A student-led protest over climate change halted the biggest Ivy League football rivalry game between the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Bulldogs at halftime.
During the 136th meeting on the gridiron between the Harvard Crimson and the Yale Bulldogs, a student-led protest broke out during halftime on Saturday afternoon. This protest was a sit-in featuring both Harvard and Yale students protesting on the behalf of climate change.
4-5 Harvard held a 15-3 lead over 8-1 Yale, as a road upset was certainly brewing for the Crimson. However, the demonstration caught everybody by surprise, as protestors sat at the 50-yard line of the Yale Bowl. Students were threatening to be arrested, but it did seem to be more of a peaceful protest more than anything. It certainly caught everybody off-guard.
Yale holds the all-time series lead over Harvard, 67-60-8. However, the Crimson have won the most recent meeting back in Boston last season at Fenway Park. The Crimson also has the longest winning streak in this rivalry series at nine games, having defeated the Bulldogs every year from 2007-2015.
The Harvard-Yale football game has been delayed due to students protesting climate change in the middle of the field. pic.twitter.com/uY9Kc3Mn32
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) November 23, 2019
Here’s the sideline report as the climate change protest at Harvard -Yale ended.
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) November 23, 2019
Sounds like school officials were expecting something like this to happen. Some of the protesters wanted to be arrested. pic.twitter.com/109G5wiKiK
There have been a bunch of great games in this rivalry series, but this protest will be the most notable thing from this annual college football game for some time. Though huge rivals, Ivy League football doesn’t exactly move the needle nationally as it used to nearly a century ago.
Well, this demonstration certainly let the world know how the students at these two prestigious American institutions feel about the changes happening to the world’s climate. Their protest held up the start of the second half in New Haven for about an hour. So the disruption certainly got the point across.
There was some thought that this game would have just stopped at halftime with Harvard up 15-3 over Yale, but this game did eventually get underway. With the students asking to be arrested, the police agreed to take the protestors out of the Yale Bowl two at a time. So they made a big statement and their message has been heard.
Look for this rivalry series game to reach its conclusion here in a bit, but all we’re really going to talk about is the demonstration that delayed the start of the second half in New Haven by about an hour.
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