Hoffman-to-Carson strike saves Football

Brandon Carson hauled in a 50-yard TD to seal Penn's comeback win over harvard. BOSTON -- Move over, Doug Flutie. Facing a do-or-die fourth-and-10 from midfield with 1:17 left in Saturday's game at Harvard, Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman was flushed from the pocket and forced to throw a scrambling desperation heave toward the end zone. As if guided by Flutie himself -- one of Boston's favorite sons -- the pass settled into the leaping arms of Quakers receiver Brandon Carson 50 yards away for the winning score in Penn's improbable 21-17 victory. With the win over the Crimson, the Quakers must now defeat Cornell on Saturday and hope that both Brown and Yale lose their season finales for any hope of a share of the Ivy title. Hoffman completed 29 passes for 348 yards in the Quakers' (5-4, 4-2 Ivy League) last-second-win -- including seven for 105 yards to Carson -- but none could even hold a candle to this final heave. "We called for Brandon to run a post-read and I was kind of assuming they'd be playing back so he'd curl up at about 15 yards," Hoffman said. "Then some pressure came up the edge and I kind of scrambled away, and I was like, 'Jeez, Brandon, we only need 10 yards,' and he was streaking down the field. "So I just kind of heaved it up -- it was the only thing I could do." Though the Harvard coaches screamed that Hoffman had crossed the line of scrimmage, the play stood and Penn escaped with the win. "[The Harvard defensive back] had his back turned to the ball and he couldn't see where the ball was so I just tried to get inside position," Carson said. "I was hoping that Gavin would see me and he chucked it up. Thank God I came down with it." Just minutes earlier, the Quakers had been left for dead. Hoffman was picked off by Crimson linebacker Jeff Svicarovich and Harvard (5-4, 3-3) took the ball, and a 17-14 lead, to the Penn 31 with two minutes left. But fate works in mysterious ways. On a third-and-two, Crimson quarterback Brad Wilford collided with sixth-string tailback Brent Chalmers -- the lone available Harvard back -- on a handoff and the ball hit the ground. Penn safety Hasani White recovered the fumble, and seven plays later, Penn's prayers were answered. "Just when you think you've seen it all, you haven't," Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. "The hardest thing about this game is that you can invest so much and do so many things so well and you still can get your heart broken. And obviously that's what happened today." One hundred eighty degrees across the emotional plane, Penn coach Al Bagnoli assessed his role in the last minutes. "There aren't many good fourth-and-10 calls," Bagnoli said. "We're very fortunate that when push came to shove, we made a play on both offense and defense and it was enough to get us out of Dodge." The Crimson still had a shot at possting their own amazing final drive but White picked off a Wilford pass at the Penn 25 to seal it with 19 seconds left. "I don't believe in fate but this just wasn't meant to be," said Crimson linebacker Isaiah Kacyvenski, who led both squads with 14 tackles. In a game marked by big plays and critical turnovers, the Quakers came through with the last of each. "That was just an amazing feeling right there," senior linebacker Jim Hisgen said of the 50-yard bomb. "We went absolutely bonkers on the sideline. We realized that it was our responsibility now to hold the lead and we were able to step up and make the plays." For the first 30 minutes of Saturday's contest, however, no one would have guessed that this game would go down to the wire. Penn's first drive moved 80 yards on 13 plays, culminating with Hoffman's 15-yard touchdown pass to Rob Milanese. Hoffman completed six-of-six passing in this five-minute drive. The Quakers extended the lead to 14-0 on a two-yard Hoffman scramble in the second quarter, but realistically the visitors should have seen a much larger number up on the scoreboard. Penn took the ball into Harvard territory four other times in the second quarter but two botched field goal attempts, a fumble and a punt left the game close at the break. Adding insult to injury, Ryan -- the Ivy League's leading rusher with 1,194 yards -- left the game in the second quarter with a sprained right ankle and did not return. Not to be outdone, Harvard's Chris Menick -- the Ivies second-best rusher -- saw his game, and his year, end with a torn MCL in the second half. But Harvard's offense was even more stagnant than their Philadelphia counterparts. The home team faced such ugly sights as fourth-and-38, third-and-26 and fourth-and 22. The Crimson's best shot at a score -- following a 58-yard screen pass to Chuck Nwokocha -- ended with an interception by Penn defensive back Joey Alofaituli in the end zone. "Obviously we wanted to come away with points at the end of the half," Murphy said. "[But] I felt actually fortunate at halftime to be down only 14-0 -- it felt like we were very much in the game." And the home team was not about to roll over and die on Senior Day. Kacyvenski intercepted Hoffman, and two minutes later Wilford found tight end Chris Eitzmann from five yards out in the fourth quarter to cut the Penn lead to 14-7. The Quakers failed to gain a first down on their next possession for the third-straight drive in the final frame, and Penn had to punt again. And then all hell broke loose -- or at least Terence Patterson did. The Crimson speedster dropped the punt, picked it up, narrowly escaped three Quakers tacklers and ran 77 yards down the right sideline, highstepping in to the delight of the 7,000 fans for an amazing touchdown. Suddenly, the game was tied. "You run the whole gambit of emotion," Bagnoli said. "You think you've got things pretty well in control? then your kid hits a great punt and it goes over their kid's head and you think you have him deep, and he makes a great play and runs 90 yards for a touchdown and you're reeling." Carson fumbled on the second play of the ensuing drive -- the fourth of Penn's five turnovers on the cloudy afternoon -- and a field goal with 5:47 left gave the Crimson their first lead. However, 4 1/2 minutes later, Carson redeemed himself with a magnificent catch and Penn pulled off the improbable win.