Crimson tailback JOSH STAPH (9) turned in an impressive performance on Saturday, rushing for 152 yards and three touchdowns against the Bears. Harvard defeated Brown, 27-20, at The Stadium.

As the fans slowly filtered into the Soldiers Field athletic complex on Saturday, the focus was on stadium security. By the end of the day, however, ball and lead protection were all anyone wanted to talk about.

The Harvard football team avoided the turnovers that plagued it in late-game situations last year and held on to defeat Brown in its first game of the season, 27-20, in front of an announced crowd of 8,511. Fifth-year senior Josh Staph, a converted fullback, rumbled for 152 yards and three touchdowns to lead the Crimson, and senior quarterback Neil Rose recovered from a rocky first half to finish with 222 passing yards for Harvard.

Impressive as these figures were, the most important number for the Crimson was probably zero: zero interceptions, zero fumbles and zero blown fourth-quarter leads.

The thing thats gratifying from the coaches standpoint is that what weve talked about all year was ball security, ball security, ball security, Harvard Coach Tim Murphy said. We had no turnovers in a hard-fought football game.

Harvard did make things interesting in the games closing stages. Nursing a seven-point lead with two minutes left in the game, the Crimson had the ball at midfield and looked to run out the clock. But the offensive line committed two false starts in the next two plays, costing Harvard a combined ten yards and forcing the Crimson to punt. Sophomore Adam Kingstons punt was downed at the nine-yard line, and Brown quarterback Kyle Rowley had one last chance to lead the Bears into the endzone.

Then, the Crimson defense took over.

Rowley stepped out of the shotgun and aimed for a receiver, only to have his offering swatted away by junior defensive end Mike Armstrong. On the very next play, Rowley got the ball and took a few steps to the right only to be pulled down by senior defensive end Marc Laborsky for a loss.

Rowley did rip off a gain of 26 yards on third down, completing a pass to his brother Travis and setting up a first-and-10 on the Brown 32. But Armstrong sacked Rowley on the next play, and senior strong safety Andy Fried picked off Rowleys pass at Harvards 45-yard line to seal the victory for the Crimson.

Coming into the season, we knew going in that were gonna be situations where wed have to stop them in the end, and we won that battle, Coach Murphy said. We did the things we had to do to win.

Brown had tied the game at 20 earlier in the quarter on a 21-yard field goal by Sean Jensen with 7:48 remaining. At that point, Harvard went to a formula that had worked all gameput the ball in Staphs hands. Staph, who had won the starting tailback job in training camp after junior Matt Leiszler tore his ACL during the offseason, found a gaping hole and rushed up the middle for an eight-yard gain. On the next play, Staph took advantage of a strong block by senior receiver Dan Farley to pick up another 18 yards and get the ball to midfield. Two plays later, Rose found receiver Carl Morris off a short route, and the junior took advantage of more solid blocking to turn the play into a 29-yard gain.

After two more Staph rushesincluding one for 13 yardsbrought the Crimson inside the red zone, Rose hooked up with Morris again, finding him off a fade pattern in the corner of the end zone to give Harvard a lead it would not relinquish.

Its not how many yards, its how many wins, Coach Murphy said. Its not how many completions, its how well we do with ball security. I thought [Neil] played as mature a game as hes played since hes been here.

Rose and Morris had finally clicked in the second half after struggling in the first. Rose had completed only five of 14 passes in the first 30 minutes, and Morris had been uncharacteristically quiet with 36 yards on three catches after seeing several passes slip through his fingers.

I was actually pretty confused with myself at first, Rose said. I wasnt making the passes and the ball wasnt coming out right.

However, Staph was there to carry the offense. The offensive line created hole after hole for him and he took advantage, barreling through for 47 yards in the first quarter, including the first of his three scores from one yard out.