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Harvard Notes

The Bulldogs finished their season with an impressive 34-29 victory over Harvard in Cambridge. Yale posted the same 7-3 record as 2023 but Columbia, Dartmouth and Harvard split the title this season with 5-2 records that bested Yale’s 4-3 record in conference play.

Jordan led a great offensive performance against a tough Crimson defense. Under heavy pressure, Jordan was able to break loose for key yardage on the ground and elude defenders long enough to find open receivers downfield. Jordan finished with 287 passing yards, 73 rushing yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. The offensive line gave up only one sack and allowed Pitsenberger to take control in the running game. Pitsenberger rushed for 120 yards and a touchdown but had his best play of the season on a 39-yard reception for a touchdown that showcased his vision, speed and cutback abilities. Peterson added another 27 rushing yards to cap off his career at Yale. Pantelis played just a week after the possible concussion and was as dominant as ever with 7 catches for 148 yards. An illegal man downfield penalty negated a possible touchdown reception for Pantelis early on. Nenad had a tremendous afternoon with 4 catches for 82 yards and a touchdown. Reno and staff came out a bit too aggressively with the early fourth down attempt in field goal territory but settled in throughout the contest with a decent balance of play calling to keep the clock burning and the chains moving. Yale held the ball over 37 minutes and racked up 503 yards to close out on an exciting year offensive football.

The defense was missing Guyton, Tarver and Webster, yet still managed to put together one of the best performances of the season. Gulley and Egodogbare bullied Harvard’s front as they combined for 4 tackles and a sack. McDonough and Yang played well, each recording a sack. Thompson was put in a difficult position as a freshman covering elite receivers on an island and was cited for numerous pass interference penalties. Kamara led in tackles with 8 and returned an interception for a touchdown that proved to be the difference in the contest. Daniyan applied the pressure forcing the interception and blocked a punt to give Yale great field advantage. Ayo-Durojaiye and Biggs’ contributions from the linebacker spot helped to limit Harvard to just 57 rushing yards on the day. Yale’s defense had struggled to contain rushing quarterbacks, so the lack of carries for DePrima played to the Bulldogs’ strengths. Craig appeared to be suffering from lingering effects of his concussion with errant passes he typically would not throw. He still managed to throw for nearly 300 yards and 3 touchdowns but couldn’t consistently drive the Crimson as they converted on just 3 of 15 third down attempts. Freshman JP Schmidt was called into duty at defensive back and made a huge impact with a forced fumble. Joseph Gonzales came up with clutch tackles and half a sack. The defense really came together at the end of the season to limit high-flying offenses.

Conforti nailed both of his field goal attempts with a long of 36 in the contest. Florio was luckily not needed often and punted three times with a 37.0-yard average. Yale won the special teams battle with an onside recovery and a blocked punt.

Congrats to all for a hard-fought victory in The Game!

66 replies on “Harvard Notes”

As usual, great reporting. You’re spoiling us.
While it’s difficult to obtain and often untrustworthy, we’d welcome any faintly reliable news on Yale “seniors” who’ll be returning, and, though we dread it, news about those who may be leaving us despite having unused Yale eligibility.
Meanwhile, how about us offering Harvard’s Barkate? He’s in the transfer portal. Maybe he’s seen the error of his ways and would like to enter one of The Bowl’s portals. He can’t beat us, so perhaps he’d like to join us.

Unfortunately – and I’m by no means an expert on this, so if I’m wrong, someone correct me – intra-Ivy League transfers have to transfer before their Sophomore year. Barkate is a Junior.

I concur fully with L et V: the editors of this blog have distinguished themselves in their report on The Game, in particular, and their reporting throughout the season, in general.
I participate in the quarterly webinars with the Yale president. All participants are invited to submit questions for her response. My attempt to smoke her out earlier this week on the vexed question of Ivy football participation in the FCS playoffs went for naught. Here’s the question I posed: “If you were presented, as an Ivy Group President, with the proposal that Ivy football teams be allowed to participate in NCAA playoffs, like all other varsity programs, how would you vote?”
I hope I’m not reading too much in the lack of an answer.

How about an 11th game? START THE SEASON A WEEK EARLIER TO ACCOMMODATE THE 11TH GAME!

For me an 11th game is more important than playoffs. I want both, but expanding the season for all Ivy football programs is #1

In past years, THE GAME — the full version as televised — has popped up on YouTube a week or so after the event. But unless I’m missing something, that hasn’t happened this year.
Any leads, here? I was traveling and couldn’t watch it live.

(If this was mentioned in last week’s long thread, I apologize.)

It’s still available to watch On Demand on ESPN +, but you better hurry. I don’t think it will be available much longer.

Devon Oliver, 6’3”, 275, DT. Three Star Recruit with offers from SMU, Houston and Missouri. Highest ranking a Yale recruit in many years according to 247/sports.

Terrific recruiting from Coach Janecek. I went all the way back to 2012 on 247 sports and he is the highest ranked recruit Yale’s ever had since then.

Why aren’t any of these recruiting sites. Adding these Yale Football Commits. 247 have been stuck at 8 for months.? How many Football commits does Yale actually have.?

Great spot SOE, Here’s hoping Mr. Oliver and all these young men . Will be here in New Haven Come August.
How many Football commits does Yale have for The class of 2029.?

So why have we seen nothing about the 2024 player awards? This is always something very rich and gratifying. Cap’n Josh was reported immediately, there’s nothing about ’24 awards at yalebulldogs or in the News.

Gentlemen; it appears Mr. Sullivan has entered the transfer portal. I thought he had one more year of possible eligibility based on an injury year. It would be interesting to know who else is entering the portal and if there are any transfers.

The numbers for all of the seniors that have entered the transfer portal after the season. 66, 52, 49, 48, 39, 24, 20, 19, 16, 13, 10, 9, 5, 2. #9 Tamatoa received an offer from Virgina. #9 Grant Jordan has a visit with Wake Forest this weekend. #2 Alvin Gulley committed to Northern Illinois University. #2 Nenad, #24 Inumidun, #52 Schaffer have all picked up offers from other good fcs schools.

#60 can choose to take the spring off and return to the fall as well. Karhu suffered a career ending injury.

#16 , #9 Tamatoa, #60, and #2 Gulley are the ones in the portal that could take the spring off and return in the fall. The rest have already took their semester off and will graduate this month.

Thank you for the clarification, Anonymous. I assume 2, 9, 16, and 60 need to make up their minds pretty quickly.
Meanwhile, I wonder what Cerionjer thinks about all this.

Gulley has not decommitted as far as I know. He committed about a week after he went into the transfer portal.

Biggs has not entered the portal. His original high school class was 2019, so he would be about 24/25 years old right now and I’m assuming he is done playing football.

How many Football commits does Yale have for 2025.? Or is there a list . That I could google for the information.?

What happened to Yale Football site.? No pregame information or Late Friday night. Used to get it on Thursday’s.
The day after The Harvard Game. You’d find out who the Captain was for next year. Then the Football awards. NOTHING.?!!
On this site you’d get news on possible future Football Commitments. Or who is staying or and explanation on why others are leaving. Nobody speaks up about it. Everyone just accepts it. Nuts to that.!! I wanna know .! What’s going on with Yale Football .?!! The dwindling Fan base wants to know . What’s going on with OUR TEAM.?

I’m afraid this is the new normal. We are actually lucky that we have this blog and the few people here who post inside info. It could be, and probably will be, worse as time goes on.

Watching the FCS playoffs. I would like to participant, but the upper level teams like South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and Montana State, are as far out of our class as most FCS team are.

I would as well BD10jw, I’d like to let them play. I think the ivy would raise a lot of eyebrows.
I’d like to see our AD be more imaginative about out of conference competition. Play teams west of the Mississippi and past Dixie line.!!

Any chance of putting up a commitment list of players . Who have already posted their commits to Yale.?

UConn and Yale still have a shared opened date on 10/18. UConn needs to pick up its standard sixth home game and Yale needs its standard fifth road game. The only Patriot League team available for Yale to play on 10/18 is Richmond. CCSU is also open on 10/18. Beginning to look promising for either Yale at Uconn or Yale at Richmond on 10/18. Alternatively CCSU could potentially be a sixth home game for Yale since its intrastate but I doubt Yale would want to duplicate their schedule two years in a row.

New Yale commit:

Lucas Price
#6 / Class of 2025 / RB, MLB/6’1, 225 lbs

Walled Lake Western High School – Walled Lake Western Football Varsity
Commerce Charter Twp, MI

This is fantastic news!! It’s a long time coming. Hopefully they can do the next thing to do. Would be to add an 11th game to the schedule.

Now there is another reason for Reno to stay at Yale: to bring back to Yale another National Championship in football!

This gives Coach Reno something else to accomplish at Yale: making Yale National Champions in football again! On to national title #28!

And now for the giant, well illuminated Bowl Bubble under which the championship game can be played…year after year.

Gentlemen; great news the Ivy League egg heads have now come into the 21st-century for pig skin potential championship. I agree there should be an 11th game that falls on the shoulders immediately of the athletic director who may or may not be capable of responding to accomplish this goal. I for one hope she is capable of accomplishing this goal at the immediately opportunity. Finally, it is unbelievable to me that we cannot find a way with two open dates to play the Huskies.

I for one have no interest in playing UConn in football, it would be a blowout. Yale could not beat a horrible UConn team a couple of years ago and they have become a much stronger team. Don’t need them!

In Sagarin’s ratings, Yale finished 2021 rated over 7 points better than UConn, so that UConn victory was essentially an “upset.”

UConn was rated 10 points better than Yale this year. Certainly a stretch game, but not necessarily a blowout.

And consider this: UConn would be predicted to lose by 1-to-2 touchdowns against any of the Final Four in this year’s FCS playoffs. Thus, it’s more likely that any future blowouts suffered by Yale will come in the FCS playoffs, rather than in a game with UConn (at least, at UConn’s current level of performance).

With the talent coming to Yale, I believe Yale has the capacity to do well. Against the likes of UConn. As voy vey pointed out Yale is more likely to have problems with the top 4 teams in the FCS playoffs.
I never thought that this was going to happen in my lifetime. I am thrilled to see come to fruition. Now add another game to the schedule and start the season sooner. Thank you

He’s going to pair really well with Jaxton Santiago in terms of size and speed. Think we may have another Shohfi-Klubnick type dual threat at WR in the years ahead.

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