Fearless predictions: who will win The Game?

"I say Yale 34, Harvard 31. I'm already getting feedback from members of my family on that one. I think it's going to be another close victory over Harvard."

—Richard Levin, GRD '74
Yale University President

"Harvard's team will fight to the end, but Yale will win. But, if history is a guide, not without lots of nailbiting and last-minute ulcer attacks. I'll say Yale 28, Harvard 27, with the game decided in the last 30 seconds."

—Richard Brodhead, BR '68, GRD '72
Yale College Dean

"Harvard doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of defeating the Bulldogs! Yale is quite simply going to destroy the Crimson and finally bring some fun to Cambridge while we're at it!"

—Libby Smiley, JE '02
Yale College Council President

"This is the year we smack Harvard early and often. Final score: Yale 27, Harvard 7."

—Peter Salovey
Chairman, Yale psychology department

"I know nothing about either team."

—Harold Bloom
Yale Sterling professor of humanities and English

"I'm hopeless about predicting outcomes of football games, but I would say that without question my very deep feeling is that Yale will win handily. We have a great group of players."

—Betty Trachtenberg
Yale Dean of Student Affairs

"Yale is going to win because we have the stingiest defense and the most balanced offense in the league."

—Carm Cozza
Former Yale football coach

"Yale has to maintain ball control and we have to keep defense off the field—things we've been doing all this season, except in the Brown game, when the defense was on the field for way too long. You have to get offense out there—that's how you're going to score the points and take control of The Game. Final score: 27-24 Yale."

—Joe Walland, TD '00
Yale quarterback, 1997-1999

"Yale will win since Harvard and the Red Sox share the same fate: they can't get it done! My staff also thinks Yale will win. However, we may not know for at least a week since we'll have to wait for the recount and score certification!"

—James Perrotti
Yale Police Chief

"A Yale football player working in a medical school lab spills an alien virus, becomes sick and transfers the infection to the entire Yale football team, which is placed in quarantine. Dean Brodhead appeals to my sense of fair play and asks me not to field Harvard's regular team. We agree that this year both schools will be represented by their campus newspapers. Five Crimson editors turn out to be ineligible because they have played in the NFL and three Yale Daily editors are ineligible because they never took English in high school, but eleven are left on each side and they play the game in a packed Harvard stadium. Harvard prevails, 23-2, with Yale's points coming when the Crimson president is attacked in his own end zone by a crazed bulldog."

—Harry Lewis
Harvard College Dean

"Yale coming to Harvard with expectations of victory is like a mouse coming to a swamp with expectations of defeating a gator: it simply doesn't happen. Think this quote is random? Yeah, so are your chances of defeating the Crimson! Who's your daddy, Yale?"

—Fentrice Driskell '01
Harvard Undergraduate Council President

"A penalty-filled game comes to the final play with Harvard clinging to the lead. As the clock expires, a Yale receiver catches a short pass in the end zone. Harvard supporters call an offensive foul and demand a replay, but the officials weren't looking in the right direction. Harvard wins the crowd, but Yale wins the game!"

—Richard Wrangham
Harvard professor of anthropology

"Do they actually play tackle football in the Ivy League? How else do you explain the fact that the Ivy League is the nation's second highest scoring Division I conference? I must be missing something; it's got to be flag football they're playing outside the libraries. But all kidding aside, this year's Harvard-Yale game is an intriguing matchup: Harvard's record-setting quarterback Neil Rose against the Bulldog's biting secondary. Something has to give, and I'm betting it's going to be the Yale defense. I'm not a Harvard fan, but I am from Boston, and in my office I'm surrounded by more Crimson types than Yalies. The smartest team (which is open to debate) won't win this one. It's going to be all about grit and desire, and Harvard will absorb all of this as a result of the environment (alas, my Boston bias kicks in). My prediction: 45-42 Harvard. In overtime. Study on Sunday; this is going to be a game you won't want to miss."

—B.J. Schechter
Sports Illustrated college football expert

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