Unbeaten Harvard Hosts Princeton Saturday With the Ivy Lead and a Playoff Path on the Line

The best game in Massachusetts this weekend might be in Allston.

Harvard, ranked No. 15 and No. 17 in the FCS polls, hosts receiving-votes Princeton on Saturday afternoon at Harvard Stadium with sole possession of first place in the Ivy League at stake, The Harvard Crimson reported. Harvard is 5-0 and 2-0 in the Ivy; Princeton is 4-1 and 2-0. The Ivy regular-season champion gets an automatic bid to the FCS playoffs. Harvard is one of only three undefeated teams left in all of FCS, and it's riding a seven-game home winning streak dating to late 2024. It's also the program's Fall Fest, with a jersey giveaway. Kickoff is 3 p.m. It's the 118th meeting between these two, and Princeton leads the series 60-50-7. Aurich is 2-0 against them: a 45-13 home blowout in his first season that snapped a six-game losing streak, and a 35-14 win in New Jersey last year.

There's a family-feud angle. Harvard head coach Andrew Aurich played offensive line at Princeton and later coached there. "I have a general understanding of how it was built because I was there when it was being built," Aurich said of the Tigers' schemes. "I know the coaches really well. They're really good coaches."

Let's talk about the Crimson. Sophomore quarterback Charlie Smith is third in the nation with a 71.2 percent completion rate, and he's thrown for at least 275 yards in three straight games, something no Harvard quarterback had done since 2015, per the Crimson. Freshman receiver Nate Bailey leads the Ivy with 39 catches. Fellow freshman Henry Shoemaker had 83 yards last week against Holy Cross, including a 67-yard touchdown down the right sideline. Harvard scores 27.2 points a game and allows 14.0, and it has given up more than 17 just once.

The defense has a ball hawk. Junior safety Xaden Benson has six interceptions, the most in all of Division I. Linebackers Dorsey Benefield, a junior, and Sean Line, a senior, combine for 15 tackles a game. Harvard leads the Ivy in defensive passing efficiency at 94.6 and is top 10 nationally in passing yards allowed at 164.8 a game. "Trust the men in front of you, trust they're gonna do their job, and do your job. Get them on the ground," Benefield said.

Now the problem. Princeton allows 10.2 points a game, the fewest in Division I. Senior linebacker Chase Christopher is sixth in the league in tackles with 44, and junior linebacker Jake Moore leads all Ivy defenders with 4.5 sacks, coming off a two-sack, forced-fumble game. Harvard has given up just nine sacks, but the Crimson reported its offensive line is banged up.

Princeton also runs the ball. Junior Kai Honda averages nearly 120 yards from scrimmage and more than 95 rushing per game, and his eight rushing touchdowns are double the next-best Ivy back. Against Columbia he turned 14 carries into 219 yards and four scores in a 35-7 win. Three senior linemen, Barrett Eddlemon, Justin Selbert and Oyintare Porbeni, were preseason All-Ivy first team, and that line has allowed four sacks in five games. The Tigers lost their opener to Bryant and have won four straight since, most recently 16-10 over Brown. They already have more wins than all of last season, when they went 3-7.

Harvard was 10th in the FCS Playoff Committee's first top-10 teaser rankings, released Tuesday. Last year it didn't show up until the second release, after a 7-0 start. The FCS Playoffs are a 24-team bracket running Nov. 28 to Jan. 11. Last year, the Ivy's first season of eligibility, Harvard got in as one of the last four at-large teams and lost 52-7 to Villanova in the first round. So Aurich isn't buying any of it yet. "We got in one of those last year and then we didn't take care of business," he said. "It's flattering. It validates the work they put in up to this point, but we know that's not ultimately going to matter if we don't continue to do that the rest of the season."

Dez's take: this is the matchup I want. Harvard's young passing game against the stingiest defense in the country. Benson's six picks against a Princeton team that would rather run it 40 times anyway. If Harvard's line holds up against Moore, the Crimson are the better team. If it doesn't, Honda grinds the clock and this becomes a 13-10 game nobody can breathe in. Either way, go watch it in person.

One more Harvard note for the weekend: the men's basketball team opens its exhibition schedule Friday at home against UMass, according to Harvard Athletics.