Their fumble recoveries on back-to-back drives in the second half helped keep Harvard’s touchdown streak alive.

But here comes the but.

They say first impressions are all-important. They are wrong.

Try to remember how this column started, for instance. For a harder challenge, recall the first game of Harvard’s 2011 football season.

Holy Cross beat the Crimson in that game, 30-22, as Collier Winters ’12 threw two interceptions. Winters threw just two more picks the rest of the year as Harvard ran the table to finish 9-1.

A year earlier, in 2010, the Crimson beat the Crusaders 34-6 to start the year, but then lost three games to tie Murphy’s worst record since 2000.

First impressions briefly seem important because they are the only impression at that time. More, better evidence comes later. The most recent impression is the most accurate, and the last one is the most important.

The corners of the 2014 Harvard football puzzle have been laid, but nobody’s eyes go to the corners of a picture first. A lot of questions remain unanswered.

Fischer and Smith can be explosive on the outside, and other receivers showed the ability to get open between the hashes, but it is still unclear who Hempel can go to when he needs someone to make a contested catch, for example.

On the other side of the ball, Harvard’s secondary was able to get away with giving Holy Cross receivers a lot of cushion in order to avoid a big play over the top. That strategy will not work against some of the quicker-hitting offenses in the Ivy League. The young crop of corners will eventually be tested.

But there is no need to judge those positions now. Strengths and weaknesses there and across the roster will become apparent as Harvard fights through its Ivy schedule starting next week. Or, if you prefer analysis of the verbless variety:

Week one win. Now what?