Football wills its way to win

For three hours Saturday, Harvard did everything it could to coerce the football team into forgetting about an unbeaten season and an Ivy League title. You could look at the stats or the schemes in Saturday's titanic clash, but for once, neither really mattered. Body language did — Princeton showed that, despite the Crimson's fight, its bruising running game and elusive quarterback, the Tigers simply wanted it more.

"I couldn't be more proud of our team," head coach Roger Hughes said. "It was another team win. We made plays when we had to, that's been the characteristic and certainly becoming the defining characteristic of our team. There was never any panic on the sideline."

Harvard tried to make sure Princeton should not and could not make the plays necessary to win the game. The Crimson recovered from two 10-point deficits and blocked a field goal attempt in the waning moments that would have stretched Princeton's lead to six.

Harvard stayed right with junior wide receiver Brendan Circle in his failed attempt to extend to the Princeton lead to 10 points in the third. It knocked senior quarterback Jeff Terrell out of the game for the last minutes of the first half with a vicious hit and it pounded star running back Clifton Dawson into the Tigers' defense for three touchdowns.

Princeton still wanted it more.

After senior punter Colin McDonough had a punt blocked and another go for a measly 14 yards, he could have been shaken. But instead, he came right back and launched a number of long punts in the third and fourth quarters to give the Crimson average field position when it should have been spectacular.

McDonough finished the game with a punting average of 48.5 yards per punt and helped relieve some of the pressure that was placed on the overworked defense when the offense was struggling with three and outs.

"It was huge. We expect that kind of play out of Colin," Hughes said of McDonough's play.

After Terrell was knocked out of the game, junior quarterback Bill Foran could have panicked and played soft, conservative football, but he didn't.

Instead Foran put on a magnificent display on a fourth-and-six play, making a Harvard defender miss en route to a scramble for a first down. Those plays ultimately netted the team the final score at the half and reestablished the Tigers' 10-point lead.

"Bill made some great runs and great ad-libs and ended up scoring when probably Harvard thought, 'oh, we've got [Terrell] out of the game now' — maybe they relaxed a little bit, I don't know," Hughes said.

Then there was Circle, who, after failing to come up with a fantastic third-down pass into the endzone by Terrell, reeled in the game-winner on the eight-yard line and quickly bumped and cut past Crimson defenders and into the endzone.

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"It certainly doesn't feel very good to drop a touchdown, but it feels that much better when you catch it," Circle said.

Of course, the defensive unit also made its fair share of plays. After letting the 10-point halftime lead transform into a four-point deficit, the defense staunched the wound in the fourth quarter, holding the Crimson scoreless giving the offense a chance to get back into the game.

The unit also pulled in four interceptions on the day, including two key picks in the fourth quarter. One of those gave the Princeton offense stellar field position which it used to score the game-winning points.

With time running out, Crimson quarterback Liam O'Hagan converted on fourth and six. His next pass, however, was tipped and launched high into the air. Junior free safety Kevin Kelleher caught it for his second pick of the game.

"It really helps when you have a front four that can get pressure like they did," Kelleher said. "And you know, there were three or four tipped balls today, because they have the ability to get in the quarterback's face. So when the ball came out and was tipped by one of the linebackers coming on a rush, it just sort of popped up in the air, and I saw it up there and did my best to go get it."

Harvard tried to stamp out Princeton's flame, but the fire burned on, regardless of whether Princeton was ahead by 10 or down by four. That mental toughness and unquenchable, insistent desire to play hard was the key to the game.

"I agree [on the importance of mental toughness], and I think I've talked about it as even-keeled, no roller coaster emotionally, nothing gets us down," Hughes said. "There's a great confidence I think building in this team that, someone's going to make the play to win the game, someone's going to make a play on the ball."

Someone like Foran, or Terrell or Kelleher — the name may change, but the color of the jersey never does.

"I think our team thrives on the fact that there really are no stars on this team, but we just find ways to do it," Hughes said.

"It's how you respond, how are you going to respond when you get punched in the mouth, how are you going to respond when they score, and that's where I think our team has done a phenomenal job all year."