Another football truth gives rise to randomness too: teams are often sloppy, especially in the first games of the year. The Crimson knows this all too well. In Week One, when Harvard traveled to Worcester to face off against Holy Cross, the team committed a series of costly turnovers which ended up costing it the game.

At no point did the Crimson seem like the weaker team on the field. More unpolished? Sure. But I think all around a better football team. Harvard had 48 more yards of total offense and one less first down. Take out the pick-six and the blown coverage, and the Crimson now probably sits at 2-0.

The turnover bug also bit Penn in that fateful game against Lafayette. You never would’ve expected it from a team that prior to the game held the nation’s longest winning streak, but, well, that’s football for you. The Quakers turned the ball over three times, and the Leopards blocked a Penn punt. Yet somehow, Penn managed 20 more yards of total offense.

You can’t eliminate randomness. The better team won’t always win. That’s impossible, as any statistician will gladly tell you.

But what can teams and coaching staffs do? Prepare for the worst. Have solid guys ready to step up in case the starter goes down. Harvard nailed that one. Junior quarterback Colton Chapple couldn’t have been a whole lot better for a lot of Friday night’s game. And Deal’s replacement—junior linebacker Joshua Boyd—led the team in tackles and was a force in the middle of the defense.

Of course, teams also have to learn from what they did wrong. After a sloppy performance against Holy Cross, the Crimson did just that. Harvard did a 180, with the only blip of the night coming from a rain-induced interception. No more dropped punts, no more secondary breakdowns.

So in the course of playing virtual must-win after must-win (though Harvard has a week off before returning to league play), a championship-caliber team must not only improve every week, but also to expect the unexpected—to expect randomness.

And Harvard, clearly, understands that quite well.

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.