When Irvin showed up on campus for his first official involvement as a member of the Crimson at the beginning of July, O’Hagan appeared to have the upper hand and, most importantly, Cecchini said, “a good grasp on the offense.”

“It’s interesting—I don’t know if ‘dilemma’ is the right word,” Cecchini said during the preaseason. “While Richard is a more experienced quarterback overall, Liam is more comfortable with the system right now.”

Still, the experience Irvin had in Division I-A was significant.

“Richard obviously is an incredible talent throwing the football,” Cecchini said. “Any time you get a guy who has played against that kind of competition, and played very well, he deserves a good look. So even though Liam had done a good job in the spring, we wanted to give the other guy a good solid look once he got here. And that’s what we’ve done.”

BEING CHOOSEY

The competition began almost as soon as Irvin arrived, O’Hagan said.

“It was even competitive in the summer, with lifting and running,” O’Hagan said. “And then it carried over into preseason practices. When someone messed up, the other guy would jump in, and back and forth like that.”

To get a handle on the new system, Irvin watched hours of video—but NCAA regulations prevented him from watching with a coach until preseason practices began.

“That gave me some kind of a foundation, a base to go off of,” Irvin said, “but I really just started processing the information in the offense at the start of camp.”

In preseason practices, both saw the same number of snaps, but O’Hagan took 70 percent of his reps with the first team. In the two preseason scrimmages—against Columbia on Sept. 3 and an intra-squad practice Sept. 10—both saw equal time.

The coaches evaluated the two players constantly, and Murphy repeatedly called the situation “fluid.”

Sunday before the season opener, Murphy picked his starter. The statistics from the scrimmages favored Irvin slightly, pushing the Harvard coach to give him Saturday’s start.

O’Hagan, Murphy added, would definitely see considerable playing time.

“There’s no big disparity,” Murphy said. “If there was, it would make our job easier, but on the other hand, I prefer having two good quarterbacks to one.”

“The fact that I got the nod for the first game doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily the starter,” Irvin said. “I still gotta prove myself in a game situation.”