Luck O' the Irish? Football Nabs Top Recruit

Weeks before the first snap of spring practice and months before the Harvard football team opens its season against Holy Cross, Crimson coach Tim Murphy has already notched his first victory of 2004.

His name is Liam O’Hagan.

Like senior and former captain Dante Balestracci, O’Hagan will enter the Harvard program as a former two-way player, previously lining up under center on offense for the Breck Mustangs and at safety on the defensive side of the ball, occasionally stepping into the box as a linebacker. But he will shed his defensive responsibilities when donning a Crimson uniform, just as Balestracci did his signal caller’s role.

But unlike Balestracci, whose Boston-area legend did little to attract bona fide national attention during his final year of high school, O’Hagan drew more than a fleeting glance from not just a selection of the Crimson’s Ivy rivals, but a bevy of schools prominent in Division I-A. Most notably Boston College, Colorado, Minnesota and Vanderbilt tendered scholarship offers, while Stanford—where his elder brother David occupies a spot in the baseball team’s starting rotation—showed similar interest but did not make a formal bid.

“I really felt we had a good shot from the beginning, because getting a good education was a real high priority for him and his family,” Murphy said. “I was pretty worried about Stanford, but they filled up pretty quickly.”

But even Murphy may have underestimated the importance of Harvard’s academic standing in O’Hagan’s choice.

“I think the education was the strong determining factor,” said Breck High School football coach and athletics director John Thiel. “He wanted the strongest possible education he could achieve. It didn’t take very much [for Harvard].”

Not that the Crimson required much convincing either.

The hullabaloo regarding the prep star is certainly not without merit. Standing 6’2, 210 pounds, O’Hagan—regarded as the top quarterback prospect out of Minnesota and widely-considered to be among the top 40 at the position in the country—possesses the stature and physical attributes required to make an immediate impact.

Though he has been timed between 4.6 and 4.8 seconds on the 40-yard dash, O’Hagan has never required the mobility of Harvard captain Ryan Fitzpatrick in the pocket, who, though certainly gifted with tremendous arm strength, makes many of his greatest plays with his legs.

O’Hagan, on the other hand, has had the luxury of sitting back in the pocket while the play develops around him, allowing his arm to do the work. Clocked throwing a fastball at over 90 miles per hour, that arm is more than capable of getting the job done.

“Liam has one of the strongest arms I’ve ever seen and I’ve coached on the collegiate and high school level,” Thiel said. “He can easily throw the ball 50 or 60 yards from the pocket.”

Included in that list of arms is that of Gavin Hoffman, who played for Northwestern before transferring to Penn, where he won the Ivy League’s most valuable player award as a junior while setting school records for yards passing and completions in a season—figures that also placed him in the top-five in Division I-AA in completions per game, passing efficiency and total offense.

But given the nature of Murphy’s flex offense, a quarterback cut from the same cloth as Fitzpatrick—and not a pure gunslinger—functions best in the backfield.

Good thing O’Hagan’s about as close to a Fitzpatrick clone as Harvard could find.

Though the strength of his offensive line last season eliminated any need to scramble, O’Hagan proved to any naysayers during his first three seasons that he has both the poise and vision to make the best of any broken play.

“If he needs to bootleg or roll out he’s very comfortable with that,” Thiel said. “He’s very comfortable with three-, five- and seven-step drops. He’ll do whatever it takes to win.”

Including run the no-huddle offense. Like the Crimson, Breck relies heavily upon an offense called by a competent quarterback at the line of scrimmage, who can recognize defenses before either calling an audible or aiming to exploit a hole in the coverage present as a result of the initial call.

“We run a multiple no-huddle offense where he calls a lot of the plays at the line of scrimmage,” Thiel said. “He understands that not every ball needs to be thrown hard. He has great touch and he understands how to throw the ball for each route.”

But O’Hagan’s allure lies not just in raw talent and occasional flashes of brilliance, but in the consistently solid efforts he has mounted while at Breck High School.

Leading Breck to a perfect 14-0 record and a Minnesota state championship in his senior year, O’Hagan posted state-record stats in both yards through the air—3,812—and passing touchdowns—55—while completing 66 percent of his throws.

He was intercepted just seven times, helping to propel him to both the All-Metro and All-State teams and conference player of the year honors.

With the fate of such a talented prospect hanging in the balance, Murphy called upon one of his most trusted weapons: Fitzpatrick.

“You always give special thought to [who you’ll pair a recruit with],” Murphy said. “I think when I first met Ryan he was a really quiet kid, a social kid in his own way. And Liam’s the same way.”

Though the visit was likely not the deciding factor in his decision to make the trip to Cambridge next fall, Thiel said that O’Hagan warmed to the characteristically-charismatic Fitzpatrick during his stay.

“I think he liked Ryan and he really liked Harvard,” Thiel said. “There were other schools that told him he could step in and play immediately as a freshman. I think what he sees at Harvard is the ability to play football and baseball. Right now, in his mind, he wants to get on the field early and make an impact.”

According to Murphy, O’Hagan has agreed to play only on the gridiron, but Harvard baseball coach Joe Walsh confessed he wouldn’t mind if the young fireballer made his way over to the diamond at O’Donnell Field for a tryout.

“He’d actually come across [our radar screen] just hearing from some of our Minnesota connections,” Walsh said. “I’m excited that he’s coming here. There haven’t been an awful lot of two-sport athletes here recently. I’m just laying it out there that if he or any of the guys that had a good high school career are interested in coming out...With Liam, we know that he’s got a very good baseball program.”

Either way, one thing is for certain: this may be the first, but it definitely won’t be Murphy’s last win traced back to Liam O’Hagan.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu. /