Colton Chapple

In the final game of senior quarterback Colton Chapple’s collegiate career, Crimson coach Tim Murphy called a screen pass, and the quarterback was not happy about it.

“[Chapple] goes, ‘Coach, that play stinks, don’t run that play,’” Murphy recalled. “I [said] ‘hey, just shut up and play,’ but he was basically right.”

The senior’s willingness to speak up and his understanding of the game were not things that would have come naturally to the signal caller just a few years ago. But Chapple’s confident leadership in the year’s final contest—a 34-24 win over Yale in which he scored three touchdowns, including a four-yard pass to junior Cameron Brate to give Harvard the lead with three minutes to go—represented the culmination of a career that began with a one-to-one touchdown-to-interception ratio and ended with the greatest statistical season any Harvard quarterback has ever had.

During the 2012 campaign, Chapple was the architect of the highest-scoring offense in the history of the Ancient Eight. The Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year threw 24 touchdown passes and accounted for 3,169 yards of total offense, both Crimson records, while also finishing second in the Football Championship Subdivision in passing efficiency. In a 39-34 loss to Princeton on Oct. 20, Chapple broke the Harvard single-game passing mark with 448 yards while tying his own record with five touchdown passes.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever had a kid that’s ever played better,” Murphy said. “In terms of clutch performances game after game, just pinpoint accuracy, tremendous decision making.... He’s as good as anybody that’s ever played here.”

To get to that elite level, Chapple evolved as both a player and a leader over the course of his career.

Despite not being a major recruit, the Alpharetta, Ga., native got to work early in an effort to develop chemistry with his incoming teammates. The summer before coming to Harvard, Chapple traveled to nearby Dunwoody High School to throw passes to Treavor Scales, his future classmate and running back.

“He already had a grasp of some of the concepts we were running here at Harvard before we got [to school],” Scales recalled. “From that point on, I saw his leadership capabilities, and I saw too that he had one heck of a mental grasp on the game.”

Despite that mental acumen, Chapple struggled when called upon for the first time. Tasked with filling in for injured quarterbacks Andrew Hatch ’11 and Collier Winters ’12 during his sophomore season, Chapple completed just 48.8 percent of his passes and threw as many interceptions as touchdowns in three starts in 2010.

But within a year, Chapple had moved up to number two on the depth chart, and this time, when his opportunity came along after Winters injured his hamstring in the team’s season opener, the quarterback was ready to excel.

With Murphy able to take the reins off the passer in a way he hadn’t been able to a year prior, Chapple led his team to a 4-0 record during which the Crimson outscored its opponents, 138-44. The junior threw for 414 yards—second-most in Crimson history—in a shootout win over Cornell, then followed that up by tying a Harvard record with five touchdown passes a week later against Bucknell. But despite those performances, Winters was handed back his starting job in week six, and he kept it for the rest of the year.

This season, then, was the first time that Harvard was truly Chapple’s team. Finally first on the depth chart, the senior was dominant in 2012, putting up gaudy statistics despite often being pulled in the second half when his team was ahead by multiple touchdowns.

“He didn’t have a cannon for an arm, and yet...he just made play, after play, after play,” Murphy said. “He at times amazed us.”

“He really [put up] some numbers that are unbelievable,” Scales said. “The fact that he was setting records in three quarters of football—in a half—it’s astounding.”

In addition to setting numerous passing marks inside the pocket, the quarterback was also a major threat to scramble. His 602 rushing yards were fifth-best in the conference and tops among signal callers.