Then again, maybe that’s because he’s had no problem finding other ways to impact his team.

With defenders keying on him after a breakout junior season, Edwards has ended up throwing for a touchdown, taking his share of handoffs, and even intercepting a pass when moonlighting as a free safety in a return formation against Holy Cross. He has run back two punts and a kick-off for scores, also, becoming the only person in 130 years of Harvard football to notch touchdowns in four of the five offensive ways. His 143.9 total yards per contest and his total of 1,295 net yards stand a remarkable second on the Crimson only to Clifton Dawson’s 1,303.

“After getting off the field from a defensive series, we’re supposed to be looking at the coaches for adjustments,” linebacker Matt Thomas says. “But I can’t help peeking over to see what he might do next.”

In fact, just ask anyone—coach, player, and referee, apparently—and you’ll begin to realize one thing: Brian Edwards is exhilarating on the field, jovial off it, and defiant of convention.

“He’s got this great free spirit about him,” Harvard head coach Tim Murphy says. “I’ve always said that I don’t want a bunch of robots on my football team. He has a toughness and a confidence about him that kind of transcends what people think football players are like.”

And ultimately, Murphy is right.

Exceedingly so.

From the samurai-like topknot he sometimes wears in his long, black hair, to the touchdowns he’s acrobatically caught, to the yards he’s valiantly accumulated—and even down to this ethnicity, which is half-white, half-Asian—Edwards is not like most college football players.

Just watch him go to work on special teams, and you can tell.

“In the past two years I think he’s been the most versatile and explosive wideout in the Ivy League,” Murphy says. “People don’t want to defend him.”

How unfortunate, then, that Brian Edwards, arm fastened firmly to his side, will make them do just that.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.