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.