Sole possession atop the Ivy League, as well as some long-awaited revenge will be at stake at 1 p.m. tomorrow when the Harvard football team takes the field against preseason co-favorite Cornell in its biggest game of the season to date.
Last season Harvard (2-1, 1-0 Ivy) blew a 13-point lead with just over three minutes to play in a 24-23 loss to the Big Red (1-2, 1-0 this season). The Crimson dominated the majority of the game but committed several costly penalties, including a crucial defensive holding call which nullified an interception on fourth down and allowed Cornell to continue its comeback.
"We should have won that game last year," said sophomore receiver Carl Morris. "It's something we all have at the back of our minds, and we're all looking forward to getting another shot at them."
Harvard Coach Tim Murphy, however, downplayed last year's contest, citing the loss of most of the key players on last year's team to graduation.
"Not many of the kids that play on this year's team played in last year's game," Murphy said. "Sure, that was an unfortunate loss, but that doesn't have a lot to do with us now."
A Harvard victory would extend its winning streak to three and would move a half-game ahead of Pennsylvania and Princeton in the Ivy League standings (the Tigers and Quakers play non-conference foes this week).
With a win the Crimson would have a good chance to be undefeated in conference going into the final two weeks of the season, with games against struggling teams like Dartmouth and Columbia coming up.
A loss, however, would put Cornell in the conference driver's seat. The Big Red has already beaten conference co-favorite Yale
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