Even Harvard special teams handily outplayed its Bison opponents. Facing winds exceeding 20 mph, sophomore kicker David Mothander squibbed the kickoffs most of the day.

On one particularly bizarre play, the Crimson recovered a loose ball on a squib that trickled into the red zone, giving Harvard excellent field position. Chapple took advantage, scoring just over a minute into the drive.

“[The ball] bounced around a little bit. I was coming from the outside, and it kind of just squirted out,” Gedeon said of the recovered kick. “A couple of our guys got down there and hit the Bucknell guy trying to pick it up and I was able just to fall on the ball.”

The Crimson had a sloppy start to the game. Just two plays in, junior running back Treavor Scales fumbled on the Harvard 29, giving the Bison excellent field position about three minutes in.

But after an unsuccessful fourth-down conversion, Harvard got the ball back and controlled the pace of the game, though it didn’t score until the end of the quarter. With no time on the clock in the first, Chapple hit junior tight end Kyle Juszczyk in the end zone to give Harvard the 7-0 edge.

“We had been running slants in the first half and ... the safety bit right away, as soon as I made my slant cut,” Juszczyk said. “We just went over the top ... You always getting a little nervous when the ball is hanging in the air there, and you see the defender chasing you.”

But two touchdowns early in the second quarter—a 27-yard pass to senior wide receiver Alex Sarkisian and a 9-yarder to sophomore tight end Cameron Brate set up by the recovered squib kick—put the game out of reach early on.

Both tight ends added second touchdown catches later in the game, and Juszczyk’s reception five minutes into the quarter all but sealed the win. Bucknell only managed to avoid a shutout when Bison defensive back Bryce Robertson brought a Pruneau interception to the Harvard two-yard line, setting up a field goal with three minutes left in the third.

“This is a team we felt we should have beat, but nevertheless came in with a great deal of focus and intensity right from the start, led by our defense,” Murphy said. “Our defense never gave them a chance today.”

—Staff writer E. Benjamin Samuels can be reached at samuels@college.harvard.edu.