It should be noted that I have a particular loathing for the Harvard-Yale game. You see, there is a little known fact that Penn was scheduled to play Harvard my senior year in the Tokyo Mirage Bowl (Japan invites 2 American college football teams to play). But the Ivy League presidents voted it down, led by Harvard and Yale votes, because it would have occurred after the Harvard-Yale game, thereby diminishing The Game's stature as the last game of their season. In the end, however, we had the last laugh playing them in Pennsylvania that year for the Ivy League Championship and beating them when we kicked a field goal with 0:00 left on the clock...hee-hee).
I have played against Harvard and Yale 4 times each, but have never seen a game between the two of them. This weekend, it was played at the nearby Yale Bowl in New Haven, CT and Kerrie wanted her oldest rivalry (the children) out of the house.
The Yale Bowl is a true "bowl" stadium, built by digging a hole in the ground and piling the dirt around the edges. Those smart Yale engineers used a sophisticated and complex engineering technique known as "sand castle building". Stadium maintenance apparently includes mowing the walls.
The Yale Bowl
It actually is a pretty good place to watch a football game. It holds 70,000 people without a bad seat in the house and this game attracted 53,000. By my estimate, there could have been 30,000 Yale fans and 23,000 Harvard fans (and at least one secret Penn fan rooting for Yale). And of that 53,000, 3 of them were more interested in collecting the chunks of moss growing in the concrete cracks. Can you guess which 3?
Going into the game, Yale was 2-4 and Harvard was 5-1 in Ivy League play. Last week, undefeated Penn played undefeated Harvard for the Ivy League Championship and Penn prevailed (hee-hee) for their first championship since 2003. If Harvard beat Yale this week and Penn lost to Cornell then Harvard would have shared the Ivy League title (but Penn won 34-0...hee-hee).
With Harvard's dominating offense (the top scoring team in the Ivy League) playing Yale's feeble offense (almost tied for last place in scoring), it was expected to be a Harvard rout.
Amazingly, Yale clung to a 10-0 lead at half-time with Harvard doing nothing right, while Lev, Daniel, and Molloy clung to fistfuls of moss chunks. On the opening to the third quarter, Harvard marched methodically down the field to the 1-yard line where Yale stopped them on both 3rd and 4th down. Could Yale actually pull this out? The Yale fans chanted their most sophisticated cheer, "Harvard Sucks", while Harvard responded with silence because, well, at the time they really sucked. It brought back sweet memories of my senior year when opposing teams held up emotionally-scarring placards that read, "Penn Men Eat Quiche"; a take off of the best-selling book published in 1982 called Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. Really, they did that. (Welcome to the no-holds-barred ferocity of Ivy League football.)
With 6 minutes left to play, Harvard finally found a crack and threw a 41 yard scoring pass to come within 3 points. Yale took over possession and with 2 minutes left in the game they did something that can only be explained by the Yale head coach having bet on Harvard with the lives of his family. Fearing his team might actually pull out a well-earned win and he would have to give up his family, he made a decision that must have cost him at least his wife, if not his job.
One does not need to know too much about football to understand the following was a very bad decision:
- With 4th down and 22 yards to go
- On their own 26 yard line
- With the league's leading punter
- Who was averaging 51 yards per punt in this game (OK, I wasn't paying that close attention to the stats but I have since googled the game)
- With no remaining time-outs for Harvard
Yale ran a fake punt- A FAKE PUNT!!!!. Had they needed 14 yards for a first down they would have made it, but they needed 22!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The tackle was made by the punt returner - that's how far they had to go for a first down.
Harvard took over on downs and 3 plays later they were celebrating a 14-10 victory.
Even I, with no real interest in the outcome of the game, felt emotionally disappointed for the Yale players.
So if you see a strangely cloaked man move suspiciously into your neighborhood and begin to live a reclusive life, that's not the beginnings of a terrorist cell, that is the Yale head football coach.
