Holy Cross spoils Yale football’s return, winning 20-17

A 22-month layoff gave Yale football coach Tony Reno time to imagine, time to be intrigued with the unorthodox.

When the Bulldogs, who, like the entire Ivy League, lost the 2020 season due to COVID-19, finally took the field Saturday, Reno was ready with his new wrinkle: different quarterbacks for different situations.

“We had a lot of time last fall,” he said, “and we really studied the Saints, Drew Brees and Taysom Hill, and we felt that Nolan [Grooms] was more Taysom Hill and Griffin [O’Connor] is more of Drew Brees. Griff’s the starter. Nolan can come in and do certain things, we thought the Saints gave a lot of teams a lot of issues doing that.”

It’s really an old football parable, the runner and the passer. Neither Reno nor Saints coach Sean Payton are the first to experiment with alternating quarterbacks on this basis. It worked for New Orleans (12-4) and was effective in spots for Yale. But ultimately Holy Cross, employing a similar platoon system with its quarterbacks, got the last word on Derek Ng’s 47-yard field goal with 48 seconds left to beat Yale, 20-17, before a sprinkling of 3,987 in the cavernous Yale Bowl.

“We came into the game with a lot of concerns for obvious reasons,” Reno said. “A lot of those concerns we saw out there, from penalties to big plays to the flow of the game not being what it should be.”

Holy Cross has made a habit of spoiling Connecticut openers, beating UConn two weeks ago, and now Yale. In between the Crusaders, defending Patriot League champs, lost to Merrimack.

Yale has its own set of goals, the ones that matter are the Ivy League title and The Game against Harvard. When we last saw the Bulldogs it was in the aftermath of the wild and historic win over Harvard in double OT, Nov. 23, 2019, completed in near darkness after being delayed when protestors took over the field calling for both schools to divest in fossil fuels.

Many of Yale’s key players are back from that 9-1 team which lends to the belief that the admirable program Reno has built will continue to thrive. Since starting with a 2-8 record in 2012, Reno is 45-26 at Yale, winning the Ivy title in 2017, sharing in 2019. He’s never been shy about throwing the ball or trying something new. He liked the two-quarterback look, just thinks Yale has to get better executing it.

Another reason for Yale’s confidence is O’Connor, who stepped in for injured Kurt Rawlings and threw for 1,229 yards and eight touchdown in three games, including a school record 465-yard performance against Princeton, as a freshman in 2018.

O’Connor returned to the backup role in 2019, but now it’s his show ... except in certain situations. He led Yale down to the Holy Cross 21-yard line on the first drive, then Grooms, a lefty and the better runner came in. Two rushes for minus-3 yards, the drive stalled.

In the second quarter O’Connor, who missed on eight of his first 10 passes, hit 9 of 11, including a 19-yard touchdown pass to Jackson Hawes and a 74-yarder to JJ Howland.

There the rhythm and the fireworks stopped. Holy Cross rallied to take a 17-14 lead. Late in the third quarter after O’Connor completed a 10-yard pass Reno went back to Grooms. Using both his legs (28 yards) and arm (15), he positioned Yale for a game-tying field goal, Jack Bosman connecting for 47 yards with 14:15 to go. Grooms, a sophomore who played at Taft School in Watertown, was 3-for-3 for 10 yards, and rushed six times for 29 in his spot duty.

“I’ve just got to make the bigger plays,” said O’Connor, who was back out there in the fourth quarter and completed 2 of 5 for 12 yards. He was intercepted on Yale’s last play.

Yale’s defense generally performed well, but Holy Cross “landed one more punch than we did,” Reno said.

Yale starts Ivy League play against Cornell next week, then later renews its old rivalry with UConn at Rentschler Field on Oct. 16.

“For myself, I’m grateful to be out there,” said O’Connor, who finished 15-for-29 for 234 yards. “It was awesome to be playing another team with my teammates, but at the end of the day we want to win. Grateful for the opportunity.”

Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com