Senior defensive end MARC LABORSKY (bottom) sacks Penn quarterback GAVIN HOFFMAN in Harvard's Ivy-clinching 28-21 win.

A Friday afternoon pep rally. Buzz and hype around campus for a sporting event unrelated to Yale. President Summers pants almost falling down during the halftime show.

But for all that was different off the field surrounding the Harvard-Penn football game, the product on it was exactly as expected.

In leading Harvard to a 28-21 victory and the Ivy League championship, the Crimsons usual suspects -- guys like Neil Rose, Carl Morris and Willie Alford -- played at the top form they had displayed all season.

No doubt this was a special and remarkable game. The Crimson had not defeated Penn in three years, and no current undergraduate was alive the last time it had an 8-0 record.

But the actual game went according to plan--Harvard's plan. The battle between two Ivy giants was as much a contest of emotion as it was pure football acumen.

"We did exactly what we said we had to do to win the football game," Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said.

The Quakers knew it as well.

"It was the game everbody expected," Penn Coach Al Bagnoli added.

Harvard's modus operandi this season has been to use the rushing game as a setup for the explosive passing attack. Senior Josh Staph and junior Nick Palazzo, the Crimson's "Thunder and Lightning" backfield duo, have combined to give Harvard the league's leading rush total.

The Crimson averaged 46 rushing attempts per game, with 189 yards per game, in its first seven contests. Of course, the respected Quaker defense ranked first in Division I-AA against the run, giving up only 1.6 yards per carry. Most opposing teams this season had given up running the ball, averaging only 27 attempts against Penn.

On Saturday, Staph and Palazzo were fearless, often running straight into the heart of that defense. Like most weeks, the Crimson finished with 145 rushing yards on 44 attempts.

"We were going to come out running the football, because nobody in the league had been able to do that against Penn," Murphy said. "That was a psychological thing, saying, 'Hey, this is what you do best, but were going to show you right now we can run the ball.'"

For the most part, Harvard had all the psychological advantages.

On the other side of the ball, Penn's bruising back Kris Ryan was the leagues leading rusher and its top scorer, averaging nearly five yards per carry. Take away his 66-yard touchdown run in the first quarter, and Ryan gained only three yards each time he carried the ball.

The passing game was also clicking for Harvard, as it had in previous wins over Columbia and Cornell. Similarly, Neil Rose and Co. were facing a Penn defense that had only given up five passing TDs all season, and only 212 yards a game.