Despite splitting snaps with sophomore Ryan Tyler in three of the season’s first four games—Dawson was suspended from the Brown contest for an unspecified violation of team rules—he showed flashes of brilliance, twice rushing for at least 69 yards on 17 carries. But the best was clearly yet to come.
One week after Fitzpatrick broke his hand, leaving the offense to look for a new sparkplug against Lafayette, Dawson slid gracefully into the top spot on the tailback depth charts and never looked back.
Dawson racked up 218 yards and four touchdowns on 26 carries, highlighted by a 71-yard burst with 2:11 remaining to put the game out of reach.
“He can give us the type of speed threat that we’ve never had here,” Murphy said. “Some of the runs he had against Lafayette and Dartmouth—I’m not sure I’ve seen any back in my 10 years here that could’ve done that.”
The score was Dawson’s third in the game’s final 16:20, a stretch during which he almost single-handedly compensated for the hefty void left by the Crimson’s injured signal caller.
“It was a great opportunity to step up and show what I could do, given the chance to start with the majority of rushes,” Dawson said.
The story followed a similar script against Princeton the following week, with Dawson again taking on the lion’s share of the offensive load. Racking up 183 yards on a whopping 40 carries for three touchdowns, Dawson eased the burden on backup quarterback Garrett Schires as the Crimson battled into overtime.
“I hadn’t [ever had 40 carries],” Dawson said. “In high school, I played the first quarter, maybe the first half, and we’d be up by so much that I wouldn’t be playing anymore.”
Dawson rushed the ball 74 times in the next three weeks, accumulating 435 yards and scoring four times against Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn, despite Harvard’s need to throw the ball late in each contest to make up lost ground.
But Dawson’s best performances came when his production was needed most, and in no case was that truer than against Yale.
With Fitzpatrick hobbled by a torn left meniscus—he attempted only 22 passes on the day—the success of the offense again rested on Dawson’s shoulders. And, to nobody’s surprise, Dawson didn’t stumble.
Grinding out 176 yards on 32 carries, Dawson left only the scoring to anyone else, otherwise carrying the offense the length of the field and back. Even when he was poked in the eye, the freshman took a play off, regained his sight and returned to the huddle.
“For a freshman, boy he was a horse today,” Murphy said.
—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.