"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."