Yale-Harvard: Football's most storied rivalry

To this day, it's still called The Game of the Century.

It was 1967, and both Yale and Harvard were entering the season-ending contest unbeaten. On the line was an Ivy League championship--but perhaps just as important, on the line was another year of bragging rights.

After falling behind 22-0, the Crimson staged a furious rally and tallied the last 16 points of the game to erase the deficit and tie the game at 29. That week's Harvard Crimson read, "Harvard wins, 29-29." Sports Illustrated recently listed the game as one of the five most memorable college football games of all time. There's a lingering joke among the players that Yale star running back Calvin Hill didn't realize until recently that his team had tied Harvard. He had just assumed that Yale had lost.

The annual Yale-Harvard football contest is one of college football's most storied rivalries. Like Army-Navy, Nebraska-Oklahoma, or Auburn-Alabama, it is a game where wins and losses are only the beginning, and where the underdog always has a chance to emerge victorious.

They call it The Game because it's the biggest game in town. It is a game that has been played 115 times, making it the most-played series in college football. It is also known for exciting finishes. In this decade, six of the nine contests were decided by just 10 points or less. In last year's Game, Yale clinched a second-place league finish by beating Harvard, 9-7. With 3:04 left, Mike Murawczyk, MC '01, augmented his Yale record for number of field goals in a season with the biggest kick of his life--a 27-yarder that sailed cleanly through the uprights despite the strong wind swirling in Harvard Stadium.

College football teams have always saved their trickiest plays for the face-off against their arch rival. Florida State saved its flea-flickers for Miami. Nebraska unleashed its fumble-rooski for Oklahoma. The Game has also showcased some of college football's most memorable plays. In the huddle during a Game in the late 1970s, one of Yale's all-time most prolific receivers, John Spagnola, TD '79, heard "Downtown Left," and couldn't believe it. Coach Carm Cozza was calling for a play that the squad had fooled around with during its sandlot football games that week. The play had Spagnola taking a lateral from quarterback Pat O'Brien, BR '79, and heaving the ball 50 yards to Bob Krystyniak, CC '79, to complete a stunning 77-yard touchdown play. After the game, a 35-28 victory for Yale, a young, recently-elected New Jersey senator named Bill Bradley, for whom Spagnola had worked during the summer, called Spagnola to tell him that the game was the most exciting contest he had ever seen.

During The Game, adrenaline often supercedes skill, and the favorite can easily return home with a loss. The last time Yale had a chance at an undisputed Ivy League title in 1989, the Crimson upset the Bulldogs, 37-20. The last time before the 1997 season that Harvard came into The Game unbeaten, they lost. The last time the Crimson came into The Game winless, they won. In 1979, the Elis entered The Game unbeaten in the league. Harvard was a dismal 2-6, but the Crimson humbled Yale, 16-7.

Few would contest that Yale football has declined since the glory days of Walter Camp and Calvin Hill. Due to dwindling attendance, Yale, along with the rest of the Ivy League schools, moved in 1982 from NCAA Division I-A to Division I-AA. Since the days of The Game of the Century, the Elis have received less and less national attention. The last time a Yale game was nationally televised was 1981. In the 1990s, the Bowl has not seen a Game's attendance surpass 50,000. In the three previous decades, only one clash, The 1971 Game, had a crowd of less than 50,000; the average attendance per Game in those three decades was 60,500.

Bulldog football has also suffered from a championship drought since the 1960s and 1970s, when Yale garnered eight Ivy League titles. In the following two decades, the Elis captured only two titles.

But a great rivalry is made by the fact that each game's magnitude is based on the series' history. No series in college football has a richer history than Yale-Harvard, and few rivalries are as great as this one.

According to Jack Siedlecki, head coach of this year's Bulldogs, there are two goals. First, win the league title. Second, beat Harvard. Many times, the second seems a lot more important than the first.

Graphic by Karen Rosenberg.

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