Senior Chris Pizzotti will be asked to do much this weekend for a struggling Crimson squad. Coming off another heart-breaking, last minute lost this past weekend, Harvard is looking for an answer, and Pizzotti, who posts an astounding 4-0 record as a star

For senior Corey Mazza, the memory of the last time the Crimson traveled to Ithaca, N.Y., to play Cornell is still fresh. The game—an eventual 27-13 pounding at the hands of the Big Red—came on a cold and rainy day that, mixed with Cornell’s signature astroturf, ended with a road-loss worse than any since.

Mazza watched from the sideline two years ago, having sustained a season-ending ankle injury two games earlier, but he’ll be healthy tomorrow, when the Big Red (2-1, 0-1 Ivy) hosts the Crimson (2-1, 0-1) in a 1 p.m. contest at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca.

“It was about as miserable as I’ve ever seen on a field,” Mazza said of the conditions two seasons ago. “They have old-school astroturf, so everyone’s going to be wearing new shoes, making cuts on a surface we’re not familiar with.”

Harvard won’t only need to adjust to the unfamiliar surface. The team will see a new starting quarterback behind center, as senior Chris Pizzotti makes his 2007 debut as a starter. He will be filling in for senior Liam O’Hagan, who is out indefinitely after dislocating his shoulder in last weekend’s 20-13 loss at Lehigh.

Maybe it will bode well for the Crimson, though—Pizzotti was the starter last year when Harvard beat Cornell 33-23 at home.

“This is not a normal backup quarterback coming in to play,” Mazza said.

The Big Red returns a number of starters from the team of a year ago, and despite a blow-out loss to Yale two weeks ago, Crimson coach Tim Murphy said he expects another difficult road trip this time out.

“Offensively, they’re throwing the heck out of the football, something they haven’t done in a long time at Cornell, and they’re doing it with success,” Murphy said. “They also haven’t had a single fumble this year. They’re a good team, there’s not question about it.”

Quarterback Nathan Ford continues to lead the Big Red offense, and he’s coming off a 201-yard performance in last week’s 45-7 win over Georgetown. A stout Harvard secondary will probably force the ball into the hands of running back Luke Siwula, who’s ranked fifth all-time on the Cornell rushing list.

The Crimson run game will welcome back sophomore Cheng Ho, who sat out the Lehigh game with a shoulder injury. He’s slated to get the bulk of the carries against the Big Red, but freshman Gino Gordon will also see the field after registering 69 yards on 20 carries last week.

“What we’ve got to do is get both those guys to play, and try to get them a couple of different looks, because he and Cheng are different types of runners,” Murphy said.

The Cornell defense has a history of success against Harvard running backs, however. Clifton Dawson never broke 100 yards in four tries against the Big Red, forcing O’Hagan and Pizzotti to try and beat them through the year—with mixed results.

“I don’t know how they’re going to try to play us this year, but we have a lot of good receivers, so they can’t just focus on one,” Mazza said. “But if they try to stop the pass, we’re going to have to grind it out and get yards with the running backs.”

The past two weeks have seen the Crimson put together one of its best stretches on third-down conversions in recent memory. After holding the Lehigh offense to 0-for-11 on third-down conversions last week, opposing teams are 1-for-23 on third-down conversions in Harvard’s last two games. It will have to hold up against a Big Red offense that converted nearly half of its third down opportunities last week.

Murphy said he’s confident that the success in closing out drives will continue tomorrow afternoon.

“We’re good up front, we’re good in the middle, we’re good on the back end,” Murphy said of the defense.

The game will be the Crimson’s third road contest in the season’s first four weeks, the precursor to three straight home games and the meat of the Ivy League season. Harvard has lost three straight games on the road dating back to last season, and four of five overall.

Last week’s setback came despite a defensive effort that didn’t give up an offensive touchdown. Lehigh scored once on a fumble return and once via a punt return, making special teams a point of emphasis during practice this week.

“We’ve thought about possibly putting some starters back there,” Murphy said of the special teams unit. “We put a ton of emphasis on it. We have to execute better, because clearly, we’re struggling a little bit.”

The fact that those struggles have come predominantly in non-conference contests means that the Ivy League is still up for grabs, which makes tomorrow’s game against Cornell just a little bit more important than the previous two road contests.

“We’re still undefeated in league, and that’s got to be the focus of the team,” Mazza said. “We can’t focus on what happened last week. We’ve got to bounce back.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.