On a hot and humid day in August 2012, we concluded our first-ever practice as Yale football players with 17 over-and-backs and 60 up-downs. As hard as that first practice might have been, it was necessary, and things were about to get a lot harder. But it wasn’t just the first practice for the two of us and the other 21 members of our senior class; it was Tony Reno’s first practice as the head coach of a collegiate football team. That year we would learn the meaning of one of coach’s favorite terms, adversity, in the form of a 2–8 season. But the class of 2016 took what could easily have been a demoralizing welcome to college football and turned it into a story of growth, commitment and family.

In the coming years our class would play a pivotal role in a drastic shift in the culture of Yale football. We would spend countless hours on the practice field, in meetings, the film room, the weight room and the training room. We woke up to 4:45 a.m. alarms to tread through the snow, catch school buses and train in off-campus facilities three days a week in February. We ate fire, bent rebar with our throats and broke boards with our heads in training camps to build confidence in ourselves and one another. We learned how to work, and eventually how to win. Our hard work has paid dividends since that freshman season as we improved to 5–5 and 8–2 in the years that followed. Through these shared struggles and triumphs we have grown to become an extremely tight-knit group.

Personally for us two, our experiences as parts of Yale Football have been very different. One of us earned immediate playing time as an impact starting safety freshman year and will finish Saturday having played in all 40 games in the past four years. The archetype for consistency who was prompted with early playing time from coaches, our Freshman MVP earned the right to play and contributes every Saturday, and eventually was elected captain. The other one of us, a backup quarterback, had a career that served as a model of our “next man in” mentality: a standard of readiness to step into a game situation and excel. It was a different story, of opportunism, in which work behind the scenes was unexpectedly put on display at times the team has needed it most.

Not everyone gets to play on Saturday, and a significant amount of our senior class hasn’t necessarily gotten the amount of playing time they hoped they would when they arrived on campus. But each and every one of the men in our senior class is equally responsible for turning this program around. Therein lies the beauty of college football, the ultimate team sport. In order to be successful you need 100-plus guys, with different body types and skill sets, to buy in when only 11 are on the field at a time. While our class contains a great amount of talent, and playmakers who have had key roles in wins on game day, we are also made up of unbelievable teammates who give tireless effort to help the team even though they know they won’t be playing in the game on Saturday.

The history and the tradition of Yale football are unparalleled. Many students don’t know that football was invented right here at Yale, and that Yale is number three in all-time college football wins. We refer to ourselves as Team 143 to recognize 142 teams of men who have worn the “Y” on their helmets before us. And it is with great honor that we will proudly take the field Saturday with that “Y” one last time. Playing Harvard in The Game is the ultimate culmination of the Yale football experience. For many of us it was a reason we chose Yale over another Ivy League school, to be a part of the most storied rivalry in college football. The support and pageantry from the student body, alumni and administrators going into this game have been incredible. Know that on Saturday, Team 143 will be playing for each other, and for you, the best fans in Ivy League football.

The journey of our senior class and Coach Reno over the past four years has been unlike anything we could have imagined. We have created memories not only in hallmark wins against Army, and out in California at Cal Poly, but in the downtime in the locker room, on buses to the field and to away games, in the grind of the offseason and on our senior trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that we will take to the grave. We may not have reached our ultimate goal of an Ivy League championship in our time here at Yale, but what we will leave this great university with is something more valuable than any piece of hardware. We will leave with 21 brothers, bonds and friendships that will last a lifetime.

The Game 2015:
Natural rivalry between head coaches

By Maya Sweedler

Published on

Although they have been on opposite sidelines for the last four years, Yale head coach Tony Reno has close ties to his Crimson counterpart, Tim Murphy — closer than either might care to admit.

At the Harvard helm

Set to finish his 22nd season at Harvard, Tim Murphy has the most wins in Harvard coaching history and he has won eight Ivy League championships. (Robert F. Worley, The Harvard Crimson)

Following a six-year stint under former head coach Jack Siedlecki at Yale, Reno spent three years with Murphy in Cambridge as the Harvard special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach. After the 2011 season, then Yale-head coach Tom Williams resigned amid controversy over the validity of his resume. Reno was offered the job and took it, bringing three Harvard assistant coaches, including current Yale offensive coordinator Joe Conlin, down to New Haven with him.

Though neither coach has since commented at any length on those coaching changes, the incident did create tension between the two, according to former defensive line coach Carlton Hall, who also coached with Reno and Murphy at Harvard before joining Reno at Yale in 2014.

“To take those guys was smart, but to lose those guys — for coach Murphy — that kind of hurt him a little bit,” Hall said. “I would definitely say that tension was involved. Coaches are just athletes — our egos tend to get in the way too sometimes. It was ego based on knowing someone is good at their job, and now you’ve got to compete against them.”

In addition to Conlin, Reno brought in tight ends coach Kris Barber and defensive line coach Dwayne Wilmot, neither of whom is still with the team. Hall, who left Harvard the season before Reno did and spent three seasons at Southern schools, replaced Wilmot before the 2014 season. He has since moved to Williams College.

In his 21 years at the helm of Harvard’s program, Murphy has created an Ivy League powerhouse, amassing a 155–62 record and winning eight titles. This sustained excellence, Hall argued, comes from Murphy’s experimental recruitment efforts, which have inspired Reno as he tries to build his own program.

“Coaches are just athletes — our egos tend to get in the way too sometimes. It was ego based on knowing someone is good at their job, and now you’ve got to compete against them.”

—Carlton Hall, former Yale defensive line coach

“Before [Murphy] got there, Yale pretty much had its way with Harvard,” Hall said. “I think with coach Reno, and knowing him, a lot of what he has attempted to do and is attempting to do is based off of the recruiting model that Tim Murphy kind of put in place at Harvard over the past decade.”

In a nutshell, Hall said, Murphy changed the formula: Rather than recruiting from the same private schools throughout the country, he began to look at student-athletes from public schools. Opening up the applicant pool and convincing public school students to matriculate strengthened the team and allowed it to compete at a higher level.

From 2009 to 2011, Reno was part of this innovative effort. While at Harvard, he was responsible for recruiting student-athletes from the South, particularly Georgia and Florida. In his three years, Reno unearthed Crimson standouts like former captain and cornerback Norman Hayes and defensive end Zack Hodges, a two-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year.

Reno’s recruitment efforts reverberate through Harvard’s team today, as the members of his final recruiting class are currently in their senior season. The group includes, according to Reno, three current Harvard starters: quarterback Scott Hosch, wide receiver Seitu Smith II and defensive end Denzel Paige.

Reno, though, denied that his past involvement with Harvard added any significance to Saturday’s game for him, citing instead only “respect” for Murphy and his program.

“I was very fortunate to be on his staff for three years,” Reno said. “I learned a lot from him and from Coach Siedlecki when I was at Yale, so I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys and what they do. They’ve got a great program and I think they work really hard.”

Steering the ship

The Bulldogs have undergone a transformation under head coach Tony Reno, having come a far way since his his debut 2–8 season in in 2012. (Robbie Short, Contributing Photographer)

As Yale and Harvard draw from the same recruiting pool — a pool that is smaller than those of other national programs due to the schools’ high academic standards — their competition extends beyond an annual game. Reno called the two schools “natural rivals,” observing that all athletic contests between the two schools contain the same “energy.”

That made Reno’s decision to become the face of the Bulldogs all the more difficult for Murphy.

At the time, Murphy released a carefully worded statement describing the situation as “unusual, if not unprecedented,” simply stating that Yale’s “lucrative offers” to his assistant coaches were the reason they left. Players did not hold back: The Harvard Crimson quoted one as saying The Game became more personal once Reno left.

Now, four years later, Murphy acknowledged that his relationship with Reno is not what it used to be, but said he does not believe there is tension between the two men.

“We had a very good professional relationship when Tony was on the staff, as I do with all my coaches,” Murphy said. “But when you go to a competitor and you take a bunch of coaches with you, I think it’s sort of obvious it would change a bit … It’s competitive and it’s professional, but definitely competitive.”

This competitiveness is only enhanced by the similarities between the schools, as the only difference, Hall claimed, is that one wears red and one wears blue.

“They are as similar as two programs can be,” he said. “They both want to be good at everything, whether it be sports or academics or chess-playing or just getting the best kids at the school. They are competing against each other for everything. In the microcosm of football, you recruit the same exact players, and year in, they play against each other.”

Murphy has gotten the best of his protege recently. Although the Bulldogs lead the all-time series 65–58–8, the Crimson have come away with the last eight, including a heartbreaking 31–24 win last season that cost Yale a share of the Ivy title. “I think it’s important to get over that hump for Tony,” Hall said.

“It’s been what, eight in a row now? They need to break this damn thing before Harvard gets to double digits.”

The Game 2015:
Under the lights for the first time

By Maya Sweedler

Published on

While The Game prides itself on tradition, the 132nd iteration will break one time-honored custom. For the first time ever, Saturday’s matchup will be played under the lights, as the 2:30 p.m. kickoff time means that much of the second half will be played after the sun sets.

It marks the first time the Yale Bowl, which does not have lighting, will be illuminated for a football game.

Associate Director of Athletics Sports Publicity Steve Conn said NBC — the network broadcasting the game — agreed to pay for temporary lighting after requesting that the kickoff be an hour and a half later than it normally is for The Game. By moving The Game’s kickoff time, NBC is able to air Premier League Soccer or a NASCAR race, depending on location, before the Harvard-Yale rivalry matchup. Afterwards, viewers can watch the Notre Dame-Boston College football game, which has a 7:30 p.m. kickoff from Boston’s Fenway Park, Conn said.

“NBC is broadcasting from two cool venues at night that are unusual,” Conn said. “A lot of people will watch, so it’s probably going to be a big day for them.”

“I know that type of change, especially in a game under the lights, always brings a little bit more crowd energy, just because it’s such a different feel.”

—Sebastian Little '16, Yale tight end

Musco Sports Lighting worked with NBC and Yale Athletics to provide the lights. The company, which has won an Emmy Award for its work providing temporary lighting for NCAA Tournament football games, began the installation on Thursday, according to Conn.

They were completed later that evening, although the Yale football team did not have a chance to practice underneath them. For added safety outside the stadium at night, Yale athletics will turn on existing lights in surrounding nearby areas in addition to Musco’s lights.

“We’ll be asked to turn on all of the lights in our facilities around the Bowl, so that would be Johnson Field, and we have lights on our practice fields, and Clint Frank Field has lights, so we’ll turn on all of our lights in Reese Stadium, ” Director of Athletics Tom Beckett told the News in September. “And we’ll add lights in parking areas where needed.”

These lights, according to Conn, have been used before at events hosted at venues such as the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Yet they have never been used for an event of this magnitude.

With between 40,000 and 50,000 fans expected to turn out to The Game, the Bowl’s parking lots are expected to accommodate over 4,000 cars, Conn said.

(Peter Chung, Contributing Photographer)

Though the sun will be out at kickoff, the lights will be on before then so the backdrop will not change. Turning the lights on early will also prevent the teams from noticing a large difference before and after the sun sets, Conn added.

“I know that type of change, especially in a game under the lights, always brings a little bit more crowd energy, just because it’s such a different feel,” tight end Sebastian Little ’17 told the News in September. “That’s really what I’m excited for, getting people in the seats involved and having a lot of people at the games.”

This game marks the fifth nationally televised game for the Bulldogs this season, and their second that will be played under the lights, as Yale’s game against Penn kicked off at 7 p.m. on a Friday night. Prior to this season, however, the Yale football team had only played four games under lights in its history.

For Harvard, meanwhile, The Game will be the fourth night game and seventh on national television this season.

The sun will set in New Haven at 4:26 p.m. Saturday.