Though the Harvard football team didn’t capture the Ivy League title, a number of players will be bringing home some hardware following the 2012 season.
After a season where Harvard couldn't meet preseason expectations, finishing 5-2 in Ivy play and placing second in the league, 10 Harvard players earned All-Ivy First Team nods, the league announced Tuesday. While two players—sophomore defensive end Zach Hodges and junior and recently elected captain Joshua Boyd—earned the accolade on the defensive side, the Crimson earned two of the four spots on special teams, as junior kicker David Mothander and senior punter Jacob Dombrowski were named to the first team.
But the Crimson shined offensively—not surprising in a year when the team’s 394 points broke the modern-era Ivy League scoring record. In all, six of the 15 offensive players on the first team hailed from Cambridge. Two of the players—senior H-back Kyle Juszczyk and junior tight end Cam Brate—earned unanimous selections, while senior offensive linemen John Collins and Jack Holuba, Colton Chapple, and Treavor Scales also made the squad.
In all, six of the 10 Crimson first-team selections were seniors. Chapple’s selection over Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews, the 2011 Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year who led the league with 355.1 passing yards per game this season, cements Chapple’s status as the frontrunner for the award this season.
In addition to the 10 first-team selections, six Crimson players were named to the second team, and three earned All-Ivy honorable mentions, including captain Bobby Schneider, who missed the final four games of the 10-game season after breaking his arm in a 39-34 loss at Princeton.