Word: flach
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After an uneventful 32-yd. punt for a touchback following the Crimson's first possession, Flach's day turned ugly. He faced his next effort standing on his own 6-yd. line, his team ahead, 7-0, with 9:06 remaining in the second quarter. He called the signals, then watched Mike Jacobs's snap from center sail widly over his right hand. Flach scampered after it helplessly, but the Crusader's Bob Ireland had fallen on the ball at the Harvard 2-yd. line...
Normally a quality snapper, defensive back Jacobs had coated his hands with stickum to help grab Holy Cross passes; indeed Jacobs had made an interception just minutes earlier. But the stickum skewed the snap, and Flach wound up in a pile of bodies at the two. And on the next play, Crusader Doug Pietrick pushed it over to tie the score...
...Jacobs took himself out and sophomore Jeff Lawrence took over the snapping chores. And in Harvard's first possession of the second half, at the Crimson 11-yd. line, Lawrence came on with Flach and promptly sent the ball sailing high to the punter's right--the same side from which a strong Holy Cross surged. Flach lept, snagged the ball, and lurched into a semi-punt. Not surprisingly, a pair of Crusader linemen blocked it and the ball bounced toward the goal line...
...When that happens," Flach says, "what I probably should do is put it in the end zone and down it for a safety. I'm even supposed to try to kick it out of the end zone so they can't fall on it for a touchdown." But Holy Cross's Curt Bletzer fell on the ball at the 1-yd. line before Flach could get to it. "When I came off the field," Flach says, "Coach Restic said to me, 'You gotta fall on that ball for a safety...
...although Harvard had staved off another special team disaster--or at least paying the price for a disaster--Flach now had seen two straight snaps fly over his head. "All I kept thinking was I wanted to get out there again," Flach says...