Rose immediately recovered, however. On his next series, he marched Harvard down the field, completing three passes and receiving a big assist on a wild reverse-pass executed by Morris to Cremerosa for 38 yards.

Though the drive stalled in the red zone, Rose clearly had poise in the pocket. On third-and-6 from the Holy Cross 18, he hit sophomore Dan Farley on a three-yard out pattern. Farley fell short of the first down, but he was the third or fourth option and Rose had the presence to try and make something happen, and at least give the field goal kicker a chance.

Harvard, down 27-18 needed two scores anyway at this point. However, sophomore placekicker Anders Blewett, (a most unfortunate name for a kicker), missed the 32-yarder wide left.

Rose, undaunted, really opened some eyes with his next drive. He started by hitting Farley with a beautiful 17-yard pass over the middle. Rose also connected on sharp strikes of 15, 17 and 11 yards. On the last, he stepped up in the pocket and found Cremerosa on a slant across the field at the 7-yard line.

Harvard banged the ball into the end zone on a fourth-and-goal quarterback sneak from the one-inch line. Rose had given the Crimson a chance to win the game, but he never got the ball back.

The real strength of the Crimson offense is its wide receivers. Rose's poise in the pocket began to unleash their potential.

"To Neil's credit even though he hadn't had a great week of practice, he came in very cool and confident and that's the key to our offense," Murphy said.

Quarterback was a wide-open position for the Crimson in the preseason. With all but fifth-stringer J.C. Harrington spending time on the injury list, nobody has had the chance to really practice and adapt to running the offense. This was the first significant action both of these players had received.