One week ago, the Brown football team (1-1, 0-1 Ivy) garnered national recognition after defeating Georgetown (2-3, 0-1 Patriot League) 46-0 in one of the most exciting season openers in program history. With last year’s heroic victory over the Crimson fresh in their minds, hundreds of Brown students packed the stands of Harvard Stadium on Saturday night to see whether the Bears could take a miracle and make it routine.
But when the lights turned on in Cambridge, Brown all but crumbled. Producing three turnovers and allowing Harvard’s offense to stampede for 479 total yards, the Bears were embarrassed on national television and lost 41-7.
“Credit to Harvard,” Head Coach James Perry ’00 said in a post-game interview. “We knew they were a terrifically talented team. They were very well prepared, and they played very hard.”
From the opening whistle, the game could not have gone worse for the Bears. On the first play of the game, quarterback James Murphy ’27 dropped back for a play-action pass. Harvard’s Alex DeGrieck hit Murphy’s throwing arm, sending the ball tumbling errantly into the arms of Crimson linebacker Dorsey Benefield, who returned the ball for a 30-yard pick-six.
“I regret that play call tremendously,” Perry said. “We got a little greedy there and ended up catching a bad bounce.” But the problem wasn’t just one play. It was that afterward, “our response to it wasn’t great” either, he said.
On their second offensive drive, the Bears fared slightly better. Harvard’s defensive line dominated Bruno’s front, pummeling past the linemen and crushing the pocket around Murphy. On first down, he was swallowed by the Crimson for an eight-yard sack. Facing a faltering passing game, the Bears switched to the ground game, but even sophomore standout Matt Childs ’28 couldn’t break past Harvard’s defensive front, and after back-to-back unsuccessful plays, Brown was forced to punt.
Despite Brown’s offensive struggles, when the defense took the field for the first time, they looked intimidating. Taking on a Harvard offense that had scored 59 points in their first game of the season, the defense forced them to punt on their opening drive. The stop was punctuated by a vicious hit stick from Nevaeh Gattis ’26, who flattened a Crimson receiver on third down to end the drive at midfield.
But almost as soon as the ball touched the offense’s hand again, things took a turn for the worse. Only three plays into their next drive, Murphy looked for Solomon Miller ’26 on a hitch along the left numbers, but he sailed the ball high. Reaching into the air, Miller tried to corral it one-handed, but instead, he tipped it behind him and into the waiting arms of a Harvard defender. Barely five minutes into the game, Brown had already produced two interceptions.
Starting a new drive at the 20-yard line, it didn’t take long for Harvard to cash in. On third down, Phil Steele Preseason All-Ivy League First Team quarterback Jaden Craig looked for his receiver, Dean Boyd, along the sideline. Cornerback Elias Archie ’26 matched him stride-for-stride, but sometimes, good offense simply beats good defense. Boyd, despite being draped by Archie, reeled in a perfectly placed ball from Craig in the corner of the endzone to push the lead to 14-0.
Backed into a corner, Brown’s offense finally found its stride on their next possession. On first down, Childs bent an inside zone up the right side of the field for a 10-yard gain — Bruno’s first good run of the day. Once the ground game took off, Murphy could finally take to the air.
At Harvard’s 39-yard line, he looked deep for Michael Nesbit ’27. After beating his receiver down the left sideline, Nesbit leapt into the air, boxing his defender out to corral the ball at the nine-yard line. Finally in range of the goal line, the Bears would not be denied.
Slotted out to the right, Tyler Pezza ’26 loped toward the endzone. At the goal line, he faked inside before peeling right, breaking free from his defender and reeling in a four-yard touchdown pass from Murphy. Despite all odds, with five minutes left in the first quarter, the Bears were only down by seven.
Murphy told The Herald that the offense was simply “playing the game we know how to play. We were playing fast, executing, throwing the ball accurately and protecting up front. Clearly, there wasn’t enough of that today, but it’s something to build on for next week.”
After the Bears’ first and final glimpse at offensive success, the rest of the game was all Harvard. With momentum on their side, the Crimson attack was lethal.
On first down, Craig threw a strike up the right hash, connecting with Seamus Gilmartin for a 22-yard chunk play. From there, it was the running game that led Harvard to glory. Rushing 43 yards, Harvard pummeled the Bruno defense, crossing the length of the field before scoring their third touchdown of the day on a one-yard gimme to DJ Gordon to close out the first quarter.
When the second quarter began, Brown still didn’t have any answers. Down 21-7, it was make-or-break time for the offense — but after a series of sloppy passes, Brown was forced to punt. And once Harvard got the ball, it was lights out.
The Crimson went on a demonstrative seven-minute, 90-yard drive, crossing the field in 13 plays. In the end, Harvard clinched their fourth touchdown of the day with another connection between Craig and Gilmartin. From the 16-yard line, Craig uncorked a ball over the middle of the field to Gilmartin, who beat his defender inside on a post route, catching the ball in the endzone to push the Crimson’s lead to 28-7.
Up by three scores, Harvard’s offense did not relent. On their next possession, the Crimson proved why they were voted the top Ivy League football team during preseason rankings. Rolling to the right, Craig turned, looked left, and launched a missile to the goal line. Slotted out to the right, the Crimson’s fastest receiver — 10.82 second 100-meter runner Cam Henry — flew across the field, crossing to the left and tracking the ball for 40 yards before reeling it in for the score.
“Jaden has played an unbelievable amount of football,” Perry said. He’s “as good a quarterback as I’ve seen in a very long time.”
By halftime, Harvard led the game 34-7.
After 15 minutes to brush off the first half, talk to coaches and come out with better intensity, the scene was set for a second-half Bruno surge. And when the defense came out, it looked like the energy had shifted. Stuffing the middle and forcing an incomplete pass on third down, the Bears made quick work of Harvard’s first drive, sending them three-and-out.
But on the offensive side, there had been no such improvement. On the first play of the drive, Murphy threw another interception. Looking for Childs over the middle, he forced a pass between two defenders who hit Childs from opposite sides, jarring the ball loose to come away with the turnover.
With a short field to cross, Craig and the Crimson marched down the field. At the goal line, Craig faked a hand-off, passing instead to his tight-end Ryan Osborne, who from a blocking look, had peeled from the line and walked uncontested into the endzone, advancing Harvard’s lead to 41-7.
Throughout the game, the Crimson tallied 317 passing yards, compared to Bruno’s 99. Craig threw four passing touchdowns, completing 24 of his 33 attempts, while Murphy went 14 for 26, including one touchdown and three interceptions.
Early in the fourth quarter, Brown’s offense reached the Crimson red zone, but in the end, it wasn’t enough for a score, and when the final whistle blew, Harvard still led 41-7.
Still, Perry remained optimistic. “We’re a good team,” he said. “Our guys are hungry to get better. They’ll use (Sunday) to get back on track and get back to playing our best football.”
Murphy echoed that point. “It’s a short week,” he said. We have “a good opportunity to flush this one and get on the field (on Sunday) and prepare for a great URI team.”
The Bears will face the University of Rhode Island at 7 p.m. on Friday at Rhode Island FC’s Centreville Bank Stadium. Friday’s annual governor’s cup match-up will be the 109th contest between Brown and URI.
Lydell Dyer is a sports editor for The Herald. A junior hailing from Bonn, Germany, Lydell is studying nonfiction English and political science, and if he's not off "making words sound pretty," you can find him lifting heavy circles at the Nelson.
