Harvard Football Routs Princeton 35-7, Moves to 6-0 and Alone Atop the Ivy League

Harvard football is alone in first place in the Ivy League after a 35-7 win over Princeton on Saturday, Oct. 24, at Harvard Stadium in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. The No. 17/15 Crimson improved to 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Ivy League. Next they visit Dartmouth on Friday, Oct. 30, according to the Associated Press.

Harvard vs. Princeton: how the 35-7 win unfolded

Harvard opened with an 18-play, 74-yard drive that took 10:02 off the clock and ended in a 24-yard Kieran Corr field goal, according to the Ivy League box score. In the second quarter, quarterback Charlie Smith hit Henry Shoemaker for a 26-yard touchdown with 10:48 left in the half. After Princeton’s second fourth-down turnover on downs, Corr kicked a 32-yard field goal for a 13-0 halftime lead.

Backup quarterback Kise Flannery threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Teigan Pelletier with 10:25 left in the third quarter. Harvard then went for two: wideout Nathan Bailey snapped the ball to Smith, who flipped it back to Bailey for the conversion, according to Harvard Athletics, making it 21-0. Princeton scored its only touchdown with 1:02 left in the third, an 8-yard pass from Wyatt Becker to Aidan Besselman that capped a 20-play, 75-yard drive.

Smith found Tafari Moe for an 18-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Two minutes later, linebacker Dorsey Benefield scooped up a fumble forced on a strip sack of Princeton’s Ty Ciongoli and returned it 32 yards for the final score. It was Harvard’s first defensive touchdown of 2026. The announced attendance was 14,896 on a sunny, 59-degree afternoon, and the game took 2 hours, 56 minutes.

Harvard football stats: Smith, Gordon and Benefield lead the way

Smith completed 22 of 28 passes for 230 yards and two touchdowns. He was 15 of 20 for 154 yards in the first half, ESPN’s recap noted. His 230 passing yards were 103 more than Princeton’s entire passing total of 127. It was his fourth game this season with multiple touchdown passes.

Junior running back DJ Gordon, making his season debut after missing the first half of the season with a lower-body injury, led all rushers with 67 yards on nine carries. The Harvard Crimson student newspaper counted 81 total yards on 10 touches. “I’m just happy to be back and [do] anything I can do to help the team win,” Gordon told The Crimson. Moe led all receivers with 53 yards.

Benefield led Harvard with eight tackles to go with the fumble return. The Crimson held Princeton to 219 yards of offense and 5-of-14 on third down, The Crimson reported. Princeton also failed twice on fourth down in the first half.

Ivy League standings and national picture

Princeton came in receiving votes in both national Top 25 polls and fell to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the league, tied with Dartmouth for second place. According to Harvard Athletics, the Crimson scored 35 points on a Princeton defense that had allowed 10.2 points per game entering the day. Harvard has held two straight opponents to single digits and four of six to 10 points or fewer this season.

Harvard is the only Ivy team unbeaten overall and in conference play. It is one of three unbeaten teams in the FCS, along with Stephen F. Austin (7-0) and Tarleton State (8-0), and one of seven unbeaten teams in Division I, along with Miami, BYU, Utah and UCLA. This is the second straight season Harvard has started 6-0 and 3-0 in the Ivy League.

The Harvard-Princeton rivalry dates to 1877. Harvard leads the series 61-50-7, according to the AP.

Next up: Harvard at Dartmouth on Friday

Harvard’s next game is a Friday night trip to Hanover, New Hampshire, to face Dartmouth, which shares second place in the Ivy League. A Harvard win would give the Crimson a two-game lead over Dartmouth in the conference standings. Princeton hosts Cornell on Saturday.

It’s a busy week for Boston-area college sports. Northeastern’s women’s hockey team, ranked No. 4, visits Boston University this weekend after sweeping RIT, and Boston College’s women’s teams are heading into the end of their regular seasons, as we covered in our BC women’s sports weekend roundup. Harvard women’s soccer, meanwhile, lost 1-0 at Brown on Oct. 24 and visits Penn on Saturday, Oct. 31.

Sources

• Harvard Athletics: No. 17/15 Football Cruises to 35-7 Home Win Over Princeton
• Ivy League: Harvard vs. Princeton box score
• ESPN/AP: Harvard 35, Princeton 7 recap

Additional sources

• The Harvard Crimson: Harvard Stands Alone Atop Ivy League
• Harvard Athletics: 2026 football schedule
• Harvard Athletics: Women’s Soccer Falls to Brown, 1-0