A fumble by Flynn at the opening of[Pg 164] the third period gave the ball to Harvard, and in the scrimmage Brickley dashed eighteen yards for the second touchdown. He caught a Yale forward pass a few minutes later and ran forty-two yards, and, after a few plays, kicked the ball over the cross bar for the second field goal.
At no stage of the game did Yale have a chance to win, and only once did the team have a chance to score. That opportunity came during the fourth period, when they showed a versatility of attack that fairly swept the crimson eleven off their feet and brought the ball in a steady series of rushes over a stretch of sixty yards before it was lost on downs. But the flash came too late, and while it was at its height the most optimistic of the blue supporters could see nothing more than a chance to blot out the ignominy of a scoreless defeat.
What Yale did not do would fill a volume. Failure to catch punts was the great fault, a fault which happened so often that it might be called a habit. Wheeler muffed one in the opening period which paved the way for the first Harvard touchdown; Flynn missed one in the third period and opened the avenue for the other. Between times the ball was dropping from Eli arms so often that it seemed strange when it was caught.
Harvard’s splendidly finished team, good in all around play, worked to its limit a consistent kicking game against a team unable to handle punts. Little effort was made to test the strength of the blue line. The crimson offense was based almost entirely on getting down the field under Felton’s high spiral punts and taking advantage of the slippery fingers of Wheeler and Flynn. When stopped from tackle to tackle, they twice used fake plays with wide end runs for clever gains.
As in all this season’s games, the[Pg 165] brilliancy of Brickley’s running and goal kicking outshone the individual play of his team-mates. Twice he intercepted Yale forward passes, one of which he turned into a run of forty-two yards. The second touchdown was due solely to his speed down the field and to his keen eye in recovering Flynn’s muff, which he converted into a touchdown in the next scrimmage. He scored two out of his four attempts at field goals and missed the other two by a few feet.
Bomeisler, Yale’s star end, although twice taken out of the game because of the old injury to his shoulder, did the most remarkable work seen on Yale field since the days of Tom Shevlin. He was down the field like a race-horse under Lefty Flynn’s punts, and besides tackling with unerring accuracy, he threw himself so hard that the man was forced back considerably from the spot where he caught the ball.
Yale won the toss and chose to defend the north goal, the Crimson facing the sun. Flynn kicked off for Yale. The ball sailed behind the Harvard goal and was taken out to Harvard’s 20-yard line for scrimmage. Felton, on first down, kicked it back to the Yale 20-yard line. Flynn’s short kick drove the ball out of bounds at the Eli 40-yard line. Harvard’s backs then crashed through irresistibly until they reached the 20-yard line. The Yale defense grew compact at her 20-yard line, and two of Wendell’s smashes netted only a yard apiece. On the third down Brickley tried his first drop kick for goal, the ball going outside of the upright. Flynn punted to Harvard’s 40-yard line and Felton immediately returned it to the Yale 20-yard mark. A 15-yard penalty set Yale back to her 5-yard line. Flynn’s beautiful punt was muffed by Gardner at the Harvard 40-yard line, but it was recovered by Hardwick. Felton[Pg 166] punted out of bounds at Yale’s 40-yard line. Twice the Felton-Flynn duel brought exchanges of kicks without gains. The last Felton effort, however, dropped the ball into Wheeler’s lap and he muffed squarely. Storer seized it at the Yale 30-yard line and, aided by splendid interference by O’Brien and Parmenter, tore all the rest of the way for a touchdown. Hardwick kicked the goal. Score: Harvard 6, Yale 0.
Flynn kicked off behind the Harvard goal, and, from the Harvard 20-yard line, Felton immediately returned it. Yale was now in a panic, and Wheeler’s second muff dropped the ball under three sliding Harvard tacklers at the Yale 30-yard line. Yale got in hotter water through a 15-yard penalty, but Wendell’s plunges were held till third down, when Brickley registered Harvard’s second score through a faultless drop-kicked goal from the Yale 30-yard line. Following Felton’s return of Flynn’s kick-off, the first period closed. Score: Harvard 10, Yale 0.
[The detailed report of the other quarters follows,
and then the line-up is given.]
The line-up: