There is not much a Yale football team can do, or much that can happen to a Yale football team, that has not happened before. But what the Bulldogs did in Youngstown, Ohio, Saturday was that once-in-a-century-and-a-half occurrence.
The cavernous alleyway that opened up before Josh Pitsenberger was, in itself, a rare occurrence, almost a natural phenomenon. Though the left side of the line the Yale captain galloped, his line bottling up the entire Youngstown State defense to either side. Virtually untouched, Pitsenberger completed 56 yards to the end zone to culminate the greatest comeback in Yale history, one of the most remarkable in college football history, Yale or otherwise.
The Bulldogs scored 29 unanswered points to win, 43-42.
“Obviously, we knew we were playing from behind,” Pitsenberger told The Courant Sunday, after he and his teammates looked at film and lifted weights, ” but no one paid any attention to the scoreboard. The scoreboard could have said 0-0 the entire time. It wouldn’t have made a difference. We just took it one play at a time.”
Yale scores 36 second-half points to stun Youngstown State 43-42 in Bulldogs’ FCS playoff debut
Maybe the number, 29 straight points, was a coincidence. It was as if the college football gods deemed this day to repay Yale for the dastardly deed of 1968, when Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to forge a 29-29 tie, the lone blemish on Carm Cozza’s signature season. It was reminiscent, too, of Dick Jauron’s game-winning, 87-yard breakaway against Columbia in 1972. It even brought back shades of the bygone era when Yale played national powers like Notre Dame, Army, Wisconsin.
None of those legendary moments occurred in a postseason setting, a win-or-go home game, because Yale, in its 152-year gridiron history had never played such a game before. Only this year did the Ivy League relent and allow its teams to compete in the FCS playoffs, and the NCAA did the Bulldogs no favors, rejecting their bid to host at The Bowl and sending them to Youngstown State, in its 14th playoff appearance, with four championships in its history.
While Harvard, an at-large entry, was getting waxed at Villanova, 52-7 the final, Yale was losing 35-7 at the half, 42-14 late in the third quarter. Maybe the Ivy League should have left well enough alone? Maybe the football gods had little to do with it, but Yale had the right people on its sideline, and in its huddle.
“It’s about us, about the guys in that locker room, about our brotherhood,” Pitsenberger said. “We decided to block out the noise, the scoreboard, flush the first half, and lay it all out for each other.”
Pitsenberger, 6 feet and 215, a bulldozer from Bethesda, Md., carved his name permanently in Yale history with his 32 carries for 209 yards, on the heels of 150 yards in the win over Harvard at Yale Bowl Nov. 22.
Dom Amore: Dante Reno made the daring throws to lift Yale to victory in ‘The Game’
And they had quarterback Dante Reno, the son of coach Tony Reno, undaunted by his terrible start, which included two interceptions and a fumble in the first half, to throw for 260 yards and three touchdowns. Once Yale’s offense got rolling, and Youngstown State’s sputtered, the impossible became possible, then probable and, when Pitsenberger took off with 2:47 left, inevitable.
Pitsenberger scored three touchdowns on the ground. A two-point conversion, wisely called by Tony Reno and executed by his son, didn’t seem like much at the time, only making it 42-22. But it loomed large going into the fourth quarter. Dante Reno threw his second and third TD passes to make it 42-36, before Pitsenberger made his run, an instant icon for Yale lore.
Dom Amore: Finally, Yale and Harvard are playing for a season that can go beyond ‘The Game’
In a week in which Jim Mora left UConn, Lane Kiffen left Ole Miss with the playoffs approaching, with hundreds of players entering the transfer portal and fielding million-dollar offers like their coaches, there isn’t much left of college football that evokes the time when games like this meant this much to all involved, the days when a wire service reporter stationed in New Haven was told to keep constant watch on only two things: the railroad and Yale football.
Before the Harvard game, Pitsenberger said he would play each game like it would be the last game he would ever play, in fact, the only game he would ever play. The 1,447 yards he has gained, the 18 touchdowns he has scored, means only that he can play one more game, at Montana State, an even more formidable FCS force, next Saturday at 2 p.m. in the round of 16. And that game will only offer a chance to play another. This is as close to purity, college football for the sake of college football, for more fun than profit, as we get in 2025.
All season, the motto there has been Yale Vs. Yale, (Y v. Y), meaning the Bulldogs must play their own brand of football. It’s in play for at least one more week, but eventually it will belong, along with Saturday’s comeback, to the ages.
“For us, every game is Y v. Y — Yale vs. Yale,” Pitsenberger said. “We’re not focused on Montana State right now; we’re focused on ourselves. I’m pretty confident that this team has what it takes to chase elite, we just need to take it one day at a time.”