140th match goes to the Elis

Not even a 22-point fourth quarter could lift the home team, Harvard Crimson, to a monumental win against archrival Yale as the Elis held on for a 34-29 victory before a crowd of 27,105 in the 140th playing of the game.

It is the third straight time that Yale has beaten Harvard, the last three wins by five points each. It is also the first time since 2000 that the Bulldogs have taken the measure of Harvard three straight times. This current setback dropped Harvard (8-2, 5-2 Ivy) into a three-way tie for the Ivy League football title for the second year in a row with Columbia and Dartmouth, though that does not sit well with current Harvard coach Andrew Aurich.

“I didn’t come here to share titles. I came here to win outright titles,” said the disappointed coach following his team’s setback. “This was too talented a team,” he added. “We shouldn’t have shared this thing with anybody.”

Echoing those sentiments, his quarterback, Jaden Craig, said, “Hanging yet another banner for a shared title is particularly painful after the strong season this team produced.”

It was a season highlighted by dramatic come-from-behind victories over Dartmouth and Penn.

Harvard scored the last 14 points in Hanover, and Dylan Fingersh hit a 21-yard field goal as time expired at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

There was no such comeback in the script for the Crimson this past Saturday as those pesky Yalies continued their current mastery of the series, while placing more misery on the Cambridge crowd. Following a scoreless opening quarter, Yale would strike first with a touchdown on a pass from Grant Jordan to Chase Nenad in the early moments of the second quarter.

Harvard would tie the contest at seven on a 44-yard scoring strike from Jaden Craig to junior wide receiver Cooper Barkate. Yale would take a 14-7 lead into half-time on the running and passing of Jordan and the receiving of David Pantelis, who had seven receptions for 148 yards.

“There were several times where the quarterback could get out of the pocket. Jordan had a really good feel for scramble rules and getting out of there and taking off,” said Aurich.

Jordan had 73 rushing yards.

The Crimson’s inability to contain his running proved to be their downfall. Jordan’s running continually kept drives going and set up scoring opportunities for the Elis.

On the other side of the ledger, Harvard quarterback Jaden Craig suffered through a challenging game. His weak performance came just one week after he went down hard from a helicopter tackle and was taken off the field on a stretcher.

Craig denied that the tackle last week had any impact on his performance.

“I feel healthy,” he said after the game. But there are those who attended the game who would disagree.

“I feel like I let the guys down.

We left a lot out there offensively,” Craig added. “The bottom line — I’ve got to be better. This is not the type of team we were this year.

That’s why this hurts so bad.”

In the third quarter, the game turned entirely in Yale’s favor when the Harvard quarterback, under heavy pressure from the Yale defensive line, threw a misguided pass intercepted by Yale defensive back Abu Kamara, who returned it for a touchdown and a 21-7 lead. That was the blow from which the Crimson could not recover.

To their credit, they kept battling and made a game of it coming down the stretch. Harvard fans got one last hope when their team rallied from a 31-15 deficit with 12:41 left in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to 34-29 with 18 seconds left in regulation.

With thoughts of the famous 29-29 tie of 1968 dancing in their heads, Crimson fans braced for a recovery of an onside kick that would not come.

As Yale fans stormed the field following their team’s latest win, giving their school a 71-61-8 record in this storied rivalry, Harvard fans faded into the shadow of their stadium, which will soon be renamed Tim Murphy Field at Harvard Stadium, after the Crimson’s iconic coach, who retired after the 2023 season. Their one consolation is that their team shares the Ivy League title while Yale (7-3, 4-3 Ivy) ends up in fourth place this season.

But the Boola Boola men of Yale, winners of six of the last eight big games, will continue to sing the last line of the Yale fight song, “Down the field”: “Harvard’s team will fight to the end, but Yale will win.” Those words hold truth — for now.