Who Wants to be a Quarterback?

Harvard football Coach Tim Murphy faced a tough decision at the start of the 1999 campaign, choosing between three-year starting quarterback Rich Linden '00 and his three-year backup, Brad Wilford '00.

Fast-forward a year to fall 2000 and there is little doubt Murphy would be more than happy to be faced with the same situation again.

Murphy has gone from deciding between two veteran quarterbacks, both of whom hold school passing records, to looking for a healthy body to start opening weekend.

"It's far from an ideal situation at quarterback," Murphy said. "Injuries have complicated the situation and seriously cut into practice time. It's simply a situation we have to deal with as best we can."

During the off-season, Murphy expected to hold a competition between junior Neil Rose, sophomores Kris Hopkins and Barry Wahlberg and freshman Conor Black. But Hopkins suffered a potentially career-ending injury and the other three quarterbacks have all spent some time this preseason sidelined with injuries, leaving sophomore J.C. Harrington, a walk-on in 1999, as the only completely healthy choice in camp.

Both Rose (hamstring) and Wahlberg (knee) recuperated enough to resume practicing this week and will share the quarterbacking duties tomorrow.

"The only one who couldn't start because of an injury is Conor Black," Murphy said.

But with only Rose having thrown a varsity pass, the group was inexperienced to begin with. Now, the Crimson will face Holy Cross without a single quarterback who had the benefit of a full preseason.

"With three excellent wide receivers on the roster, I had hoped to use a more sophisticated, wide-open offense," Murphy said. "But injuries have left us concerned about the quarterback position and now we're going to have to simplify the package to accommodate their lack of practice time."

Injuries aside, Murphy will eventually have a decision to make on the long-term starter for the Crimson. The top two candidates for that position now appear to be Rose and Wahlberg.

Whichever quarterback is healthier will likely determine playing time tomorrow, but the one who can produce on the field will ultimately keep the starting job.

"If both Neil and Barry are healthy, then they'll each get a chance to play," Murphy said. "Whoever is able to drive the offense better is going to get the job."

Murphy's quarterback headaches began around mid-August. At that time, Rose was the projected starter, while Hopkins and Wahlberg were second and third on the depth chart, respectively.

"About two weeks before camp opened, I got a call from Hopkins' dad," Murphy said. "He called to report that Kris had sustained a serious shoulder injury and would need to be redshirted this season."

With the No. 2 quarterback gone for the season, Rose's job as the starter looked a little more secure until lightning struck for the second and third times.

"The day after our first scrimmage, Neil and Barry both went down with injuries on the same day," Murphy said.

Rose pulled his hamstring and Wahlberg hurt his knee, so the prospect of starting the freshman Black popped into the mix.

Black's hopes to lead the Crimson against the Crusaders were quickly dashed, however, when he suffered an injury the following day. Black is expected to need at least another week before he is ready to play.

His injury momentarily brought Harrington's name to the forefront, but it really intensified the waiting game for Rose and Wahlberg to heal.

As a junior, Rose has the most years and the only game experience, going 2-for-6 at Penn in 1998. But he missed most of 1999 after breaking his foot at the start of fall practice.

"Rose has a little more experience," Murphy said. "But that's a little skewed because Wahlberg, as a freshman last year, was on scout team and [Rose] wasn't even on scout team because he broke his foot two weeks into camp and couldn't play."

Talent-wise, Rose appears to have the firmest understanding of his position and is a better decision-maker. Wahlberg is more physically gifted, with a stronger arm.

That dichotomy is reminiscent of the Crimson's last quarterback controversy.

"Neil's probably more like Linden and Barry is probably more like Wilford," Murphy said.

Linden became the first Harvard quarterback to start his freshman year and used his smarts to guide Harvard to an Ivy title in 1997. It took Wilford three years to raise his mental game to the level of his physical talent and he replaced Linden for their senior year.

"[Rose is] a guy who is in as complete command as it gets for a guy who doesn't have experience," Murphy said. "He's a tremendous student of the game. He's a guy who'll come in to study film after work in the summertime and then throw 100 balls a night to the wide receivers."

Rose describes himself as fighter, a guy who will do anything to get the win.

" I like to throw out of the pocket, but I also like to run the ball," Rose said. "In high school that's all I did was scramble, try and make things happen when nothing was there and pull out some wins when we shouldn't have."

Wahlberg also professes a deep desire to compete, which he says will drive him to maximize his talent.

"What makes me qualified is my competitive nature," Walhberg said. "When you play against the best in Florida, against guys going to Florida State and UF, you have a competitive edge on everybody. It's a great advantage against some of those guys who have to shovel off the snow just to play."

Although he's out of the starting picture for now, if the injury bug continues to bite the Crimson, we could once again see Black back in contention.

"Conor Black had a very distinguished high school career in a passing offense," Murphy said. "You have to be really sure of what you're getting when you recruit a 5'9 quarterback, but he's extremely mobile, has a very accurate arm, and a strong sense of confidence. But all of [the quarterbacks] are good enough to get the job done."

Whoever that is.

Michael R. Volonnino contributed to the reporting of this article.