That set up a wild final possession for Princeton. Michelsen was hurried on first down by senior Nnamdi Obukwelu, leading to an incompletion. But then he completed a 15-yard pass, and then an eight-yard pass after another incompletion. A sack knocked Michelsen out of the game with less than a minute to go, but Epperly was effective after coming in, eventually heaving a pass into the back corner of the end zone that was brought down by Wilson.
"Roman [Wilson] is a great matchup and we needed to get the ball down the field so I took a shot," Epperly said. "And Roman came down with it."
Billed as one of the Crimson’s toughest tests of the year, the contest was a blowout early on as the visitors jumped out to a 20-0 lead.
On the second drive of the game, senior quarterback Colton Chapple found junior Ricky Zorn streaking down the sideline for a 52-yard score.
Attempting to respond, the Tigers went three-and-out on their next drive and senior D.J. Monroe blocked a punt attempt to give his offense the ball at Princeton’s 16-yard line.
One play later, the score was 14-0 thanks to a 16-yard pass from Chapple to Juszczyk. Chapple found Juszczyk again on the team’s next drive after two red-zone penalties had forced Harvard into a first-and-30 situation.
Yet Harvard had its extra-point attempt blocked after Juszczyk’s second touchdown, the first of several miscues that took points off the board for the visitor.
A fumble by senior running back Treavor Scales inside Princeton’s 30 and a Chapple interception in the end zone both ended scoring threats deep in Tiger territory.
"It’s a game where we could have scored 50," Murphy said. "We did some things really well, but we just had too many missed opportunities."
Princeton managed just 46 yards through the air between the two quarterbacks it rotated in and out in the first half, and the running game was just as ineffective as a slew of runners combined for just five yards at halftime.
—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.