On this date, November 23, in 1968, Harvard Beat Yale at football, 29-29.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Sat Nov 23, 2019, 08:28 PM - Edit history (2)

Since this year's game is in the news elsewhere at DU, I thought this might be interesting.

Just in case you haven't figured this out yet from my posts, I didn't attend either school.

1968 Yale vs. Harvard football game

The 1968 Yale vs. Harvard football game was a college football game between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson, played on November 23, 1968. The game ended in a 29–29 tie after Harvard made what is considered a miraculous last-moment comeback, scoring 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie the game against a highly touted Yale squad. The significance of the moral victory for Harvard inspired the next day's The Harvard Crimson student newspaper to print the famous headline "Harvard Beats Yale, 29–29". In 2010, ESPN ranked it No. 9 in its list of the top ten college football ties of all time.

Yale came into the game with a 16-game winning streak and its quarterback, Brian Dowling, had only lost one game when he was in the starting lineup since the sixth grade. Both schools entered the game with perfect 8–0 records. It was the first time both schools met when undefeated and untied since the 1909 season.

The tie left both teams 8–0–1 for the season. The famous headline was later used as the title for Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, a 2008 documentary about the game directed by Kevin Rafferty.

This game stands as the final tie in the Harvard–Yale series, as subsequent rule changes have eliminated ties from college football.

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Brian Dowling was made famous as the Doonesbury character, DB. nt

[Bob Munck]

3. BD

I think my alma mater was 0-10 in the Ivys that year. We often were in those days. I'd graduated, but stayed around to teach and do research.

[regnaD kciN]

2. I heard the last few minutes on radio...

Absolutely insane. Apparently, it never seemed to occur to the Yale coach that Harvard might try an onside kick down 8 with less than a minute to play.

Another interesting note was that the comeback took place entirely under Harvard’s backup quarterback, Frank Champi, after their starter got pulled while down 22-0