“You’re a genius if that play goes,” Murphy said.
But the distance was too long for the freshman, and Harvard junior defensive back Anthony Spadafino caught on, tackling Powers seven yards shy of the first down.
“If [the play did] not [work], [we thought] that we’d be able to run the clock out,” Williams said.
But shortly after taking over at Yale’s 40, junior quarterback Collier Winters found classmate Chris Lorditch for the winning touchdown.
“We were playing to win the football game,” Williams said. “We had set that play up all year, and we thought it was worth the 22 yards.”
RUSH WEEK
The Bulldogs entered Saturday’s matchup with the worst rushing offense in the league, averaging just 93.8 yards per game. But Harvard simply had no answer for Yale’s run game in the first three quarters.
“We knew we could run the ball on their defense,” said sophomore Alex Thomas, who had 124 yards. “We just gashed them.”
Thomas’ yardage marked the first time a Bulldog rushed for more than 100 yards since Mike McLeod ’09 ran for 138 last year against Princeton. Harvard, whose opponents averaged 82.7 rushing yards per game, seemed an unlikely victim of a breakout, but the sophomore fed off a strong performance by his offensive line.
“My job was easy: just follow their blocks,” Thomas said.
Given that Yale had amassed only 112 rushing yards against Princeton, it was understandably surprising when Thomas ran for 35 yards on Yale’s opening possession to set up a 26-yard field goal by junior Alex Barnes.
“They came out tough, and they had us on our heels for a long time,” Crimson captain Carl Ehrlich said. “We were just a little shocked.”
Also surprising was Rodney Reynolds’ three-yard touchdown run with 4:43 left in the first quarter. The senior tailback’s touchdown was the first of his career and Yale’s only one on Saturday. Reynolds’ previous action against Harvard had all come in JV games.
“He’s been through a lot of adversity in his career here at Yale,” Thomas said. “He’s never really had a real opportunity, and he’s really stepped it up.”