One win.

That’s all that stands between Harvard and the program’s first outright Ivy League title in a decade.

That win will have to come against archival Yale in the 140th edition of The Game at historic Harvard Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Harvard clinched a share of the title for the second straight year last weekend, but there was no celebration.

That’s because last season, the Crimson clinched a share of the league along with Yale and Dartmouth, but after losing to Princeton and then Yale in the season finale down in Connecticut, most returning Crimson players had a bad taste in their mouth and didn’t really consider themselves league champs with those two losses.

Fast forward a year. There’s a new head coach, but the same chip on the team’s collective shoulder as the Crimson look to leave no doubt on Saturday.

Earlier this week, first year head coach Andrew Aurich had his regular appearance on the ‘Inside Harvard Football Podcast’  and talked about the mindset heading into this weekend…a mindset that began seconds after the thrilling win over Penn.

“That (the Yale game) was in the back of my mind immediately after the game,” he said. “I know last year, they were in a similar position and it didn’t go the way they wanted it. To me (the message after the Penn game) was making sure these guys understand…like, what were your goals for the year? Was one of your goals a championship, or to win an outright championship?

“I know what mine were. I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page. We talked about it again on Sunday. They’re in the right mind space right now to put in the work to prepare for Saturday.”

Aurich came in and humbly let the program do what it does with a few tweaks here and there. Now, just a couple weeks after the team honored legendary coach Tim Murphy, Aurich can stand beside him as a true Ivy League champion leading the program with a win in arguably the most historic college football game there is.

Standing in the way is a Yale team that won’t be able to capture its third straight championship, but at 6-3 is very capable of spoiling the Crimson party. The Bulldogs have won four-of-five and have scored 98 points combined the last two games.

“They’re also one of those teams that…when I left to go to Rutgers, they were a certain type of team and when I came back, they’re still that type of team” Aurich said. Coach (Tony) Reno’s done a really, really good job recruiting there. They have a lot of really talented players and you see it all over the tape. They play really hard on special teams and then you just go through their depth charts on offense and defense and it’s just really, really talented players.

“They had a couple games that kind of were…not normal for what you’d expect from them. The Cornell game was a really strange game because of the weather involved in it. Then, the Dartmouth game they were up by a lot and then Dartmouth came back and beat them. Their record is deceiving. What they got picked in the preseason polls 100% aligns with the kind of team they are.

“This is definitely the most talented team we’ll have seen this year.”

It’s hard to believe any Harvard fan wouldn’t fully believe in Aurich already, but if they still need some convincing, just know that being a Princeton alum, the enemy has always been Yale.

“Yes. It’s funny, that was the feeling when I played and coached at Princeton,” he added. “It’s, you know…everybody wanted to beat Yale. That was a team you wanted to beat. The first day I showed up we had a common enemy.”