No. 25 Football Opens Campaign Saturday at New Hampshire

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Harvard, the three-time defending Ivy League champions, opens the 2026 campaign on the road against fellow 2025 NCAA FCS Playoff participant New Hampshire. The lidlifter on Saturday (1 p.m. ET, FloCollege) is the first of a two-game road stretch to begin the season for the Crimson. UNH, meanwhile, is 1-2 on the year and coming off a 42-35 home win over Stonehill. QUICK HITS - Harvard is coming off a 2025 season that saw it capture its third consecutive Ivy League crown en route to a 9-2 record and an at-large berth in the NCAA FCS Playoffs. Last year marked the first season in which Ivy teams were eligible for the postseason tournament. As 2026 gets underway, the Crimson will be in search of its fourth straight conference title, a feat that, so far, has been unattainable in program history. - The Crimson is led by Andrew Aurich, The Thomas Stephenson Family Head Coach for Harvard Football, who is entering his third season at the helm of the program. Aurich is 17-4 in two seasons (8-2 in 2024, 9-2 in 2025), which matches the most victories by a Harvard head coach in his first two seasons since Percy D. Haughton in 1908 and 1909 (17-1-1). This season, the Crimson is in search of its fourth straight 8-win campaign for the first time since it posted five in a row from 2011-15. - Harvard entered the 2026 college football season having earned votes in both preseason polls after finishing No. 20 in the Stats Perform Top 25 and No. 23 in the AFCA Coaches Poll. The Crimson rose to as high as No. 7 in the Stats Perform rankings and No. 10 in the Coaches. Harvard's No. 7 ranking was the highest of any kind in school history and the best in the Ivy League since at least 1986. The team's No. 10 AFCA ranking was also its best in the history of that poll. Fast forward to the last two weeks and the Stats Perform poll has had Harvard at No. 25, with the Crimson still receiving votes in the AFCA poll this week (No. 32). - With the the Crimson's inclusion in the last two Stats Perform Top 25 rankings, Harvard has now held a national ranking in four consecutive seasons. The last time the Crimson accomplished the feat was when they did it in at least six straight seasons, from 2011-16 (Harvard's national ranking records date to 2011 campaign). - Harvard was picked to finish in second in the Ivy League's annual preseason media poll. The Crimson earned 111 points and one first-place vote. Harvard trailed only Yale (127 points; 15 first-place votes) in the poll. - The Crimson is opening the season on the road for the second straight year, something that it has not done since playing at Columbia in both 1989 (W, 26-10) and 1990 (W, 9-6). Last year, Harvard cruised to a 59-7 victory at Stetson. Peeking ahead to next week's game at Brown, the Crimson will be playing its first two games of the season away from home for the first time since 1998 (at Columbia, at Colgate). - Harvard is in search of its sixth straight season-opening victory and has not dropped a lidlifter since 2019, at San Diego. The Crimson's 2020 campaign was canceled due to the global pandemic, but it later went on to defeat Georgetown on the road (2021) and Merrimack (2022), St. Thomas (2023) and Stetson (2024) at home, before taking down Stetson again last year in Florida. The last time Harvard won six straight season openers was 20 years ago (2001-06). - The Crimson enters Game 1 having won 10 straight regular-season non-conference games. Included in the streak is a 28-23 home win over then-No. 16/21 (coaches/media) New Hampshire on Oct. 4, 2024. Harvard has also won 13 consecutive non-conference games against unranked opposition. - Harvard has been one of the best road teams in the FCS the last two-decades-plus. Since 1996, the Crimson is 96-40 on the road (.706) and has won seven straight regular-season non-conference road contests. - Harvard is 25-6 (.806) over the last three seasons (8-2 in 2023, 8-2 in 2024, 9-2 in 2025). The Crimson is first in the FCS for fewest losses during this time period, with Montana State following behind with seven Ls.