Completely a self-inflicted loss.
Just about every big play was called back for a penalty. Those penalties, and the two turnovers deep in HC territory kept HC in striking distance.
The defense was not bad for the most part, but fell apart on those last two drives.
On the plus side, 294 yards rushing and 510 yards total offense will win most games. And it could have been more with the long runs called back for penalties.
Lots of things to be worked on this week.
Great Drama . What happened to our pass defense ? Wonder how Yale’s two early quick strike scores affected our determination ?
Did these quick scores give us a false sense of superiority ?
Gulp! Holy Cross is the weakest team on Yale’s schedule. I can’t believe they can come close to Yale’s recruiting program. Again, Yale is very suspect on pass defense.
Same old yale same old plays Who do you think is going to get the ball when there is only one back in the backfield. Any one here of a QB SNEAK. Or kick the dam field goal. I know one play does not make a season but the D-B should turn there heads once in a while to see where the ball is.
Simply no reason not to kick that FG in OT. We did not need a TD to stay in the game and by converting it and going on to score 7, it didn’t win the game for us. Kick the FG, give your defense the chance to shut them down or force them to kick too. Basic football. Reno gambles too much, sometimes he wins but mostly he craps out like yesterday.
I’m willing to give the coaching staff the benefit of the doubt on some of their bad decisions in yesterday’s game and chalk it up to their overconfidence on being able to gamble and go for the Dufek run instead of the fg as well as the earlier failed trick play – wr pass to the qb. Lets hope Reno learns something from yesterday’s mistakes.
Yale didn’t lose the game because of bad decisions. We lost because a young opposing coach fired up his team, made the right decision in changing the qb (who was the mvp of the game) and exploited the weaknesses in the Yale offensive line and Yale defense. Looking ahead, Yale is going to face a lot more teams in the rest of their schedule with even more firepower than Holy Cross. The reality is the Yale defense lost a lot of stars from graduation and most recently some of their replacements have already been injured. The kind of hard hitting tackles that were so prevalent last season were saliently missing yesterday and most likely in future games as well.
Reminds me of the Dartmouth game last year, where Yale came out like a fire engine in the first half and then mailed it in in the second, only to have been caught at the end. I’m confused – is it too much of the same old predictable plays or too much gambling on trick plays?
Rarely are there many complaints when predictable plays and or trick ones succeed and coaches produce a championship season. Over the many decades of watching Yale’s game plans under different head coaches, predictable or non predictable isn’t a major factor in terms of a successful season. It’s having more talent and better execution on offense and defense than the opposing team.
We played HC without our top receiver J.P. Shofi, and we lost Rouse in the first half. That hurt our passing game.
Any idea why Shofi was held out or the extent of Rouse’s injury? Getting them back could be crucial vs Cornell.
Shofi has a minor hamstring strain.
There is no such thing as a “minor” hamstring strain….they are all dangerous to skill guys.
Shofi was quite active on the sidelines. Can’t be hurt to seriously.
Same offense everyone knows where the ball is going. You would think the coaches would know that to. Sat they needed a fullback 4 blocking not one to be found. Could be a long year the offense got beat up and so did the defense.Yale to light on the defense line no pass rush We got spoiled last year with our defense. On to cornell hope for better things.
Yale did not get beat my holy cross yale got beat by reno.
Let’s not panic yet. It was one game, the first game, and this team has a lot of weapons on offense.
The defense played fairly well until the last two drives and stuffed HC in overtime. Unfortunately, they had a good FG kicker.
Let’s give these guys 3 or 4 games before reaching any conclusions.
If not for the penalties which negated several big plays, Yale would have won and nobody would be complaining.
If nothing improves going forward, then it will be time to worry.
As long as Dudek and Rawlings stay healthy, and the injured receivers come back soon, we will be in every game on the schedule.
Once again, the NH Register does not even send a reporter to cover the game.
I’m sure the coaching staff and the entire team is angry and embarrassed about this loss. 21-0, 28-7, 28-14 with 5 minutes left, 0 points in the second half despite 500 yards in total offense. I believe this team is counting the hours down to the Ivy opener at Cornell.
The single back spread option offense we run exclusively is frustrating to me. All 11 Holy Cross guys knew Dudek was getting the ball. He is a superb back, was the 100 Meter Champion in Pennsylvania, but he is not a helicopter and can’t fly away when being mobbed by defenders.
For the spread to be effective you need to incorporate misdirection jet sweeps and the QB Rawlings has to effectively run the ball himself and throw the ball well. Rawlings has to be better all around, IMO.
As I said preseason, with this talent develop some two back sequences. We don’t want Dudek taking monster hits every game and he will with this offense. Take advantage of his speed by giving him more carries where he is getting the ball on the move instead of waiting for the QB to “read” and leave it in his belly.
The good news is this was not an Ivy loss and the drive killing penalties can be cleaned up. The staff should be better together in their second game, as will the players. The ’76 team lost a tough one to a great Brown team in game one and proceeded to win the rest of their games and a shared Ivy title. This team 146 still has a clean Ivy slate but has to get better in a hurry……..I’m thinking they have it in them and will blow out Cornell on the field turf in Ithaca. Circling Friday October 5th and Dartmouth as the true indicator of what we have this year.
The 1967 team lost their opener and then won the rest as well. They lost to Holy Cross.
It should also be noted that the 1999 team also lost the opener to Brown then won the next nine.
Sorry, I just noticed how often I misspell Zane’s last name on the message boards with Yale’s qb Joe Dufek who played for the Bills in the early 1980s.
Seemed that they switched from a 4 man front on the D line to a 3 Man about the end of the first quarter and never went back.
Keeler looked strong in the middle of the 3, taking the majority of the snaps and rotating with Crowle, but he looked understandably tired in the fourth quarter. I assume the other linemen were injured as Matthaei didn’t get back on the field having been the starting nose tackle? No sign of Fraser or James except punt block?
The pre-game press said coaches would be rotating the D line as early on in the season and with the humidity, but that didn’t happen in the interior either in personnel or system. Was this injury related? Was it a coincidence that HC scored freely late on in the game?
I thought blitzing Foye and Oplinger most downs last year was very effective. Didn’t seem to yield the same reward this game, but didn’t stop them trying almost every down.
Nothing will change .Even at spring practice they ran the same plays. My grandmother knew who was getting the ball. Every one in the stands knows what the play will be.You would think the coaches wood know that to. What a waste of talent .
The offense moved the ball well. It might be the same offense but the only thing that stopped them on Saturday were turnovers, penalties, and coaching decision’s. Holy Cross couldn’t stop the offense at the end of the 2nd quarter and for some reason Reno call’s a trick play ? It would of been game over if we scored on that drive. If the offense is healthy we will score a lot of points this season.
Great Game, tough game, Fitton Field always a hard place to play. I thought Yale was gonna score 50 points.
I counted over a dozen missed tackles in that game. Fundamental’s were out the window. If they made half of those tackles it would have made a difference.
Those young men played their asses off. They tried their best. They ran into buzzsaw. Looked like a mobile MASH unit.
Get away from the trick plays, Don’t get you’re QB hurt. Would have liked to see Trenton “I’m not from New Jersey “Charles, get that ball.
That team can only get better, hopefully the coaching staff learns from their mistakes.
Go Bulldogs.!!!
HOW ABOUT DRESSING AND USING TATE GOODYEAR IN THE DEFENSIVE LINE ? HE HAS GOOD SIZE AND IS STRONG . HE COULD ROTATE WITH OTHER DEF. LINEMEN. I AGREE WITH JON H. THERE WERE TOO MANY MISSED TACKLES BY THE DEFENSE.
Ray, He was on the sideline also, not dressed as well.?
JON,
HE WAS NOT DRESSED IN A YALE UNIFORM ONLY STREET CLOTHES.
The injury report this week is important….are we looking at quick recovery or did we lose key players for the season.
Losing three key members of the staff in the off-season had a predictable effect in the first game against an opponent playing their third.
Embrace the opportunity for improvement in all areas, get by Cornell and get healthy for the October 5th Friday night Dartmouth game. Win that one and this team will be in it all year.
What “injury report?” Yale has been notorious in guarding information about the injury status of its players, even those officially listed on the two-deep. E.g. we only found out that Shofi was not playing when we saw him in his game shirt, but no pads, on the sideline. Why didn’t “starters” Jack Lee and Charles Callender play? What are the statuses of OLs Neagli, Jost, and Sexton?
SEXTON IS OUT FOR THE YEAR. I BELIEVE IT MIGHT BE AN ISSUE WITH HIS BACK.
I simply don’t understand all these injuries over the last few years. Granted , I’m an old-timer. In my senior year Yale won the first ever Ivy League title with an undefeated Ivy League season. I don’t recall people getting hurt on that team, and season-ending injuries were practically unheard of. And in those days PLAYERS PLAYED BOTH WAYS! Yes, they had to play offense and defense. Denny McGill, our All-Ivy running back, was also one of the best defensive backs in the league!
Yale’s injury problem was the subject of an excellent YDN expose two years ago. As I recall it focused on the lack of sufficient # of trainers and expressed the views of oft injured players like Tyler Varga. Injuries affect all Ivy teams but the YDN article certainly raised some troubling issues. Last year’s injuries were fewer than preceding ones and no doubt helped in achieving the 9-1 season. This early in the season Yale is already being impacted by a disconcerting # of starters who are injured and as “Anonymous” indicated above no clear picture of the injury situation can be expected from Reno.
I can say the training staff/doctors are very much improved from that article from 2 years ago
That’s good to know, but what remains troubling is that it took some diligent YDN journalists to expose the problems before the people responsible for keeping our players healthy finally took some remedial action.
33 replies on “Holy Cross 31-Yale 28”
Completely a self-inflicted loss.
Just about every big play was called back for a penalty. Those penalties, and the two turnovers deep in HC territory kept HC in striking distance.
The defense was not bad for the most part, but fell apart on those last two drives.
On the plus side, 294 yards rushing and 510 yards total offense will win most games. And it could have been more with the long runs called back for penalties.
Lots of things to be worked on this week.
Great Drama . What happened to our pass defense ? Wonder how Yale’s two early quick strike scores affected our determination ?
Did these quick scores give us a false sense of superiority ?
Gulp! Holy Cross is the weakest team on Yale’s schedule. I can’t believe they can come close to Yale’s recruiting program. Again, Yale is very suspect on pass defense.
Same old yale same old plays Who do you think is going to get the ball when there is only one back in the backfield. Any one here of a QB SNEAK. Or kick the dam field goal. I know one play does not make a season but the D-B should turn there heads once in a while to see where the ball is.
Simply no reason not to kick that FG in OT. We did not need a TD to stay in the game and by converting it and going on to score 7, it didn’t win the game for us. Kick the FG, give your defense the chance to shut them down or force them to kick too. Basic football. Reno gambles too much, sometimes he wins but mostly he craps out like yesterday.
I’m willing to give the coaching staff the benefit of the doubt on some of their bad decisions in yesterday’s game and chalk it up to their overconfidence on being able to gamble and go for the Dufek run instead of the fg as well as the earlier failed trick play – wr pass to the qb. Lets hope Reno learns something from yesterday’s mistakes.
Yale didn’t lose the game because of bad decisions. We lost because a young opposing coach fired up his team, made the right decision in changing the qb (who was the mvp of the game) and exploited the weaknesses in the Yale offensive line and Yale defense. Looking ahead, Yale is going to face a lot more teams in the rest of their schedule with even more firepower than Holy Cross. The reality is the Yale defense lost a lot of stars from graduation and most recently some of their replacements have already been injured. The kind of hard hitting tackles that were so prevalent last season were saliently missing yesterday and most likely in future games as well.
Reminds me of the Dartmouth game last year, where Yale came out like a fire engine in the first half and then mailed it in in the second, only to have been caught at the end. I’m confused – is it too much of the same old predictable plays or too much gambling on trick plays?
Rarely are there many complaints when predictable plays and or trick ones succeed and coaches produce a championship season. Over the many decades of watching Yale’s game plans under different head coaches, predictable or non predictable isn’t a major factor in terms of a successful season. It’s having more talent and better execution on offense and defense than the opposing team.
We played HC without our top receiver J.P. Shofi, and we lost Rouse in the first half. That hurt our passing game.
Any idea why Shofi was held out or the extent of Rouse’s injury? Getting them back could be crucial vs Cornell.
Shofi has a minor hamstring strain.
There is no such thing as a “minor” hamstring strain….they are all dangerous to skill guys.
Shofi was quite active on the sidelines. Can’t be hurt to seriously.
Same offense everyone knows where the ball is going. You would think the coaches would know that to. Sat they needed a fullback 4 blocking not one to be found. Could be a long year the offense got beat up and so did the defense.Yale to light on the defense line no pass rush We got spoiled last year with our defense. On to cornell hope for better things.
Yale did not get beat my holy cross yale got beat by reno.
Let’s not panic yet. It was one game, the first game, and this team has a lot of weapons on offense.
The defense played fairly well until the last two drives and stuffed HC in overtime. Unfortunately, they had a good FG kicker.
Let’s give these guys 3 or 4 games before reaching any conclusions.
If not for the penalties which negated several big plays, Yale would have won and nobody would be complaining.
If nothing improves going forward, then it will be time to worry.
As long as Dudek and Rawlings stay healthy, and the injured receivers come back soon, we will be in every game on the schedule.
Once again, the NH Register does not even send a reporter to cover the game.
I’m sure the coaching staff and the entire team is angry and embarrassed about this loss. 21-0, 28-7, 28-14 with 5 minutes left, 0 points in the second half despite 500 yards in total offense. I believe this team is counting the hours down to the Ivy opener at Cornell.
The single back spread option offense we run exclusively is frustrating to me. All 11 Holy Cross guys knew Dudek was getting the ball. He is a superb back, was the 100 Meter Champion in Pennsylvania, but he is not a helicopter and can’t fly away when being mobbed by defenders.
For the spread to be effective you need to incorporate misdirection jet sweeps and the QB Rawlings has to effectively run the ball himself and throw the ball well. Rawlings has to be better all around, IMO.
As I said preseason, with this talent develop some two back sequences. We don’t want Dudek taking monster hits every game and he will with this offense. Take advantage of his speed by giving him more carries where he is getting the ball on the move instead of waiting for the QB to “read” and leave it in his belly.
The good news is this was not an Ivy loss and the drive killing penalties can be cleaned up. The staff should be better together in their second game, as will the players. The ’76 team lost a tough one to a great Brown team in game one and proceeded to win the rest of their games and a shared Ivy title. This team 146 still has a clean Ivy slate but has to get better in a hurry……..I’m thinking they have it in them and will blow out Cornell on the field turf in Ithaca. Circling Friday October 5th and Dartmouth as the true indicator of what we have this year.
The 1967 team lost their opener and then won the rest as well. They lost to Holy Cross.
It should also be noted that the 1999 team also lost the opener to Brown then won the next nine.
Sorry, I just noticed how often I misspell Zane’s last name on the message boards with Yale’s qb Joe Dufek who played for the Bills in the early 1980s.
Seemed that they switched from a 4 man front on the D line to a 3 Man about the end of the first quarter and never went back.
Keeler looked strong in the middle of the 3, taking the majority of the snaps and rotating with Crowle, but he looked understandably tired in the fourth quarter. I assume the other linemen were injured as Matthaei didn’t get back on the field having been the starting nose tackle? No sign of Fraser or James except punt block?
The pre-game press said coaches would be rotating the D line as early on in the season and with the humidity, but that didn’t happen in the interior either in personnel or system. Was this injury related? Was it a coincidence that HC scored freely late on in the game?
I thought blitzing Foye and Oplinger most downs last year was very effective. Didn’t seem to yield the same reward this game, but didn’t stop them trying almost every down.
Nothing will change .Even at spring practice they ran the same plays. My grandmother knew who was getting the ball. Every one in the stands knows what the play will be.You would think the coaches wood know that to. What a waste of talent .
The offense moved the ball well. It might be the same offense but the only thing that stopped them on Saturday were turnovers, penalties, and coaching decision’s. Holy Cross couldn’t stop the offense at the end of the 2nd quarter and for some reason Reno call’s a trick play ? It would of been game over if we scored on that drive. If the offense is healthy we will score a lot of points this season.
Great Game, tough game, Fitton Field always a hard place to play. I thought Yale was gonna score 50 points.
I counted over a dozen missed tackles in that game. Fundamental’s were out the window. If they made half of those tackles it would have made a difference.
Those young men played their asses off. They tried their best. They ran into buzzsaw. Looked like a mobile MASH unit.
Get away from the trick plays, Don’t get you’re QB hurt. Would have liked to see Trenton “I’m not from New Jersey “Charles, get that ball.
That team can only get better, hopefully the coaching staff learns from their mistakes.
Go Bulldogs.!!!
HOW ABOUT DRESSING AND USING TATE GOODYEAR IN THE DEFENSIVE LINE ? HE HAS GOOD SIZE AND IS STRONG . HE COULD ROTATE WITH OTHER DEF. LINEMEN. I AGREE WITH JON H. THERE WERE TOO MANY MISSED TACKLES BY THE DEFENSE.
Ray, He was on the sideline also, not dressed as well.?
JON,
HE WAS NOT DRESSED IN A YALE UNIFORM ONLY STREET CLOTHES.
The injury report this week is important….are we looking at quick recovery or did we lose key players for the season.
Losing three key members of the staff in the off-season had a predictable effect in the first game against an opponent playing their third.
Embrace the opportunity for improvement in all areas, get by Cornell and get healthy for the October 5th Friday night Dartmouth game. Win that one and this team will be in it all year.
What “injury report?” Yale has been notorious in guarding information about the injury status of its players, even those officially listed on the two-deep. E.g. we only found out that Shofi was not playing when we saw him in his game shirt, but no pads, on the sideline. Why didn’t “starters” Jack Lee and Charles Callender play? What are the statuses of OLs Neagli, Jost, and Sexton?
SEXTON IS OUT FOR THE YEAR. I BELIEVE IT MIGHT BE AN ISSUE WITH HIS BACK.
I simply don’t understand all these injuries over the last few years. Granted , I’m an old-timer. In my senior year Yale won the first ever Ivy League title with an undefeated Ivy League season. I don’t recall people getting hurt on that team, and season-ending injuries were practically unheard of. And in those days PLAYERS PLAYED BOTH WAYS! Yes, they had to play offense and defense. Denny McGill, our All-Ivy running back, was also one of the best defensive backs in the league!
Yale’s injury problem was the subject of an excellent YDN expose two years ago. As I recall it focused on the lack of sufficient # of trainers and expressed the views of oft injured players like Tyler Varga. Injuries affect all Ivy teams but the YDN article certainly raised some troubling issues. Last year’s injuries were fewer than preceding ones and no doubt helped in achieving the 9-1 season. This early in the season Yale is already being impacted by a disconcerting # of starters who are injured and as “Anonymous” indicated above no clear picture of the injury situation can be expected from Reno.
I can say the training staff/doctors are very much improved from that article from 2 years ago
That’s good to know, but what remains troubling is that it took some diligent YDN journalists to expose the problems before the people responsible for keeping our players healthy finally took some remedial action.