Sometimes, a single play can foreshadow a full season of frustration.

For the Yale offense, such an omen came the first week of the season against Dayton. Leading 24-17 and marching down the field in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs were primed to score again and salt away their first win of the season.

“We ran a play-action pass, a one-man route to [Chandler] Henley,” says Yale’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Joel Lamb. “He was open and we didn’t connect. A year ago, those were the plays that we made.”

A year ago, things were much different for the Yale offense and its leader, quarterback Alvin Cowan. 2003 was an unforgettable season for the senior from Austin, Texas—Cowan set Yale records for passing yards (2,994), TDs (22), yards of total offense (3,429), and completions (227), while leading the Bulldogs to a 6-4 mark. Set to return to the Elm City for one last season, Cowan was a popular preseason pick for Ivy League player of the year, and expectations were at an all-time high for Yale’s offensive production.

This year, however, hasn’t unfolded the way Cowan foresaw it.

“Our whole team came in with high expectations, myself included,” Cowan said after Yale’s loss to Brown, “and to say that a 4-4 record was what we were shooting for would be a lie.”

Cowan was certainly shooting for a better individual season than he has had to this point. Through nine games, Cowan was 157-279 for 1,909 yards passing, with 16 touchdown passes against nine interceptions—numbers that look pedestrian when compared to his record-setting stats from ’03.

“I don’t feel like I’ve performed badly,” Cowan says. “The way we ran our offense this year, I felt that I performed pretty well.”

Yale decided to alter its offensive philosophy prior to the season, moving from the pass-heavy attack that produced Cowan’s breakout season to a more balanced offense that relied to a greater extent on the talents of tailback Robert Carr.

“At the end of [last] year looking back, there were games where we threw the ball 40, 50, 60 times and ended up losing, and we thought that that offensive strategy wasn’t getting it done in terms of winning games,” Cowan says. “We made a conscious choice to get Rob the ball more often—we felt like he needed to get back in the game, and get more touches.”

Carr has certainly been more involved in the offense this season. He has averaged nine more carries a game than last year, and his rushing yardage has jumped from 800 all last season to 1,129 through Saturday. At 5-4, however, Yale sits one game worse than it did last year entering the Harvard game.

“Maybe if we had thrown the ball more we would have been more successful,” Carr says. “You can’t rule out that idea of going to a more balanced attack as one of the reasons that we’ve lost.”

Carr’s more prominent role in Yale’s offense has certainly affected Cowan’s ability to run the ball, an important aspect of his game and Yale’s offensive production.

“Alvin is a very intense player, a great competitor,” Lamb says, “and one of the ways to get that emotion out is by running the ball…it almost loosens him up a little bit.”

Cowan has netted just three yards on the ground with zero touchdowns. Last year, he scrambled for 435 yards and seven scores.