The game wasn't over yet, of course, and Harvard added two more touchdowns before yielding a meaningless last-minute touchdown to Dartmouth, but the result seemed effectively decided by the momentum shift of Golla's score.
Dartmouth, in fairness, played without its first-string quarterback, Ren Riley, and its star running back, Pete Oberle, both of whom suffered injuries in the last few weeks, but no excuses came from the angry Big Green.
"This is a flat embarrassment," Dartmouth co-captain Josh Bloom said. "We just got blown out. They did whatever the hell they wanted. I don't know how to describe it--it's sickening."
Harvard also played without a key player, junior tailback Kweli Thompson, who stayed home due to bruised ribs, but Hu picked up the slack by carrying the ball a career-high 38 times.
"It didn't really affect me," Hu said of the increased workload. "Of course you're going to get tired at some point, but [the coaches] also put Brian Cohen [a junior fullback] in, which helped."
Hu and his teammates on offense confronted a Dartmouth defense that entered the game ranked tenth in the country in Division I-AA, but that fact didn't seem to faze them.
"[The Dartmouth defenders] were up there with Cornell and Princeton, but the main thing was that our fullbacks could take out their linebackers, which made my job easy, and of course Vinny had a spectacular day," Hu said.
On this gray, wintry day, it was Harvard's defense, not Dartmouth's that turned scrooge-like.
Junior rover Kevin Dwan led the way, as usual, with 17 tackles, while senior defensive back David St. Peter chipped in eight and senior end Doug Anderson added seven Freshman Jeff Compas and junior Clete Johnson filled out the picture of complete domination with one interception each.
"It was a really great game," Hu said. "If our offense and defense keep playing together like that, we could finish 7-3. That's our goal. But right now, we're just thinking about Brown next week."