And Peters’ accomplishments at Westminster stretched beyond the gridiron and the concert hall.
During track season, Peters moonlighted as one of the top 300-meter hurdlers in the state. He finished in the top three of every senior year race, and at the Class AA state finals, he ran a personal best of 38.72 en route to second place.
However impressive, these past successes gave Peters no tangible advantage when he donned the Crimson football jersey.
“I was treated like one of the recruited players, which was awesome,” Peters said. “They felt like they needed me depth-wise.”
As a freshman, Peters logged time on the scout team; as a sophomore, he earned a special teams role and saw limited action as a defensive back. But this season is the first time that Peters has claimed a regular slot in the secondary.
“I think the biggest change in my game has been film study off the field,” Peters said. “Besides that, it’s just an overall progression.”
Peters’ new role has resulted in a statistical explosion. After grabbing his first interception against Holy Cross, he recorded his first forced fumble a game later against Brown.
Peters ranked second among Harvard’s defensive backs this season with 47 tackles, including a monster game against Georgetown where he led the team with seven tackles.
This success mirrors the emergence of other third-year defensive backs in a relatively young secondary. In addition to Peters, juniors Asante Gibson, Sean Ahern, Chris Evans, and Jordan Becerra have experienced upticks in usage and production.
“We’ve been in the system long enough that we really feel comfortable with the schemes,” Peters said. “We’ve been in the weight room long enough…[that] we can compete.”
Even so, coaches and teammates maintain something separates Peters from the pack.
“He’s probably the smartest player I’ve ever played with,” Evans said “He can really control the secondary from back there. He knows what’s going on.”
Murphy confirms this assessment. Although the longtime coach does not remember a distinct first impression, he has come to appreciate several strengths of Peters’s game.
“He’s very athletic,” Murphy said. “He’s very physical. But beyond that, what allows him to be an exceptional defensive player is that he seems to see things in slow motion….For a kid like that, not to be recruited much by the Ivy League and then end up as a starter on a very good team—on an exceptional defensive team—that’s quite a story.”
Peters’s unique narrative found a unique conclusion this weekend in the 131st edition of The Game. After the Bulldogs got the ball back, trailing by seven in the last minute, Peters trotted out with Harvard’s defense for its final stand.
And with 10 seconds left, it was Peters who stepped in front of Yale quarterback Morgan Roberts’ pass to grab an interception, clinching the win and undefeated season.
As the stadium shook with cheers, and the Harvard bench streamed towards him, Peters lay in the middle of the field, hugging the ball. There he was, a former walk-on and current starter, clutching another Crimson victory to his chest.