Gridiron fans, rejoice—at long last the annual and interminable 42-week interlude between football campaigns has ended. Through change and through storm, the 152nd season of Harvard football will kick off on Saturday at Spec Martin Memorial Stadium in DeLand, Florida against Stetson University. This is the second of a home-and-home series that began last year at Harvard Stadium, with the Crimson squashing the Hatters 35-0. Stetson has already played three games this season and is 1-2.
Fun fact: the Crimson has never been scored upon by a team from Florida. In its only other battles with a Sunshine State school, Harvard blanked the University of Florida twice, 24-0 in 1922 and 14-0 in 1929. If the Crimson and the Gators were to play this year, however, the Gators might very well get onto the scoreboard.
Harvard finished the 2024 season 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the Ivy League, good for a first-place tie with Dartmouth and Columbia, the second season in a row that the Crimson was tri-champion. Here are a few things to know in the way of a warm-up for the 2025 season.
COACH STAYS THE COURSE: Entering his second season on the job, Stephenson Family head coach for football Andrew Aurich has had “a ton of fun” in the offseason exploring Boston with his family. On the sideline, while trusting his two coordinators, Mickey Fein (offense) and Scott Larkee (defense), he is keeping his basic approach. “My job is to make sure our football identity is showing up and being reinforced,” Aurich says. “Primarily, being obsessed with the ball. On offense, taking care of the ball; on defense, disrupting the ball.” He concedes, “We were really talented last year and there was probably some stuff we got away with. That’s not going to be the case week to week this year. So, we’ve got to hang our hat on our football identity.”
WE’RE NUMBER ONE…IN THE PRESEASON POLL: The media who cover the Ivy League have tabbed Harvard as the preseason title favorite. The Crimson received 118 points (nine first-place) to lead Dartmouth (105, nine), Yale (103, three) and Columbia (72). One likely reason: the Crimson have arguably the league’s best quarterback in senior Jaden Craig, who in conference games last season threw 23 touchdown passes and a mere three interceptions. Another: Harvard boasts inarguably the league’s most accomplished defender in rock ’em, sock ’em senior safety and captain Ty Bartrum, who was second in conference games with 59 tackles, a rare feat for a defensive back. Bartrum is joined in the defensive backfield by juniors Damien Henderson, Austin-Jake Guillory, and Jack Donahoe to make up one of the best pass defenses in Harvard history.
CONCERNS: “There’s a lot of missing snaps from last year,” says Aurich. Translation: Graduation took away much of Harvard’s line and linebacking strength and depth. Aurich is hoping that senior Xavier Agostino will step up at defensive tackle, while sophomore Dorsey Benefield, junior Sean Line, and senior Jack Kirkwood plug the holes at linebacker.
The biggest loss may have been from the offense. Cooper Barkate, the league’s leading wide receiver and Craig’s favorite target, finished his coursework in three years and graduated with a year of eligibility remaining. Barkate then ran a down-and-out to Duke of the Atlantic Coast Conference. By some accounts, productive wide receivers who placed their names in the NCAA transfer portal were signing with Football Bowl Subdivision schools for between $400,000 and $800,000. We don’t know if Barkate snared that kind of loot, but he is already making an impact in Durham, through three games leading the Blue Devils with 14 receptions. Junior tight end Seamus Gilmartin will be a go-to guy for Craig, and Aurich says that six-foot-four senior Dean Boyd might be a candidate to make the tough catches that Barkate specialized in.
PLAYOFFS? For the first time since it began competition in 1956, the Ivy League will permit its football champion to advance to the postseason—specifically, to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. The FCS playoffs begin on November 29 (the Saturday following The Game) and could mean five more games if Harvard goes the distance. The Crimson has not played a postseason football game since the 1920 Rose Bowl (Harvard 7, Oregon 6).
MURPH’S TURF: During the home opener on Saturday, September 27, against Ivy rival Brown (kickoff: 6 p.m.), the gridiron at the Stadium will be formally dedicated as Tim Murphy Field at Harvard Stadium in honor of the iconic Harvard coach who spent 30 years on the Crimson sideline and whose teams won or shared 10 Ivy titles.
That night will also feature a halftime drone show and will introduce another Stadium element: end-zone field boxes. These are priced at $1,500 to $2,500 per game. (Those for Brown are sold out.) Fully furnished private tents! Private cash bar! Such a deal! For more information, click here.
THE GAME AT FENWAY, PART DEUX: Reprising an experiment first tried in 2018, the 142nd Playing of the Game will return to Boston’s Fenway Park in 2026. (It is Harvard’s year for home field.) The Crimson won the 2018 contest 45-27.
HISTORY LESSON: Did Harvard score football’s first-ever touchdown? The website Football Archeology has investigated and posits that James P. Wetherbee, A.B. 1874, went over the goal against McGill in 1874. For the first touchdown in a game involving two American colleges, Gorham Faucon, A.B. 1875, tallied against Tufts in 1875. For more, click here.
