NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Brown left New Haven, Conn., with a 24-20 football win over Yale on Saturday, and the Bears needed one last defensive stand to get it, stopping Yale on fourth-and-2 at the Brown 31 in the final minute.
The two teams came in with matching 4-3 overall records and 2-2 marks in Ivy League play, so the result moves Brown to 5-3 and 3-2 in the league.
Quarterback James Murphy completed 22 of his 28 throws for 273 yards and three scores. The day pushed him past 5,000 career passing yards, a mark only 10 Brown quarterbacks had reached before him.
Brown fell behind twice in the first half. Najih Rahman caught a 16-yard pass for his first career touchdown to tie the game at 7, and after Yale returned an interception 49 yards to go back in front, Trevor Foley shed two defenders on a 73-yard catch-and-run that made it 14-14. Drew Crabtree, who was named the Ivy special teams player of the week earlier in the week, then hit from 35 yards for a 17-14 lead at the break.
Yale kicked two third-quarter field goals and led 20-17 going into the fourth. Pearson Hill turned the game back toward Brown, first with a 21-yard grab to convert a third-and-13 and then with a 16-yard scoring catch on the next snap, with 11:31 to go.
The Brown defense, which entered the weekend seventh in the country in scoring defense at 16.3 points allowed per game, recorded six sacks, its best total of the season. Ike Odimegwu had two of them on the final two snaps before halftime, which pushed Yale out of field goal range. Jack Middleton stopped Yale quarterback Dante Reno on the decisive fourth down. Linebacker Stefano Montella finished with 18 tackles and Max Malo, the national leader in tackles per game, added 15.
Yale had won eight straight November games, and the loss was its first at home in November since 2021.
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