NEW HAVEN, Conn.—Numbers alone won’t tell you what happened yesterday.

34-64, 438. Those are the final stats on Yale quarterback Alvin Cowan, in completions, attempts and passing yards. That last figure is a new Bulldog record. So is 466, representing Cowan’s total offensive yardage on the day.

158, 132, 94, 91. Those are the yards amassed by each of Yale’s top four receivers—Ralph Plumb, Nate Lawrie, Ron Benigno and Chandler Henley.

32:46. That was Yale’s time of possession during The Game. The Bulldogs held the ball more than five minutes longer than Harvard did.

Nevertheless, despite these mind-blowing offensive statistics, it was the sheer mastery of the Crimson defense that ultimately keyed the victory for Harvard.

All day long, the Crimson blitz had Cowan—the Ivy League’s top-rated passer—scrambling backwards and sideways, going to extremes to get rid of the ball. And though Cowan was sacked only twice, he was hit—and hit hard—by captain linebacker Dante Balestracci and junior linebacker Bobby Everett on several occasions and hurried on countless others.

Cowan said he did not think he had been pressured that much all year.

“[Harvard] lead[s] the league in sacks for a reason,” Cowan said.

“They were coming,” said Plumb, who had 15 catches. “[Cowan] had little or no time.”

But even if Cowan was forced to struggle all game to avoid ending up on a stretcher, he still performed well under the pressure, leading Division I-AA’s second-best offense down the field on numerous occasions.

So what was Yale’s problem? How did the Bulldogs end up with 19 points, their lowest total of the entire season—a number Plumb called “laughable”?

Harvard’s red-zone defense was stingy. Very stingy.

So stingy that, in six tries within the Crimson 20-yard line, Yale could only score one touchdown and kick two field goals.

So stingy that the same team that scored three fourth-quarter touchdowns to overcome a 24-3 deficit against Penn at one point this season could not muster that many scores against Harvard in the entire game yesterday.

“We made the big stop, and all of a sudden they realized this wasn’t just going to be like the Penn game,” said Harvard coach Tim Murphy.