With three minutes left to play in the first half last Saturday on a cool, dingy day at Harvard Stadium, Crimson fans were experiencing an unaccustomed emotion: anxiety. For the first time in the 2015 season, Harvard was in a battle, tied 7-7 with underdog Princeton. The Tigers had just downed a punt at the Crimson six-yard- line and, on the ensuing play, Harvard running back Paul Stanton Jr. ’16 coughed up the ball, which popped into the air and came straight down into a scrum. Who had it? When the players unpiled, Stanton was holding it. Bullet dodged.
Seven plays later (and with 53 seconds left in the half) the ball was in the Princeton end zone, cradled by Crimson tight end Ben Braunecker ’16 (as he lay on his side after slipping) on the end of a five-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Scott Hosch ’16. It was the first of five consecutive possessions on which Harvard scored, all while throttling the Princeton offense. The Crimson’s 42-7 victory was its twentieth in a row. (The last team to beat Harvard was Princeton, on October 26, 2013, 51-48 in triple overtime.) The streak is the second longest in NCAA Division I, surpassed only by the 21 straight victories of Ohio State. This was also Harvard’s fourteenth consecutive Ivy League triumph, the fifth longest streak in league history. Harvard stands 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Ivy League; Princeton dropped to 4-2, 1-2.
“We came out a little sloppy,” conceded Harvard coach Tim Murphy afterward. “But that touchdown at the end of the half gave us a lot of momentum.” Princeton coach Bob Surace saluted his troops—to a point. “The first 27 or 28 minutes, we played pretty good football,” he said. But the Tigers were buried by what Surace labeled “that swarm of points” and the Crimson’s depth: “They keep hauling guys in who are fresh.”
Harvard’s heroes were legion. Hosch—now 12-0 as a starter—passed for a career-high 437 yards, third most in a game for a Harvard quarterback. He threw 40 passes and completed 29. Ten were caught by wide receiver Andrew Fischer ’16, for 190 yards; including returns (and a yard rushing), the intrepid, pinballing Fischer amassed 255 yards. Seven completions each went to Braunecker and Justice Shelton-Mosley ’19. Held in check in the first half (42 yards on 10 carries), Stanton catalyzed the Crimson in the third quarter with 67 yards on eight carries, and two touchdowns. The defense limited the Tigers to 55 yards rushing (2.2 yards per rush). As always in 2015, the senior linebacker corps was stalwart, with captain Matt Koran and Jacob Lindsey tying for the team lead with nine tackles.
The first period was scoreless—football the way it used to be!—with Princeton holding the territorial edge, thanks partly to fumbles by Shelton-Mosley and Braunecker. Harvard got on the board early in the second period. The seven-play drive was highlighted by a 41-yard Hosch-to-Fischer hookup. A 12-yarder to Braunecker took the ball down to the two, from where Hosch rolled left, flirted with the notion of an option pitch, and instead took the ball into the end zone. Kenny Smart ’18 kicked the extra point, but not without some drama. His first try was blocked and run all the way back into the Crimson end zone by Princeton’s Anthony Gaffney. Had the play stood, the Tigers would have had two points—but they were called for roughing. Smart got a reprieve, but only a great save by holder Jimmy Meyer ’16 got the high snap down so Smart could plunk it through. Harvard 7, Princeton 0.
Later in the period, the Tigers halted the Crimson at the Princeton 30 and riposted with an 11-play, 70-yard drive that culminated in a pretty two-yard pitch from quarterback John Lovett to Nick Peabody. Nolan Bieck drilled the point. Tie game. (This was the first touchdown surrendered by Harvard in more than 222 minutes of play, going back to the fourth quarter of the Brown game on September 26.)
The Crimson was stung. “We just regrouped,” said Koran. “We got back to the basics.” The next nine Princeton drives ended: punt, end of half, punt, punt, punt, interception (by Asante Gibson ’16, helped by the pressure of defensive lineman Miles McCollum ’17 on Tigers quarterback Chad Kanoff), punt, punt, punt. Surace summed it up. “As our game plan shrank, you could feel that we just weren’t getting any rhythm,” he said.
At the end of the half, the Hosch-to-Braunecker touchdown—on a pretty misdirection pass and at the end of a lightning-fast 94-yard drive—changed the game’s momentum. Harvard went into the break leading 14-7. Charged up, the Crimson went 74 yards on its opening drive of the third quarter, with Stanton rushing for 41 (though one gain was set back by a penalty) and Hosch hitting a wide-open Braunecker for 36 down to the Princeton four. Stanton took it over from the two and Smart kicked the point. Harvard 21, Princeton 7.
After the Tigers went three-and-out, Fischer took the punt and darted right up the middle for 29 yards to the Princeton 30. Harvard again was in business. Four plays later, from the Tigers’ 14, Hosch dropped back and looked left, where Fischer had beaten Princeton’s Khamal Brown deep in the end zone. Hosch threw and Fischer made a tumbling catch. Smart delivered. Harvard 28, Princeton 7.
The third-quarter fusillade concluded with an eight-play 88-yard drive. Stanton went the final 18 on two nine-yard blasts. Smart kicked. Harvard 35, Princeton 7.
Hosch and Fischer were not done. In the fourth quarter, an 80-yard drive was highlighted by two hookups between the two: a 27-yarder and a 31-yarder; on the latter, Fischer made the grab while falling down. The final two yards were delivered by Seitu Smith ’16, most often a wide receiver but now often slotted at running back as Shelton-Mosley’s role expands. Smart’s boot punctuated the day. Fischer not only can receive, but he also can give—credit, that is. “When the defense has to respect [running by] Paul Stanton and Seitu Smith,” he said, “that makes my job easier.”
This test passed, the Crimson players think that their first-half struggle will serve them well during the remaining four weeks of the season. “We needed that adversity,” said Koran. Their toughest test might be at hand.
Weekend Roundup
Penn 34, Yale 20
Brown 44, Cornell 24
Dartmouth 13, Columbia 9
Coming up: Lights! Camera! Championship? On Friday Harvard plays its final home night game, against Dartmouth. Kickoff: 7:30 p.m. The game will be shown on the NBC Sports Network and the Ivy League Digital Network, and broadcast on WXKS 1200 AM and 94.5 FM-HD2, and WHRB FM 95.3. Harvard leads the series 68-45-5, and has won 17 of the last 18, including 23-12 last year in Hanover.
Unless something changes radically in the final four weeks, this is the de facto Ivy League title game. Like Harvard, Dartmouth is 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the league (though its win over Columbia was unexpectedly close). The Big Green is led by its splendid quarterback Dalyn Williams and dangerous wide receiver/returner Ryan McManus. The game might hinge on whether the Dartmouth defense is stout enough to stop Paul Stanton Jr., who rushed for 180 yards and two touchdowns in the 2014 Harvard win.
Looking backward: This week marks the ninety-fourth anniversary of one of the biggest upsets in college football history—with Harvard the upsettee. On October 29, 1921, Centre College of Danville, Kentucky, came away from the Stadium with a 6-0 victory. As the National Football Foundation recounts, “Harvard entered this game with a 25-game unbeaten streak, including a 7-6 win over Oregon in the 1920 Rose Bowl and a 31-14 win over Centre the year before. In front of 43,000 fans in Harvard Stadium, the Colonels of Centre College, boasting a total enrollment of 254 students, shocked the country. College Football Hall of Fame quarterback Bo McMillin scored the game’s only touchdown, a 33-yard scramble in the third quarter. In 2006, ESPN Classic declared Centre’s win the third-biggest upset in college football history. The ‘Praying Colonels’ finished the 1921 season as Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association Co-Champions with a 10-1 record after a loss to Texas A&M in the Dixie Classic. The Crimson finished with a 7-2-1 record under Hall of Fame coach Bob Fisher.”
In memoriam: For the remainder of the season, Harvard players will be wearing decals on their helmets reading “DJM36” honoring D.J. Monroe ’13, a two-time All-Ivy cornerback who was killed in an accident in Florida on October 13 while commuting to work.
The score by quarters
Princeton 0 7 0 7 7
Harvard 0 14 21 7 42
Attendance: 17,444
