From a distance, you can see a slight resemblance. They’re both a sturdy 6’3, weigh in at around 200 pounds, and have “athlete”—more specifically “wide receiver”—written all over them. They even share the same initials.

But don’t confuse the promise of the future with the legend of the past. Freshman wide receiver Corey Mazza, though tapped to be the successor to record-holder Carl Morris ’03, is making inroads for himself on his own name. He has already been named Ivy League Rookie of the Week—twice. He is third on the team in receiving yards, with 336. He leads the squad in average yards-per-catch with 17.7. He has three touchdowns—not too shabby when you consider that he wasn’t supposed to be seeing much playing time this fall.

Even Harvard coach Tim Murphy couldn’t predict Mazza’s unlikely rise to premature glory.

“I honestly didn’t think, with the number of veterans we had, that he would get much of a shot as a true freshman,” Murphy says, “just because you’d think he’d make too many mistakes to be an asset.”

But when the No. 1 player on the receiving depth chart—senior Kyle Cremarosa—broke his ankle in a pre-season scrimmage, the young man from the West Coast was forced to face his destiny ahead of schedule.

“I wanted the chance to play early,” Mazza says. “I didn’t want Creme to get hurt; he’s one of my friends, but due to circumstances, my chance came earlier than I expected.”

He may not have expected the responsibility to come so soon, but when it did he made sure that he was able to take full advantage of it, picking up Murphy’s complex offense with astonishing swiftness.

“It was tough,” Mazza admits after spending several weeks learning one wide receiver position and then having to rapidly switch to another. He arrived in Cambridge three weeks early and lived with Cremarosa as well as junior quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick while he adjusted to the ins and outs of the new program.

“It really made me feel a lot more comfortable when camp started, knowing where everything was, being close to some of the guys, so it wasn’t like a hundred new strangers,” Mazza says.

“It helped give him a jump-start,” Fitzpatrick says of his counseling, adding that he has been amazed with how quickly Mazza has improved over the course of the season.

California Dreamin’

Fitzpatrick is not the first high-caliber quarterback to teach Mazza a thing or two—he spent two of his years at Thousand Oaks High School in California playing with the No. 1 high school quarterback in the country, Ben Olson. He’s quick to acknowledge, however, that college is a whole new ballgame.

“I played with Ben my sophomore and junior years in high school and he seemed amazing then,” Mazza says. “Playing with Ryan and [junior quarterback] Garrett [Schires], two years older, they seem two more years advanced than he was.”

Though Ivy League opponents know him as an offensive threat, in high school, Mazza did double-duty as a defensive back. He was no slouch on defense, nabbing a conference record 14 interceptions his senior year. But his heart is in the role of wide receiver, and that’s how most colleges recruited him.

This is part of the reason why, despite his talent, Mazza is reluctant to lay claim to the title of heir to Morris’ legacy. He has seen the same recruiting song-and-dance enough times to be wary of any guarantees of glory.