Much of the pre-game speculation had been focused on Hartigan, a large, bruising tailback who, like Dawson, is on the Payton Award watch list. The 6’2, 220-lb. back had 115 yards on 29 carries, but managed only four yards per carry and rarely broke for a large gain for a day that his coach Phil Estes deemed “average.”

“He just seemed to get snagged,” Estes said. “It was those couple you thought he was going to break and then all of a sudden they’ve got him by the end of his foot...We never got that going.”

His Crimson counterpart had a far greater impact, which was made apparent in the first quarter, when the junior left the game on the third series. Holding his side in pain, Dawson left the field for a span as the Crimson offense sputtered and the Brown defense breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately for Harvard, his absence was brief. Dawson returned at the start of the second quarter to power the Crimson to its first scoring drive, capped by his four-yard run to put Harvard up 16-8 after a successful two-point conversion.

“We don’t necessarily game-plan for any specific player,” said Brown linebacker Zak DeOssie. “[But] obviously it was a lot easier without him in there.”

Still, the Crimson was hardly dominant offensively, remaining behind until a nine-yard touchdown by Mazza tied the game at 22 in the third quarter. Nor was the outcome certain until Morgan’s seventh and final field goal attempt of the day—five of which he made—missed the uprights.

Only then were Estes and the Bears left, like last year, with nothing but an 0-1 Ivy record to show for their pains.

“We needed to win that game in regulation,” Estes said resignedly. “We should have.”

—Staff writer Lisa J. Kennelly can be reached at kennell@fas.harvard.edu.