You craved him.

You needed him.

And then, imagine if, right then and there—at the height of that feeling, as you drooled at the prospect of 40 touchdowns prorated to the Crimson’s 10-game season—you lost him.

Silently, and on the helmet of an unknowing Cornell defender who hadn’t even known what he’d done, to boot. In a fluke collision of hard Riddell plastic to golden right hand, there was an impact that Harvard players still have trouble grappling with.

“I don’t really like to look into the past,” freshman tailback Clifton Dawson says. “I think that each game, we go in with a great game plan and with great guys who can make all the plays at each position. And with the games that [junior quarterback] Garrett [Schires] played in [replacing Fitzpatrick], he worked very hard in preparing, and worked very hard at giving us a great chance to win…Ryan brought a lot of things that Garrett may not have, but we still had a great opportunity to win.”

And ultimately, Dawson’s right. The Harvard Crimson, after all, is a team—not just one man—and the players competed hard, as they always did, even though No. 14 was missing.

“Many people blame our losses on the injuries we’ve sustained,” says senior safety Chris Raftery. “However, I really believe that is not the answer at all. Everyone that has had to fill in for a spot has played very well, showing that our depth is definitely a strength.”

Dawson exemplifies that fact.

The Northwestern transfer stepped up time and time again in Fitzpatrick’s absence, scampering for an amazing four touchdowns on 219 yards against Lafayette, the first game after the Big Red Mishap.

In fact, since the Cornell game, Dawson has averaged 137 yards rushing for Harvard, finding the end zone on 11 different occasions—compared to the meager 57 yards per game and three touchdowns tallied beforehand while he was still being integrated into the Harvard offense.”

And the Crimson did the job, for a time. Schires, Dawson, junior wideout Brian Edwards, the injury-plagued offensive line, senior cornerback Benny Butler—who leads the Ivy League in interceptions—and captain linebacker Dante Balestracci eked out victories. The wins weren’t pretty, but they were gutsy. The team, on both sides of the ball, had their troubles—field goal kicking and pass protection, to name a couple—but when all was said and done, Harvard rolled to a 6-0 record, even hovering around the 20’s in the Division I-AA polls.

And just when the Crimson seemed to shift to cruise control, the wheels came off.

As Fitzpatrick made his first return to the field midway through the Dartmouth game on Nov. 1, the Crimson fell apart around him. Harvard suddenly seemed unable to find its previous momentum, dropping two in a row to the formerly cellar-dwelling Big Green and then Columbia.

Those two teams had a combined four wins to Harvard’s six at the time of their respective match-ups with the Crimson.

Harvard’s point output in those two contests compared to that of its lowly opponents? 29 to 46.