Much of the blame for the impotent offense has to lie with Wahlberg. A quarterback who enjoyed success playing in Florida at the high school level against some very good players, he looked confused on Saturday and struggled to make his reads downfield. He threw all three Crimson interceptions and completed only 4-of-16 passes on the day.

"[Wahlberg] seemed like he was a little nervous, and we were giving him pressure, moving him around, stemming him a lot," said Crusader senior linebacker Luke Sinkhorn. "Seemed like he couldn't handle it that well."

The Crimson was unable to find any rhythm on offense until the third quarter and didn't muster a first down until 11:08 to go in the second quarter.

Though Wahlberg played until the third quarter, he never found his rhythm. Rose, on the other hand, looked poised when he was in the game.

"Neil probably hadn't practiced anywhere near was well as Barry lately, and that's the reason why we went with him," Murphy said. "To Neil's credit, even though he hadn't had a great week of practice, he came in very cool and confident."

On Harvard's fourth quarter touchdown drive, Rose looked especially good, as he found four different receivers with passes of over ten yards.

Other than the quarterback position, the offense looked solid. The Crimson receiving corps looks to be solid through at least the first four receivers on the depth chart. Sophomores Carl Morris, Kyle Cremarosa and Sean Meeker and junior Dan Farley were all able to get downfield and make catches in traffic.

Holy Cross jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter by wining the field position battle. After recovering the opening kickoff at their own 45-yard line, Holy Cross kept the ball in Harvard's end of the field by playing good defense and executing on punt coverage .