Harvard coach adjusts to new reality, maps comeback year
Harvard football coach Tim Murphy, like his contemporaries across the country, is trying to maintain established procedures while employing new technologies in unprecedented times.
Murphy knows from trial and error how to prepare his team to play a college football season and that part of the equation hasn’t changed.
Murphy is approaching his 27th season on the Crimson sideline with a 178-81 overall record — 124-58 in the Ivy League with nine conference titles and six in the last 13 seasons.
At an institution where nearly all of its football athletes play four seasons, Murphy’s methodologies and player continuity has produced the NCAA’s sixth-highest winning percentage (.767) in Division 1 since 2000.
But with the global COVID-19 pandemic spiking across the country and a roster filled with players living in locked-down states, virtual get-togethers have replaced the meeting room and blackboards.
“We are moving ahead as if we are going to play football,” said Murphy. “Most of Division 1 is ... But having said that, there are a lot of things we have to figure out, no question.
“I think it is safe to say, we have adapted and evolved since March when all of a sudden it went ‘boom.’ Students were leaving, coaches were leaving and overnight we morphed into these technological wizards with Zoom and FaceTime and everything else.
“The unforeseen part of it was you actually found out how much you can actually do. We’ve had position meetings, coaching meetings and recruit meetings.
“We’ve actually gotten out ahead on recruiting to some extent because we had an opportunity, a big window of time, to get in touch with our top 500 kids in the country.”
Despite Murphy’s attempt to cover all the bases, the Ivy League will have to final say for when and how a season will get underway.
The Ancient Eight was the first conference in the country to pull the plug on its scheduled men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The
Ivy League went dark on March
10 with its hoop tournaments scheduled to be played at Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion.
Murphy has caucused with the conference’s other head coaches but has had no direct communication with the Ivy League’s governing body on its plans for the fall sports’ seasons.
“The head coaches have been staying in constant contact and having had some head coach Zoom meetings to talk about potential protocols and scenarios for the season,” said Murphy.
“But quite frankly we’ve had really no communication with the leadership of the Ivy league. I’m not sure what’s been done at the administrative level.”
There are a several proposals and a variety of contingency plans on the table that could derail, suspend or postpone the Crimson’s season opener against Georgetown on Sept. 19 at Harvard Stadium.
“We have talked about different scenarios,” said Murphy. “We’ve talked about not having a full season, we’ve talked about having only an in-league season (seven games) played in the fall. “Obviously there’s talk of a condensed schedule in the fall and we’ve talked about a condensed schedule in the spring. Wherever we go, we will be ready, we will adapt and evolve and be ready to play.” Because Harvard plays a 10-game schedule and its season begins three weeks after the rest of the country, Murphy has more leeway in terms of managing his training camp preparations. Murphy needs this cushion because the campus shut down before the start of spring football.
ONE LOST CAUSE
Harvard posted its only losing campaign in this century in 2019, a failure not supported by the numbers. Harvard closed out the season with five straight conference losses, two of which occurred in overtime and another pair determined by four points or less.
Harvard finished the season with a 5043 double overtime loss to rival Yale in New Haven, Conn., on Nov. 23. The 136th playing of The Game was delayed 40 minutes when a large group of climate change protesters occupied the gridiron at halftime.
Harvard outgained its opponents 387.5 to 346.3 yards per game and outscored them 29.6 to 22.8. With 14 starters and three All-Ivy League first team selections returning, Murphy feels optimistic about a turnaround in 2020.
“We had three games that went down to the last play of the game and lost one on a 50-yard Hail Mary,” said Murphy. “Going into those overtime games we had won 70 percent of our overtime games this century.
“We will be a better team no question about it in 2020. If three plays go differently, we could be 7-3.”
BACK GALORE
Freshman tailback Aidan Borguet locked down the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award with a record performance at Yale. Borguet rushed for a game record 269 yards on 11 carries — 24.5 yards per rush — and four touchdowns. Borguet finished the season with 645 yards on 91 carries and seven touchdowns.
Borguet and junior Devin Darrington combined to give Harvard a strong ground attack and provided quarterback Jake Smith with viable playaction threats.
Darrington, a second team All-Ivy selection, led the Crimson with 734 yards on 182 attempts and seven touchdowns. Junior back B.J. Watson was second on the team with 31 receptions for 293 yards and four touchdowns.
“Certainly, one game does not a season make but we are probably deeper at running back than at any time that I have been the coach here,” said Murphy.
“We have two to four kids that I believe are upperlevel Ivy League running backs. Aidan certainly had a huge impact as a freshman and exceeded our expectations even though we recruited him to do what he did.”
The Harvard backfield will be bolstered by the return of senior Aaron Shampklin, a 2018 first team All-Ivy ball carrier who took a year off.
Shampklin led the Ivy League in allpurpose (118.6) and rushing yards (105.3) per game. He finished with 193 carries for 1,053 yards, becoming the 11th player in program history to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season.
“We have Aaron Shampklin coming back from Los Angeles after he decided to take a year off from school,” said Murphy.
CAPTAIN CRIMSON
Every defense needs a shot-caller and Harvard’s wears the capital C on his jersey.
Senior linebacker Jordan Hill was elected the 147th football captain, a title he earned as a three-year starter and an All-Ivy League first team selection in 2019.
Hill tied Cole Thompson for the team lead with 56 tackles last season and was the Ivy League player of the week on Oct. 14. Hill recorded 10 tackles and 2.5 tackles for a loss against Cornell. Hill led the Crimson with 70 tackles in 2018 and was a second-team All-Ivy selection.
“We return most of our team on defense and that is going to be a strength of our team and three of our top four linebackers are back,” said Murphy.
“Jordan Hill is a linebacker from Maryland and he is going to be a fouryear starter which is very rare in our system. In Jordan Hill we have a very experienced and very outstanding football player and he just happens to be the captain of our football team.”