Image courtesy of Harvard Magazine

We’ve been very candid here at New England Football Journal when it comes to our thoughts on Ivy League teams not getting an opportunity to play in the FCS postseason.

To quote the great lawyer in Seinfeld Jackie Chiles, “it’s outrageous, egregious and preposterous.”

With the Ivy League title the only championship Harvard can chase, the Crimson have shown through the first five games this season that it’s a team with everything you need to win the Ivy’s version of a national championship. Whether it’s coming from behind, holding on while the opponent makes a run late, hanging tough with elite, top-10 ranked competition or blowing bad teams out like a good team should, Harvard has done it all so far.

On Wednesday, head coach Tim Murphy made an appearance on the weekly Inside Harvard Football podcast with Bernie Corbett to talk about  a massive primetime matchup against Princeton at home on Friday night. The game kicks off a final five-game, all Ivy League stretch for the Crimson. Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Penn are all currently tied atop the standings with 2-0 records in the league.

“Something’s got to give, there’s no question about it,” Murphy said when particularly talking about his running game against the Tigers’ stout running defense. “They’ve done a terrific job giving up 1.8 or something like that per rush, which is extraordinary in this day and age. If you just look at them overall, they’re averaging 30-plus points a game and only giving up 11 points a game, that’s an amazing spread.

“Like the Holy Cross team we faced, this is an outstanding team that has few identifiable weaknesses.”

Harvard was in that game with Holy Cross until the Crusaders pulled away in the fourth quarter. The Crimson showed it could hang with the now No. 9 team in the country, but turnovers were a killer that afternoon. Murphy knows his team has to win the turnover battle if it wants to keep its championship hopes alive against Princeton.

“We had one takeaway going into our fifth game last week down at Howard and we now have four,” he said. “This is a game where whoever wins the takeaway turnover battle, I think is going to win the game.”

After waiting a year to try and extract some small bit of revenge for the way things went down in New Jersey in the last meeting, the Crimson are chomping at the bit to run out under the lights with the world watching on ESPNU. Murphy – as you would expect from the stoic leader – brushed off the notion that this game is bigger than any other, but we all know what this one means after the 2021 travesty.

“When you only have 10 games, every game is an important game,” Murphy added. “In general, on the schedule if you’re going to compete for a championship, you know at least in the last 10-20 years where Murderer’s Row has been. This is the beginning of that. One game at a time, but like I said, this game is a lot like Holy Cross game we played.

“They (Princeton) seem to have – based on film – very few weaknesses. We’re excited to play. Hopefully we’ll play well and all I can say is, we are extremely excited to be playing on Friday night in general and certainly to have Princeton at home.”