Senior quarterback Michael Pruneau spent the last three years waiting for an opportunity to prove himself. With junior starter Conner Hempel out with a knee injury, Pruneau got that chance on Saturday against Cornell and delivered. The Texas native threw for 340 yards and accounted for three touchdowns, including one on the ground and one to roommate senior tight end Cam Brate.

The Harvard football team may have a tradition of producing great quarterbacks, but it also seems to have a knack for developing solid backups as well.

When quarterback Collier Winters got sidelined after the first week of the 2011 season with a hamstring injury, second-string Colton Chapple came in and led the team to three straight victories while Winters recovered.

Starting quarterback junior Conner Hempel left in the first quarter of Week Three’s contest with a hyperextended knee but came back in to lead the team to a triple-overtime win over Holy Cross. But a week later, with the team slated to face Cornell on the road, the injury was still bothering him.

“If you watched him in the last drive and in overtime, he looked fine. But obviously there was a lot of adrenaline, and the next day, he didn’t feel quite as well,” coach Tim Murphy said.

Enter senior Michael Pruneau. After a shaky first drive that ended in an interception, Pruneau settled into the starting spot like a veteran, completing 23 of 29 passes for 340 yards and two scores to lead Harvard to a 34-24 victory over the Big Red.

“Any really solid program is going to have depth at the quarterback position,” Murphy said. “You’re not going to be a solid program consistently over the years if you don’t have a legitimate backup, and I think, if anything, in our 20 years here, we’ve done a good job evaluating, developing, and recruiting quality quarterbacks.”

Pruneau, who suffered an ACL tear in last year’s preseason, competed with Hempel for the starting position in a tight battle that ended in Hempel narrowly edging out the senior for the job.

“The decision to start Conner wasn’t an easy one. It pretty much did go right down to the wire,” Murphy said. “We feel like we can win with either quarterback, and now we’re in a position to verify that, so we’re extremely fortunate to have a senior who is clearly a good football player. We’re in good shape at quarterback.”

Murphy says Hempel is at “about 85 percent” right now, so with the non-conference game this weekend and the conservative approach the team is taking with Hempel’s health, Pruneau will likely lead the offense again on Saturday against Lafayette.

“I don’t think of myself as the backup quarterback,” Pruneau said. “I’ve been prepared for this forever. The injury obviously set me back, but all of my hard work is kind of coming out, and it’s good to see that.”

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samantha.lin@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @linsamnity.