Brady attempted 47 passes, 30 in a frantic second half, but completed less than 40 percent. He was sacked seven times, hurried dozens more and rarely had time to set his feet.
Though the tackles combined for only two sacks—both by McCafferty—they helped make all the others possible.
“The defensive ends get a lot of the sacks,” said Murphy, whose ends accounted for three sacks on the afternoon, “but we are getting tremendous pressure from our inside guys. I tell you what, they were rocking the pocket. You could just see it collapse every time they dropped back to pass.”
In a matchup billed as the meeting of Division I-AA’s top two offenses, it was a defensive gem—the combination of a great game plan and beautiful execution.
And it all started at the line of scrimmage, with four defensive tackles setting the tone.
As Murphy said, it’s what’s up front that counts.
—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.