Football: Harvard 49, Princeton 7

The Crimson set a record for the largest margin of victory against the Tigers in their football series.

Stepping in after missing four games because of injury, Conner Hempel ’15 did not miss a beat, riddling the Princeton defense by passing for three touchdowns and a career-high 382 yards.
Princeton ballcarriers such as Dre Nelson (number 23) found nowhere to run--and nowhere to hide--when collapsed on by Crimson defenders including Davon Robertson ’17 (number 83) and James Duberg ’16 (number 97).
Having gotten behind the Princeton secondary, Seitu Smith ’15 caught a perfectly thrown pass from Hempel (number 14, background) and sailed into the end zone. The touchdown gave Harvard a 14-0 lead.
Tigers quarterback Quinn Epperly, who had tormented the Crimson two years’ running, this time was caged by onrushing Zack Hodges ’15 and other Harvard defenders.

On Saturday at halftime of the game between Harvard and Princeton, the Tigers honored their unbeaten 1964 Ivy League championship team. The sight of the hearty-looking septuagenarians parading on Powers Field prompted this thought: Why don’t they suit up? Heck, on this day they couldn’t do any worse than the current edition.

By that time Harvard had a 28-0 lead. For some Crimson fans on this sun-splashed afternoon, there were acid flashbacks to the game on this very field two years ago, when Princeton erased 20-0 and 34-10 deficits to win 39-34. Do they have us just where they want us? Not this time. Never stepping off the gas in a record-shattering performance, Harvard cruised to a 49-7 triumph—its largest margin of victory in 107 meetings with Princeton, dating to 1877. (A Harvard Athletics highlights video captures many of the game's heroics.) The Crimson is now 6-0 and, at 3-0 in the Ivy League, tied for first place with Dartmouth, where Harvard visits this coming weekend. Given that the Princeton game was considered a toss-up and that Harvard often was less than overwhelming in its first five contests, the dismantling—demolition, destruction, old-fashioned butt-whippin’, whatever you want to call it—rates as one of the more happily astonishing in the annals of Harvard football history.

Crimson coach Tim Murphy summed it up best. “This was one of those days when everything went our way,” he said. Princeton had a first down erased by penalty for chop-blocking. A fine catch ended with a fumble that Harvard recovered. And so on.

The victory was Murphy’s hundredth in 21 seasons of Ivy League play, tying him with fabled Dartmouth and Cornell coach Bob Blackman. The total trails only the 111 of Penn’s Al Bagnoli (now in his final season) and the 135 of Yale’s legendary Carmen Cozza. (This quartet is arguably a Mount Rushmore of Ivy coaches.) “We exorcised a few demons,” said Murphy, referencing not only the disaster of 2012 but also the heartbreak of last fall, when Princeton quarterback Quinn Epperly (who had thrown the winning touchdown pass in 2012)  accounted for 405 yards in a 51-48 triple-overtime victory. “I must admit I’ll never forget the game of two years ago. It will haunt me to my grave.” And the memory prompted the Harvard coach to keep the offense at full throttle even with a large second-half lead: “You never feel like you have enough points.”

In a day of collective heroics, the hero of heroes was quarterback Conner Hempel ’15. Sidelined since the first half of the opening game against Holy Cross, Hempel was not even guaranteed to play; moreover, there were questions about how he would fare after such a long layoff. But within a few minutes he had galvanized the Crimson offense. “It took me a series to get back into the swing,” he said. “After that, we were cruising.” And how. Under Hempel, plus (in mop-up duty) Scott Hosch ’16 and Joseph Viviano ’17, the Crimson rampaged for 698 yards of total offense—obliterating the previous school mark of 640 set against Dartmouth in 1999. In a little more than three quarters, Hempel completed 25 of 31 passes for three touchdowns and 382 yards, topping his previous high of 345 set last year against San Diego.

The early play, tentative on both sides, gave little hint of a rout. The Crimson made a nice fourth-down stop at its own 26 when the defensive-back pairing of captain Norman Hayes ’15 and Chris Evans ’16 halted Tiger receiver Matt Costello short of a first down. (Evans, playing literally down the road from his alma mater, West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, would lead the Crimson with eight tackles.) This was a harbinger. The Harvard defense was too physical for the Tigers ballcarriers and never let Epperly up for air. The front four—Zack Hodges ’15, James Duberg ’16, Obum Obukwelu ’15, and Dan Moody ’15—jammed Tigers runners at the point of attack. If the Tigers did find a hole, linebackers Matt Koran ’16 (seven tackles), Jake Lindsey ’16, and Connor Sheehan ’15 (six tackles each) met them head on. Epperly and his alternate, Connor Michelsen, were faced with an inordinate number of long-yardage situations; they would convert only three of 16 third-down opportunities.

Having gotten his feet wet, Hempel went to work. Using runs by Paul Stanton Jr. ’16 (105 yards on 18 carries), he moved the ball to the Princeton 39. Dropping back to pass, he evaded onrushing Tigers, rolled left and flipped a pass into the middle of the field to Joseph Foster ’17. Foster snared the ball, then circled to the right—all the way into the end zone. Afterward, a gracious Princeton coach Bob Surace praised Hempel’s nimbleness. “We had three rushers on him and he escaped,” Surace marveled. “I don’t remember anyone who has impacted a game against us as much.” The point-after attempt by Ben Falloon ’15 was good. (Falloon would be seven-for-seven on the day, a radically improved performance for the Crimson compared with early in the season.) Score: 7-0 Harvard.

After the defense forced a Princeton punt, Harvard took over at its 14. Hempel employed his own legs (in the game he would gain 52 yards on 12 carries) and those of Stanton to work the ball to the Princeton 49. Then Hempel provided what the Crimson had been missing most of the season: the deep ball.  Taking the snap, he dropped back behind perfect protection, then lofted a bomb along the left sideline that caught receiver Seitu Smith ’15 in stride. Smith waltzed into the end zone: 14-0 Harvard. In the press box, the Crimson’s assistant coaches yelled with glee.

Keyed by an outstanding pass breakup by Jordan Becerra ’16, the defense forced another Princeton punt. Taking over at the Harvard 42, the offense got the ball to the Princeton 32. Then Hempel was sacked—but the sacker, Matt Arends, grabbed Hempel’s face mask. The foul not only negated the sack, it moved the ball down to the 17 for a huge swing in both field position and momentum. Two rushes by Stanton got the ball to the one. On second down, Hempel sneaked over: 21-0 Harvard.

Near the end of the half, a punt by David Bicknell ’15 backed Princeton up to its one. Despite only 2:13 left, Harvard decided to apply the hammer, using timeouts to get the ball back (at the Princeton 31) with 1:39 on the clock. From there, it took just two plays to score—a 17-yard pass from Hempel to Smith followed by a Hempel quarterback draw over the goal line: 28-0 Harvard.

Well, we had been here before…hadn’t we? There was still a half left to play. Was Harvard merely being set up for more heartbreak? The first Crimson offensive series of the second half provided a vigorous disclaimer. Taking over at the Harvard 35, Hempel mixed his plays, including an 18-yard completion to tight end Tyler Hamblin ’15, seeing his first action of the season. Then, from the Tigers’ 33, Stanton barreled through one of those wide-load holes that the Crimson offensive line has been gouging all season. Cutting left, he raced all the way to the end zone, 35-0 Crimson. If ever there was a statement touchdown, this was it.

Even before the third quarter ended, some listless Tigers fans began heading for the shelter of their eating clubs. They were the lucky ones. They missed Hempel’s final touchdown pass, a 42-yarder that tight end Anthony Firkser ’17 glommed onto before stepping into the end zone: 42-0 Harvard. The score capped a seven-catch day for Firkser, like Evans a local product (Manalapan, New Jersey).

At last Murphy signaled a let-up…or did he? In came Hosch, who handed to Semar Smith ’18. Smith crashed through for 62 yards to the Princeton 13. Hosch ran it in from five yards for a touchdown—but Harvard was called for a false start. Hosch simply dropped back and tossed a 10-yard pass into the left corner of the end zone to Matt Brown ’15. A jaw-dropping 49-0, Harvard.

Princeton avoided the shutout when Joe Rhatigan scored on a two-yard run with 28 seconds left. It was scant consolation. The Tigers had been held to 244 yards of total offense—a mere 54 on the ground. Epperly finished with 12 completions in 20 attempts for 66 yards, or 255 fewer than last year. (Michelson  was 16 for 24 for 124 yards.) On the other side, Princeton had entered the game with the best rushing defense in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), having allowed 61.0 yards per game. Harvard gashed it for 306 yards, five times that figure.

Afterward Murphy lauded everyone in crimson, including his staff. But the man of the hour was Hempel. “He’s a stud, a tough guy, and a great leader,” said Murphy. “His improvisational ability is tough to beat.” Hempel was asked if he had thought that the Crimson could put up 49 points on Princeton. He didn’t even blink. “Yeah,” said the unflappable senior. “I did.”

 

Weekend roundup   

Brown 42, Cornell 16
Yale 43, Penn 21
Dartmouth 27, Columbia 7

 

Coming up: Next Saturday, Harvard travels to Hanover, New Hampshire, to play Dartmouth. Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. (The game will be televised on NBC Sports Regional Networks and the Ivy League Digital Network.) The Big Green is 5-1 and 3-0 in Ivy play. Harvard leads the series, 67-45-5. Since the formation of the Ivy League in 1956, the Crimson holds a 34-22-2 edge. Harvard has won the last 10, including a 27-24 squeaker last year at the Stadium.

Having passed with flying colors its first road test, billed as the Ivy game of the year, Harvard faces another one against a team that seems much less formidable—except that the Big Green owns an impressive 38-31 win over high-scoring Yale at New Haven. Dartmouth boasts an excellent runner in Kyle Bramble, one of the league’s best receivers in Ryan McManus (also an outstanding punt returner), and an opportunistic pass defense that leads all Ivy teams with nine interceptions. A frenzied sellout crowd at cozy Memorial Field will be the twelfth man, and rain and snow showers are in the long-range forecast.

 

Ben Bradlee’s crimson football tie. Last Tuesday brought news of the death of Benjamin C. Bradlee ’43 at age 93. The legendary Washington Post editor had a direct connection with Harvard football: his father, Frederick Josiah Bradlee Jr., is a Crimson gridiron immortal. “Beebo” Bradlee was a member of the vaunted “Group of Seven” from the class of 1915 who in three years under Percy D. Haughton, A.B. 1899, never lost a game; their record was 25-0-2. The others were backs Charlie Brickley, Mal Logan, and Tack Hardwick, end Jeff Coolidge, and interior linemen Stan Pennock and Wally Trumbull. In that two-way era, Bradlee was a running back and a hard-hitting defensive back. His best season was 1914, when he was named to Walter Camp’s All-America team along with Brickley, Hardwick, Pennock, and back Eddie Mahan ’16. In a 20-0 victory over Princeton before 32,000 at the Stadium, Bradlee scored two touchdowns. As the Boston Globe reported, “Bradlee, who has this season developed into one of the most remarkable line breakers the game has known, fought so hard that in one of his desperate rushes he had his jersey completely torn off his back.”

Gives you a hint as to where that Watergate-busting tenacity came from.

 

Score by quarters

Harvard                 7                21                 7              14      49
Princeton              0                  0                0               7          7                          

Attendance: 12,164

Read more articles by: Dick Friedman

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