To no one's surprise, Menick got the ball again and ran straight up the gut. To everyone's surprise, he was practically untouched and ran cleanly for the last 10 yards into the endzone.

Harvard exploded off the sideline and mobbed Menick, who ran for two touchdowns and caught another. The rushing touchdowns were the first for him this year, a surprising statistic because he tied a school record with 13 last year.

Meanwhile, Holy Cross' defenders remained standing where they had ended the play, apparently shocked by how suddenly and easily the game ended.

Menick finished with 29 rushes for 167 yards and become only the third Harvard playerever to rush for over 2,000 career yards. Lastyear, Menick scored three touchdowns and ran 34times for 261 yards, the second-highest total inschool history, against Holy Cross.

"Chris's greatest attribute is that he believesin himself so much," Murphy said. "I truly don'tsweat it when he fumbles, and that's not a thingthat he does very often, but he's just a kid youcan depend on. It was a bit of a fluke, it was agood play by the defense, and it was costly, butI'm not at all surprised that he came through."

Menick's partner in crime from last year didn'tenjoy repeat success this year, however. Linden,who also ran for three touchdowns in 1997, waspulled at halftime after completing 5-of-10attempts for only 50 yards. He has struggled allyear and averaged only 106.5 passing yards pergame before Saturday. Linden, whose passing keptdefenses honest last year, has not been asaccurate and may have lost some zip on his passes.

Zip was the last thing Harvard had to worryabout when Wilford entered the game after gettinga pat on the back from Linden. Wilford completedhis first five attempts, all of which were thrownvery hard.

"I think it was more of a reflection of theoffense rather than of Rich as an individual, butwe just needed a spark," Murphy said.

After leading Harvard down to Holy Cross's11-yard line, Wilford rolled right until heappeared pinned against the sideline. He thenthrew a bullet back to the middle of thefield--normally a no-no. A diving Menick made thegrab as Wilford blew the ball past the linebackerin coverage for his first career touchdown pass.

"We were just excited, and we had so muchconfidence in Brad," Menick said. "Brad was doinggreat all year in practice, and we saw it in hiseyes, we were just going to whup somebody, we wereconfident."

Wilford put the Crimson in position to scoreagain on its second possession of the thirdquarter. At the Holy Cross 24-yard line, Menickran for two yards but fumbled, and the Crusadersrecovered.

"[The quarterback change] was a good move onCoach Murphy's part," Allen said. "Our defense haddone a pretty good job in the first halfcontaining them, and they came out and changedthings up and went all no-huddle in the secondhalf."

Murphy's quarterback move paid off Saturday,but now he has to make a decision for nextweekend's Ivy showdown with Princeton. Wilfordended the day 10-of-16 with 98 yards.

"Obviously, it's something we have to sleepon," Murphy said. "By nature, loyalty is probablythe most important thing in the world to me. Youcan't just toss out what Rich Linden has done forthis program and what kind of person and what kindof football player he is. So we're going to dowhat it takes to win, but Rich Linden's not out ofthis thing.

"This was simply a way to spark our offense asopposed to having real problems at quarterback,"Murphy added. "I don't think we have problems atquarterback, I do think we need to execute overalloffensively better. We've struggled a little bitthrowing the football, but we're going to get thatturned around, regardless of who the quarterbackis."

Menick's performance, Linden's benching,Wilford's emergence and the end-of-game dramaobscured Harvard's defense in the second half,when it held Holy Cross to 73 total yards. Afterstruggling to contain the Crusaders' option attackearly (26 first-half rushes for 107 yards), theCrimson didn't allow a first down in the thirdquarter and ended the game with five sacks. HolyCross had possession for 18:09 of the first halfbut ended with only 29:32.