The Harvard Crimson football program represents Harvard University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Harvard's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun competing in the sport in 1873. The Crimson has a legacy that includes 13 national championships and 20 College Football Hall of Fame inductees, including the first African-American college football player William H. Lewis, Huntington "Tack" Hardwick, Barry Wood, Percy Haughton, and Eddie Mahan. Harvard is the tenth winningest team in NCAA Division I football history.
The Crimson play their home games at Harvard Stadium in Boston.
History
Early history Though rugby style "carrying game" with use of hands permitted (as opposed to "kicking games" where hands were not permitted) between freshmen and sophomores were played in 1858The "carrying game" emerged apparently due to the popularity of the 1857 published 'Tom Brown's School Days' as reported in 'Evolvements of Early American Foot Ball: Through the 1899/91 Season' by Melvin I. Smith (Library of Congress Control Number 2008903251 first published December 2, 2008) pages xii and xiii the rugby team was not founded until December 6, 1872,'Evolvements of Early American Foot Ball: Through the 1899/91 Season' page xiii/ by former members of the Oneida Football Club, formed in 1862 and considered by some historians as the first formal "football" club in the United States.THE BOSTON GAME article by Michael T. Geary at academia.eduWere the Oneidas playing soccer or not? by Roger Allaway at sover.net (archived)An Historical Sketch of the Oneida Football Club of Boston: 1862-1865 by Winthrop S. Scudder - Library of the University of WisconsinRemembering the first high school football games By Bob Holmes on The Boston Globe, 21 Nov 2012 Oneida had developed the "Boston game" (or "Boston rules)", an early code of football that was also used by the recently established Harvard club.No Christian End! The Beginnings of Football in America By PFRA Research (Originally Published in The Journey to Camp: The Origins of American Football to 1889 (PFRA Books) Harvard team is considered the oldest rugby team in the United States.'Evolvements of Early American Foot Ball: Through the 1899/91 Season' pages xiii and xiii/
Old "Football Fightum" had been resurrected at Harvard in 1872, when Harvard resumed playing football. Harvard, however, had adopted a version of football which allowed carrying, albeit only when the player carrying the ball was being pursued. As a result of this, Harvard refused to attend the rules conference organized by the other schools and continued to play under its own code.
In 1873 when the Harvard team received an invitation from the McGill University football club. The McGill team was then in a similar situation as Harvard, as they sought some team with which to play rugby football and no other club wanted to play that game. Harvard boys agreed to a rugby match with McGill under the condition the Canadians played the Boston Game. As McGill accepted, a two-game series was scheduled for May 1874 in Boston. The team captains sent letters detailing their respective game's rules and it was agreed that the first game would be played under Boston rules and the second under rugby rules.History: 1872-79 at CFL.com (archived)gridiron football at Britannica.com Inasmuch as rugby football had been transplanted to Canada from England, the McGill team played under a set of rules which allowed a player to pick up the ball and run with it whenever he wished. Another rule, unique to McGill, was to count tries (the act of grounding the football past the opposing team's goal line; there was no end zone during this time), as well as goals, in the scoring. In the rugby rules of the time, a touchdown only provided the chance to kick a free goal from the field. If the kick was missed, the touchdown did not count.
The first game (attended by nearly 500 spectators, mostly students) showed the kicking of a round ball as the most prominent feature of the "Boston Game". The Canadians were easily defeated by a Harvard squad familiarised with the Boston rules in contrast to the lack of experience of McGill players.They Picked Up The Ball BY PETER CARFAGNA at Harvard Rugby (archived, 12 Jun 2013) During the second game under the rugby rules, the Harvard players easily adapted to the less restrictive rules of the game, such as the unlimited running and passing the ball or the more aggressive and constant tackling. Within a few years, Harvard had both adopted McGill's rules and persuaded other U.S. university teams to do the same. On June 4, 1875, Harvard played another rugby match v Tufts University (lost 1–0),"THE FOOTBALL H: A CRIMSON H ON A BLACK SWEATER The H Book Of Harvard Athletics 1852 1922 (archived, 21 Ago 2010) and then Yale on November 13. That game caused Yale to drop association football in favour of rugby.
The McGill team traveled to Cambridge to meet Harvard. On May 14, 1874, the first game, played under Harvard's rules, was won by Harvard with a score of 3–0. The next day, the two teams played under "McGill" rugby rules to a scoreless tie. The games featured a round ball instead of a rugby-style oblong ball. This series of games represents an important milestone in the development of the modern game of American football. In October 1874, the Harvard team once again traveled to Montreal to play McGill in rugby, where they won by three tries. Harvard later brought the Harvard/McGill rules to a game against another American college. On June 4, 1875, Harvard played Tufts University under rules that included each side fielding 11 men, the ball was advanced by kicking or carrying it, and tackles of the ball carrier stopped play. This is likely the first game between two American colleges in this early era that most resembled the modern game of American football.
The Harvard Crimson was one of the dominant forces in the early days of intercollegiate football, winning 9 college football national championships between 1890 and 1919. In the forty-year period from 1889 to 1928, Harvard had more than 80 first-team All-American selections. Under head coach Percy Haughton, Harvard had three consecutive undefeated seasons from 1912 to 1914, including two perfect seasons in 1912 and 1913.
In both 1919 and 1920, headed by All-American brothers Arnold Horween and Ralph Horween (who also attended Harvard Law School), Harvard was undefeated (9–0–1, as they outscored their competition 229–19, and 8–0–1, respectively). The team won the 1920 Rose Bowl against the University of Oregon, 7–6. It was the only bowl appearance in Harvard history.
NCAA Division I subdivision split The NCAA decided to split Division I into two subdivisions in 1978, then called I-A for larger schools, and I-AA for the smaller ones. The NCAA had devised the split, in part, with the Ivy League in mind, but the conference did not move down for four seasons despite the fact that there were many indications that the ancient eight were on the wrong side of an increasing disparity between the big and small schools. In 1982, the NCAA created a rule that stated a program's average attendance must be at least 15,000 to qualify for I-A membership. This forced the conference's hand, as only some of the member schools met the attendance qualification. Choosing to stay together rather than stand their ground separately in the increasingly competitive I-A subdivision, the Ivy League, along with several other conferences and independent programs moved down into I-AA starting with the 1982 season.Mark F. Bernstein, Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession
Recent history
Since the formation of the Ivy League in 1956, Harvard has won outright or shared 20 Ivy League championships (8 outright; 12 shared), 1961 (6–3), 1966 (8–1), 1968 (8–0–1), 1974 (7–2), 1975 (7–2), 1982 (7–3), 1983 (6–2–2), 1987 (8–2), 1997 (9–1), 2001 (9–0), 2004 (10–0), 2007 (8–2), 2008 (9–1), 2011 (9–1), 2013 (9–1), 2014 (10–0), 2015 (9–1), 2023 (8–2), 2024 (8-2), and 2025 (9-1). The Crimson is behind Dartmouth's 21 Ivy League Football Championships.
In summer 2020, the Ivy League announced that the fall season would be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic; the 2020 football season was eventually cancelled altogether. Harvard did not resume play until September 2021, after a nearly two-year hiatus, with a 44-9 victory over Georgetown.
The 2025 season saw the first postseason appearance for the Crimson since the 1920 Rose Bowl as they entered the 2025 NCAA FCS Playoffs. While the Ivy League had prohibited postseason football since its official founding as a sports league in 1954, it did permit entry to national tournament competition in all other sports, and the league's student-athlete commission spearheaded the change in conference rules out of the interests of fairness between sports as well as to provide a national stage for Ivy League football.https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/12/24/saac-campaign-ncaa-football-playoffs/ Harvard were one of two Ivy League teams to make the FCS playoffs following the rule change (the other being eternal rivals Yale) but were eliminated by Villanova in the first round 52-7.
Championships National championships Harvard has won 12 national championships (1874, 1875, 1890, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1908, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1919, 1920) from NCAA-designated major selectors.
Harvard claims seven of these college football national championships.
1874 Parke Davis Arthur B. Ellis 1–1 1875 National Championship Foundation, Parke Davis William A. Whiting 4–0 1890 PD, NCF, Billingsley Report (BR), Helms Athletic Foundation (HAF), Houlgate System (HS) George A. Stewart, George C. Adams 11–0 1898 BR, HAF, HS, NCF William Forbes 11–0 1899 HAF, HS, NCF Benjamin Dibblee 10–0–1 1901 Billingsley, Parke Davis Bill Reid 12–0 1908 Billingsley Percy Haughton 9–0–1 1910 BR, HAF, HS, NCF Percy Haughton 8–0–1 1912 BR, HAF, HS, NCF, PD Percy Haughton 9–0–0 1913 HAF, HS, NCF, PD Percy Haughton 9–0–0 1919 College Football Researchers Association (CFRA), HAF, HS, NCF, PD Bob Fisher 9–0–1 1920 Boand Bob Fisher 8–0–1 Bold indicates claimed championship
Conference championships Harvard has won 19 conference championships, all of which occurring during their tenure in the Ivy League, which they joined in 1956, with eight of them being outright and nine being shared. They are second in total Ivy League football titles, behind Dartmouth.
1961† Ivy League John Yovicsin 6–3 6–1 1966† 8–16–1 1968† 8–0–16–0–1 1974† Joe Restic 7–2 6–1 1975 7–2 6–1 1982† 7–35–2 1983† 6–2–25–1–1 1987 8–26–1 1997 Tim Murphy 9–17–0 2001 9–07–0 2004 10–07–0 2007 8–27–0 2008† 9–16–1 2011 9–17–0 2013† 9–16–1 2014 10–07–0 2015† 9–16–1 2023† 8–25–2 2024†Andrew Aurich8–25–22025†9–26–1
† Co-championship
Postseason NCAA Division I FCS playoffs The Crimson have made one appearance in the Division I-AA/FCS Playoffs, with a combined record of 0–1.
2025 First Round Villanova L, 7–52
Head coaches
The following are the head coaches in the history of Harvard football and their records.