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Harvard football coach Tim Murphy is running out of fingers for his championship rings. In the program’s storied history, the squad has collected 16 titles, half of which have come during Murphy’s tenure. But this year’s ring will feel a little heavier—a little more special.
For just the second time in over a century, the Crimson ended the season with a 10-0 record. In many ways, this team was an unlikely one to accomplish the feat. The secondary was one of the youngest in the league, boasting just one senior in captain Norman Hayes. Both starting running backs, as well as multiple veteran receivers, battled injuries throughout the season. After senior Conner Hempel had a breakout season last year, the quarterback situation was thrust into uncertainty when Hempel became sidelined for much of the season with an injured back.
However, through all the adversity, this team managed to do what only one other Harvard team had done in over 100 years. The secondary came together under Hayes’s leadership to become the top passing defense in the league. Junior Scott Hosch stepped up to fill in for Hempel, producing plays that kept the Crimson’s streak alive, including a late touchdown pass in the Crimson’s penultimate game against Penn to help keep the perfect season intact.
“I think from day one it definitely seemed like a possibility, but I think the biggest thing that we did was take it one game at a time,” said junior wide receiver Andrew Fischer. “We never looked toward the 10th game, or the ninth game, or the eighth game; it was always the next day, getting better and making sure that we had the ability to go for that run.”
For this group of seniors, the feat is especially sweet. Two years ago, Harvard gave up a large lead late in the fourth quarter to break up its perfect season and lost the Ivy title three weeks later at Penn. Last season, the Crimson came even closer to the elusive 10-0, dropping just a triple-overtime match against the Tigers and taking home a share of the championship.
This year, on Princeton’s home turf, Harvard built a 35-point lead heading into the fourth quarter en route to a 49-7 beatdown. A few weeks later, in Philadelphia, Hosch and company led a late comeback to set the stage for one of the biggest Harvard-Yale games in Ivy League history. And when Hempel connected with Fischer with less than a minute left in the Game to give the Crimson the final lead, he also solidified the place of the 2014 football squad in the history books.
“I think every championship team is special and every championship team is unique,” Murphy said. “Does it make it just a tad more unique when you have a perfect season? Does it make it a tad more unique in the fashion that our kids and coaches accomplished it? Absolutely.”