“I thought it was a great team effort,” Murphy said. “Not a particularly pretty game...but the effort was really outstanding. We had a lot of room for improvement, but we played really hard…. We have to eliminate mistakes, and if we can do that we’ll be a good football team.”

In the absence of role players on offense, the defense stepped up to provide consistency for Harvard. However, the unit was playing with a depleted linebacking corps as well. As with last week, the Crimson was forced to roll down safeties to fill in the linebacking spots, consistently playing with five defensive backs.

“[Defensive Coordinator Scott Larkee] always puts us in the right position to make plays, and going into this game we knew the game plan was pretty simple,” senior defensive tackle James Duberg said. “Once we established and showed them that they couldn’t run the ball on us, they had to go away from that and it ended up being a passing game.”

But the secondary stepped up. Specifically, senior cornerback Raishaun McGhee appeared to be playing with a chip on his shoulder after being ejected for a targeting call last week. The senior had two pass breakups and was second on the team with seven tackles.

Although many cornerbacks aren’t known for jarring hits, McGhee’s biggest plays came on his tackles. He had a huge one on a swing pass for a loss of one in the second quarter and had an important pass breakup on fourth down near the end zone after Georgetown blocked a punt.

Early in the game, Harvard seemed to be in a much tighter contest with the Hoyas than last year’s 45-0 rout. After the Crimson stormed out to a 14-0 lead, the momentum definitively shifted Georgetown’s way.

On its third drive of the game, Harvard was forced to punt, and on the very next play, senior quarterback Tim Barnes hit sophomore receiver Brandon Williams to his right on a screen pass. Williams turned upfield and took the ball 76 yards for the touchdown. Aided by a cut block that sprung him, Williams won the footrace with the Crimson defense, pulling the visitors within a touchdown.

Later in the game, junior running back Isaac Ellsworth of the Hoyas took the ball 74 yards for Georgetown’s second touchdown. It came too late, though, as Harvard was up 31-10 before the score.

“Big plays are going to happen in any football game versus any team,” Duberg said. “Sometimes it could be a mental lapse, sometimes it’s just something as simple as one guy being just an inch off.”

Besides those two lengthy touchdowns, the Hoyas hardly threatened. In the first half, for example, the Crimson had 25 first downs. Georgetown? Just three.

“Harvard’s pretty good upfront,” Sgarlata said. “They did a really good job getting pressure with four guys. There was definitely a difference between their defensive line and our offensive line, so we struggled a little bit on third down.”

—Staff writer W. Gant Player can be reached at wplayer@college.harvard.edu.