RAHUL ROHATGI

If you had walked into the Stadium for the Harvard-Princeton football game midway through the third quarter, the first thing you would have done is ask somebody what year it was.

“It can’t be 2001,” you would have thought, “because then Neil Rose would be handing off to Josh Staph or Nick Palazzo.”

You would have been very, very wrong.

Saturday afternoon’s game, which was supposed to keep alive Harvard’s dreams of an undefeated season, quickly turned into Head Coach Tim Murphy’s worst nightmare—and in the end, it turned out not to be that bad.

The bad news started on Friday when doctors couldn’t clear Palazzo to play with an injured hamstring. While Staph has been the more prolific rusher this season, Palazzo is a good change of pace to mix up defenses.

Early in the game it looked as if missing Palazzo didn’t matter. Staph wasn’t running free, but he did punch in two more short touchdowns, and Rose was on fire, completing nine of his first ten passes to lead Harvard to a 14-3 lead.

In the second quarter Staph finally had to sit after re-aggravating the ankle injury that had forced him to miss two games and leave the Cornell game early.

After Staph’s last run (a three-yard push), things started to spiral downward. Rose threw his first interception of the season, uncharacteristically misreading a short play. Princeton took advantage of the short field and scored to make it 14-10. On Harvard’s next possession, Rose got drilled while attempting to throw to wideout Dan Farley.

The crowd went silent as it tried to digest the image of Harvard’s starting quarterback lying on the ground, not getting up.

It would not be the last time they saw that.

The Tigers pulled out the “flea-flicker” from the bottom of the playbook and scored quickly, forcing Murphy to play his backup quarterback, freshman Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Drives by both teams stalled, and the Harvard coaching squad decided that Rose was well enough to play again.

Down 20-14 in the third quarter, the senior quarterback temporarily ended the Crimson nightmare. After getting downfield and handing off to third-string tailback Rodney Thomas a few times, Rose found himself at third-and-goal from the three-yard line.

And he did what he usually does in these situations: Rose ran it in himself, leaping over his offensive line and several defenders to give Harvard the lead.

He paid the price. Once again Rose lay on the grass in the end zone, immobile. He was done for the day, and nobody knew how much longer. Later it was learned Rose had hurt his shoulder and possibly pinched a nerve.

So if you entered the Stadium to catch the end of the game, you were probably wondering what the hell was going on. Fitzpatrick handing off to Rodney Thomas? Isn’t this Harvard Football 2002?

It was no joke to Coach Murphy and the Harvard fans. The undefeated season, the potential Ivy league championship, all rested in the hands of untested players. Visions of last year’s second-half implosions crept into the minds of the 10,000 fans assembled to see the game.

Or at least they would have thought about those things if it hadn’t been for the other three components of this 2001 Harvard football squad: the wide receivers, the offensive line and the defense.

Once Rose and Staph went down these three units stepped up.

The receiving core—Carl Morris, Dan Farley and Sam Taylor—made sure that Fitzpatrick’s throws were caught. Farley, especially, leapt for a 39-yard reception that surely would have been picked off otherwise.

The offensive line, motivated by the slight embarassment of letting Rose get drilled a few times, opened up holes that were twice as big as they were in the first half. Thomas ended up with 84 yards rushing, including five runs of 5 yards or more in the fourth quarter. More importantly, Fitzpatrick wasn’t sacked.

And Harvard’s most valuable asset, its experienced defense, refused to be pushed around at the end of the game. After letting Princeton running back Cam Atkinson get a 27-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, the Crimson defense came up with its biggest play of the game.

Lined up for the two-point conversion in an attempt to tie the score at 28-28, Princeton tried some trickery. Knowing that it had run the “sweep” play several times for success already, quarterback David Splithoff turned to hand off. Instead he pulled down and rolled the other way, hoping the Crimson would over-commit on the run and he could flick a pass over the secondary.

Harvard had done its homework, or more specifically, senior cornerback Willie Alford knew what was up. Splithoff seemed surprise at Alford’s presence in his passing lane, but threw the ball anyway. Alford knocked the ball back into Splithoff’s hands, and the Crimson kept the lead.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Harvard “D” turned a potentially disastrous situation in the last seconds into a game-winning stop.

The Tigers drove in the last two minutes, trying to set up a field-goal for Taylor Northrup, who could kick a 45-yarder with ease. But they were only at the Harvard 38 when they had time for one last play to get a little closer. Splithoff tossed a pass to Atkinson in the flat. Atkinson turned upfield, but only got six yards when he was nailed by senior defensive back Eric LaHaie.

That meant Northrup would have to kick a long 49-yard field goal to win the game.

We all know what happened.

The nightmare ended, and the dream continues.