Five and counting for the Crimson.

17th-ranked Harvard has opened the season with five straight wins, all of them in impressive fashion. Now, a huge road test looms on Saturday when Tim Murphy’s squad visits an angry Princeton team coming off a heartbreaking loss to Brown.

The Tigers walked into Harvard Stadium last season and embarrassed the Crimson on a Friday night. Now, not only is Harvard looking for a bit of revenge, but more importantly, looking to stay atop the Ivy League and keep this magical run going.

Earlier this week, Murphy spoke about how difficult of a challenge it’ll be on the ‘Inside Harvard Football’ podcast, as it always is in any Ivy League matchup.

There’s also a bit of a bad taste in the collective mouth of the Crimson from the last time they visited New Jersey.

“They’ve had a chance to win all five of their games,” Murphy said of the Tigers. “All five of their games have literally gone down to the last possession. Last week’s case against a very outstanding Brown offense, went into overtime and lost because they missed an extra point. Defensively, this is as good a team – I don’t know if it’s the best team – but as good a team as we’ll see all year. This will be a big challenge. This will be the most significant challenge that we’ve seen yet for our offense.

“They are legit on defense. Offensively, I’m sure they’re going to play extremely well against us. They did graduate two really great wide receivers, one of which who’s playing for the (Cincinnati) Bengals and now is on the active roster. This is always a tough game. They’ve got great athletes. Last time we were down there, we certainly have a lot of memories of that game when we had won it in triple overtime that would have eventually given us the Ivy League championship. That got wiped off the board by mistake by the officials.

“Our kids will certainly be very quietly, very seriously excited and ready to play…it’ll be interesting. The focus is on this Princeton team. The focus is on our team. Whether it’s Yale or Princeton, our guys are always highly motivated to play. Certainly, this will be no exception. Our first real long trek. It’s amazing, five games into the season and we haven’t left the state of Massachusetts. This will seem like a cross-country trip.”