Crimson RB Booker tops charts
Perhaps no one on the Harvard football team is enjoying the current season more than junior running back Charlie Booker III.
The 5-foot-9, 200-pound Booker, who has the ability to run over opposing defenders and gain yardage when seemingly trapped, missed most of his first two seasons while dealing with a balky hamstring.
“That’s really not the way I wanted to be remembered at Harvard, so for me it all started with stretching and better nutrition,” said Booker, who admitted he had to corral his sweet tooth. “Instead of four or five days, I had to cut down the sweets to maybe one day.”
Now displaying a more fit version of his former self, Booker has been a revelation. He scooted for a pair of touchdowns in Harvard’s 41-2 win at Georgetown last week, his second consecutive two-TD effort this season. Overall, Booker has rushed 39 times for 281 yards, an average of 7.2 yards per carry, the ninth-best average in the country at the FCS level.
“When we recruited him, we thought we were getting a very good, physical football player, a tough kid, and he certainly has been an outstanding player for us over his first two years. Now, as a junior, he has taken it up a notch,” said Harvard coach Tim Murphy. “He’s not only a very physical player who can break tackles but he knows how to finish plays.
“When I saw him in the Texas state 6A championship game, breaking tackles on a field that included so many future Division 1 college football players, I knew we were getting an outstanding football player.”
While Booker admitted his Cypress Ranch team lost to Fort Worth area powerhouse Allen High on the day Murphy came calling, he said his focus had already begun to shift ever so slightly from all-football to a football-education balance.
“Down there (in Texas), the biggest goal is to see what the biggest college you could get into was. Like I was looking at schools like TCU and Georgia Tech. I was not even thinking about (education). Then you kind of start to notice it,” said Booker, who is majoring in economics while carrying a minor in astrophysics.
Today’s Harvard-Cornell game in Ithaca, N.Y., matches Booker with a summer training pal, Big Red junior linebacker Reis Seggebruch of Tomball, Texas, which is about 35 miles north of Booker’s hometown of Houston. Seggebruch needs one more tackle to reach 100 for his career and Booker is eager to ensure it doesn’t come at his expense.
In addition to Booker, Cornell must guard against the ever-dangerous Justice Shelton-Mosley, who was named Ivy League Special Teams Player of the Week after returning a punt a school record 91 yards for a touchdown.
Murphy told his colleagues at the weekly New England College Football Writers luncheon that he will again use both his quarterbacks, senior Joe Viviano (33-of-55 for 408 yards, one TD) and freshman Jake Smith (21-of-37 for 286 yards, one TD, two INTs). Viviano is more of a pocket-style player who can get outside if needed. Smith is more of a true-option signal-caller who won’t hesitate to pick up the necessary real estate with his feet.
Cornell enters 0-3 overall and 0-1 in Ivy play, but could surprise behind a plethora of dangerous performers. One is junior quarterback Dalton Banks, who needs eight completions to reach 300 for his career and 228 more passing yards to hit the 3,500-yard plateau.