Brown’s 41-yard line, with Scales bolting through the line and racing to the goal line. His second scoring run covered 20 yards and ended with Scales dragging two Bruin defenders into the end zone.
Scales later saluted his offensive line for opening holes “as wide as an 18-wheeler.”
Mobilizing a well-balanced attack, the Harvard offense ran the ball 37 times and used 40 pass plays, accumulating 534 yards in total offense. Seitu Smith caught eight passes for 92 yards and a touchdown, tight end Cameron Brate ’14 made eight receptions for 72 yards, and tight end/slot back Kyle Juszczyk ’13 made seven for 86 yards.
The Crimson defense limited the Bears to three third-down conversions in 10 attempts, but yielded 336 yards through the air. A week earlier, Harvard had given up 354 passing yards in its 28-13 victory over the University of San Diego.
Linebacker and team captain Bobby Schneider led the defense with eight tackles. Fellow linebacker Josh Boyd ’13 made seven tackles and forced a second-period fumble before being sidelined by an injury.
Brown (1-1, 0-1 Ivy) had come from behind to defeat Holy Cross, 24-21, in its opening game a week earlier. Harvard (2-0, 1-0) has won 11 of the last 13 meetings with the Bears.
The novel 4:30 p.m. starting time was dictated by TV scheduling. NBC Sports aired the game nationally after the conclusion of the Cornell-Yale contest, which began at 1 p.m. The first half of the Brown game was played in natural light, though four banks of temporary lighting were switched on before the initial kickoff.
Elsewhere: In the only other Ivy opener, Cornell stomped Yale, 45-6. Princeton lost a Friday night game to Georgetown, 21-20, while Penn lost to Villanova, 24-8, and Columbia lost to Fordham, 20-13. A last-second field goal gave Dartmouth a 13-10 victory over Holy Cross.
Next weekend: Harvard hosts Holy Cross (0-3) in a night game at the Stadium on Friday evening, kicking off at 7 p.m. The Crusaders dealt last year’s Crimson squad its only setback of the season, a 30-22 opening-game defeat at Worcester’s Fitton Field.
The Harvard-Brown score by quarters:
Harvard 3 14 7 21 — 45
Brown 7 3 7 14 — 31
Attendance: 13,848
