A 10-0 defeat of Yale, meted out under arctic conditions at the Stadium on November 22, gave Harvard a 9-1 football season and an Ivy League co-championship.
Harvard shares the Ivy laurels with Brown, which won a 24-22 squeaker in the teams' first league game of the season. Crimson squads have won six Ivy trophies outright and have shared the title seven times.
Blustery winds and frozen turf curbed Harvard's lethal passing attack, but the interior line successfully opened holes for sophomore running back Gino Gordon, who gained a career-high 168 yards on 39 carries. Gordon scored the game's sole touchdown in the opening quarter, after an Eli back muffed a Harvard punt and cornerback Derrick Barker recovered the ball at the Yale 13-yard line.
In the final period, an 11-yard run by Gordon set up Harvard's only other score, a 23-yard field goal by sophomore Patrick Long.
Harvard's tough defense limited tailback Mike McLeod, who had broken all of Yale's major rushing records in four years as a starter, to 62 yards on 21 carries. Eli quarterback Brook Hart was held to four pass completions for 36 yards.
The Blue netted only 90 yards of total offense, made just five first downs, lost three fumbles, and missed a 20-yard field goal try. Yale was stopped twice inside the Harvard five-yard line.
The second stop followed a 48-yard punt return and a pass interference penalty that gave Yale a first-and-goal at the two yard-line, with just over two minutes left in the game. But a pass attempt misfired, and on the next snap senior linebacker Eric Schultz sacked quarterback Hart and stripped the ball away. Senior tackle Carl Ehrlich covered it, snuffing out the last Eli threat.
Harvard quarterback Chris Pizzotti '08 ('09), closing out a stellar career, completed 12 of 21 passes for 109 yards, and aided the Crimson running attack with 74 yards on 16 carries. Against the top-ranked defense in Division I-AA, Harvard racked up 370 yards of total offense and almost doubled Yale in time of possession (39:15 to 20:45) and plays run (79 to 40).
Yale (6-4 overall, 4-3 Ivy) hadn't been blanked by Harvard since 1992, nor shut out by anyone since the 1997 season.
A year earlier the Crimson had won lopsidedly at Yale Bowl, 37-6, securing an outright Ivy championship for the third time since 2001. Harvard has now won seven of the last eight matchups with Yale, and has posted at least seven wins over eight consecutive seasons, an Ivy League record.
~"cleat"
THE SCOREBOARD
Harvard 25, Holy Cross 24
Brown 24, Harvard 22
Harvard 27, Lafayette 13
Harvard 38, Cornell 17
Harvard 27, Lehigh 24
Harvard 24, Princeton 20
Harvard 35, Dartmouth 7
Harvard 42, Columbia 28
Harvard 24, Pennsylvania 21
Harvard 10, Yale 0
Harvard Magazine's January-February issue will include a review of the season and full coverage of the Yale game.
