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November 15, 2025, Boston, MA: at Harvard University, in Boston Massachusetts Saturday, November 15, 2025. (Photo by Eddie Monigan/Harvard Athletics)
Edward Monigan IV/Harvard Athletics

Football

Football Announces 2026 Non-Conference Slate; Plays at 2025 FCS Playoff Qualifier UNH, Hosts Colgate, Holy Cross

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Harvard Football has announced its non-conference opponents for the 2026 season. The 2025 NCAA FCS Playoff participants will face New Hampshire, Colgate and Holy Cross in addition to its seven Ivy League foes.
 
Winners of three consecutive Ivy League championships, the Crimson will open its campaign at NCAA FCS Playoff qualifier New Hampshire on Sept. 19. Harvard will later face Colgate on Oct. 3, and round out its non-conference slate vs. Holy Cross on Oct. 17.
 
Harvard will lift the lid on its season with a stiff test against a fellow FCS playoff team in UNH. The Wildcats earned an at-large invitation to the 24-team postseason tournament after they finished the regular season with an 8-4 record (6-2 CAA) and a No. 22 national ranking in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 Poll. The NCAA appearance this season marked the 19th in program history, third in the last four years, and the 17th in the last 21 seasons (excluding the COVID-19 season in 2020).
 
The Crimson is 8-0 all-time vs. New Hampshire and last saw the Wildcats during the 2024 campaign when it earned a 28-23 home victory over then-No. 16/21 UNH. The trip to Durham, New Hampshire, in 2026 will be the first for Harvard in a series that dates back to 1929.
 
Colgate was 5-7 overall and 3-4 in the Patriot League in 2025, with three of its losses coming to nationally ranked teams by a combined 30 points, including two by single digits. An FCS tournament finalist in 2003, the Raiders have earned a spot in the postseason 11 times and advanced past the first round in their last two appearances (2015, 2018).
 
Harvard and Colgate will meet on the gridiron for just the 10th time, with the Crimson owning a 5-4 series advantage. The teams last met in 1999 and have played all but two of the games in Cambridge.
 
Holy Cross, meanwhile, finished with a 3-4 record in the Patriot League in 2025, and ended its season by splitting its last six games, with wins in its last two outings, to post a 3-9 overall record. Three of the Crusaders' defeats came against nationally ranked opposition, including to then-No. 25 Harvard on Oct. 4, and a two-point loss to then-No. 6 Rhode Island, which earned a No. 9 national seed in the FCS Playoffs. Holy Cross has advanced to the postseason four times since 2019 (six times overall), and was a quarterfinalist in 2022.
 
Harvard will take a 48-26-2 all-time series advantage into its game vs. the Crusaders in 2026. This past season, the Crimson traveled to Worcester and emerged with a 59-24 victory, its third straight in the series.  Since 2018, Harvard is 6-1 vs. its in-state foe.
 
The 2026 Harvard campaign will mark the seventh time in the last eight seasons (excluding the 2020 COVID-19 year) that the Crimson will face at least one team that advanced to the NCAA FCS Playoffs the season before.
 
Harvard is coming off a year that saw it earn a national ranking for a majority of the campaign, including a top-10 mark the final three weeks of the regular season. The Crimson posted a 9-2 record (6-1 Ivy) and earned an at-large bid to the NCAA FCS Playoffs in the Ivy League's first season of eligibility.
 
Season tickets for the 2026 Harvard Football season are now on sale and can be purchased for $99 at GoCrimson.com.
 
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