PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Ryan Fitzpatrick is getting awfully good at this “hero” thing.

Harvard’s sophomore quarterback, replacing injured starter Neil Rose for the second time this season, took the field in the second quarter and led the Crimson to three straight scores for a come-from-behind victory, 26-24, against Brown in Providence Saturday afternoon.

Fitzpatrick completed 10-of-16 pass attempts for 113 yards and two touchdowns, but his real impact came in the running game. He ran 22 times and led all players with 131 yards on the ground, including a drive-saving 30-yard scramble in the third quarter.

“He’s got a little bit of colt in him,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “He’s not a running quarterback—he’s a guy who can run or throw.”

The win was the Crimson’s 11th in a row dating back to last season.

Harvard (2-0, 1-0 Ivy) held on to its slim lead late in the game in both dramatic and controversial style. After senior kicker Anders Blewett missed a 23-yard field goal wide left late in the fourth quarter, the Bears’ offense pushed its way down the field methodically.

Brown fullback Brent Grinna advanced the ball into Harvard territory, but the Bears (0-2, 0-1) got stuck at the Harvard 23 facing a fourth-and-four.

Quarterback Kyle Slager threw an underneath pass to star wideout Chas Gessner, who ran all the way to the 3-yard line. The immediate celebration by the Bears was tempered quickly when they realized there was a flag on the play—a 15-yard penalty for offensive pass interference called on an illegal “pick” before the pass.

Brown coach Phil Estes was furious, but the play was called back and the Bears could not convert the longer fourth down and turned the ball over.

The Crimson stalled on offense with only two minutes left to play and were forced to punt, giving the Bears one last chance. Brown started from its own 2, and Slager dropped back in the end zone to pass. Crimson senior defensive end Mike Armstrong got to Slager, and as the quarterback was going down, he flipped the ball a few yards in front of him.

Instead of intentional grounding, which would have resulted in a safety, the officials ruled Slager’s toss an incomplete pass.

“No, I didn’t see a receiver,” junior defensive end Brian Garcia, who also got to Slager, said. “It was a questionable call. But I really don’t know, there were three guys around me.”

Estes admitted at a post-game press conference that the ruling “probably should have been a safety” and been the end of Brown’s chances.

In any case, the Crimson defense bore down and stopped Brown on the next two plays to end the game and leave Brown Stadium with the win.

Despite expectations of a much higher-scoring game filed with deep passes to each team’s star wide receivers, both coaches used the run early to keep each others’ offenses off the field.