"In my 21years of coaching, I've never had something like this happen before," he said after Harvard blew a 13 point lead with 4:00 to go at Cornell in 1999. "Cornell deserved to win, but not because they were the better team."

When a team falls victim to a comeback once, any number of factors can contribute to the collapse, including rotten luck. After a point, however, the situation reaches its dew point and the blame must fall somewhere.

For example, in 1999 Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman completed a Hail Mary pass at the buzzer after his foot appeared to cross the line of scrimmage. That can only be chalked up to pure luck. However, when Hoffman pulled the trick again this year--erasing a five-point deficit with just three minutes to go--things become more suspicious.

Only two areas can explain such a discrepancy: preparation and play calling. Both reflect upon the coaching staff, and a closer examination of recent defeats will highlight Harvard's deficiency in each area.

Against Penn, Harvard had the ball with about three minutes remaining and a five-point lead. Instead of trying to run out the clock, Murphy turned to the air on second down (Rose ended up running anyway) and passed again on third down. Harvard could've whittled another minute off of the game clock before punting.

It didn't, and instead Penn had a full two minutes to orchestrate a game-winning drive.

On Saturday, Harvard was buried by interceptions. The Crimson turned the ball over on nearly every possession in the fourth quarter, raising questions about the team's preparation for just this sort of (familiar) situation.