So if you entered the Stadium to catch the end of the game, you were probably wondering what the hell was going on. Fitzpatrick handing off to Rodney Thomas? Isn’t this Harvard Football 2002?

It was no joke to Coach Murphy and the Harvard fans. The undefeated season, the potential Ivy league championship, all rested in the hands of untested players. Visions of last year’s second-half implosions crept into the minds of the 10,000 fans assembled to see the game.

Or at least they would have thought about those things if it hadn’t been for the other three components of this 2001 Harvard football squad: the wide receivers, the offensive line and the defense.

Once Rose and Staph went down these three units stepped up.

The receiving core—Carl Morris, Dan Farley and Sam Taylor—made sure that Fitzpatrick’s throws were caught. Farley, especially, leapt for a 39-yard reception that surely would have been picked off otherwise.

The offensive line, motivated by the slight embarassment of letting Rose get drilled a few times, opened up holes that were twice as big as they were in the first half. Thomas ended up with 84 yards rushing, including five runs of 5 yards or more in the fourth quarter. More importantly, Fitzpatrick wasn’t sacked.

And Harvard’s most valuable asset, its experienced defense, refused to be pushed around at the end of the game. After letting Princeton running back Cam Atkinson get a 27-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, the Crimson defense came up with its biggest play of the game.

Lined up for the two-point conversion in an attempt to tie the score at 28-28, Princeton tried some trickery. Knowing that it had run the “sweep” play several times for success already, quarterback David Splithoff turned to hand off. Instead he pulled down and rolled the other way, hoping the Crimson would over-commit on the run and he could flick a pass over the secondary.

Harvard had done its homework, or more specifically, senior cornerback Willie Alford knew what was up. Splithoff seemed surprise at Alford’s presence in his passing lane, but threw the ball anyway. Alford knocked the ball back into Splithoff’s hands, and the Crimson kept the lead.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Harvard “D” turned a potentially disastrous situation in the last seconds into a game-winning stop.

The Tigers drove in the last two minutes, trying to set up a field-goal for Taylor Northrup, who could kick a 45-yarder with ease. But they were only at the Harvard 38 when they had time for one last play to get a little closer. Splithoff tossed a pass to Atkinson in the flat. Atkinson turned upfield, but only got six yards when he was nailed by senior defensive back Eric LaHaie.

That meant Northrup would have to kick a long 49-yard field goal to win the game.

We all know what happened.

The nightmare ended, and the dream continues.