“Because so few of them have played in varsity games, other than let’s say three guys, we’ll see,” Murphy says. “We’ll be tested early.”

One source for optimism, though, is sophomore Norman Hayes, who shores up the thin cornerback position.

“He’s the natural,” Murphy says of Hayes. “Tough, physical, instinctive, fast—faster than we thought.  And the kid can really play right now. He’s pushing [seniors Brian Owusu and D.J. Monroe] for a starting position.”

No Ivy League player has the ability to exploit the secondary’s potential vulnerabilities more than Cornell junior quarterback Jeff Mathews. Last year’s Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year, the Big Red gunslinger threw for 3,412 yards, including over 500 yards in each of the season’s final two contests.

“If he stays on the arc that he’s on, he’s not only going to get drafted, he’s going to go in the first three rounds,” Murphy says. “He’s special…a once-every-20-year quarterback in this league.”

Despite a decade of relative futility, the Mathews-led Cornell squad appears to be Harvard’s biggest threat to its campaign to repeat as Ivy champs. A year ago, the Big Red came closer than any of its Ancient Eight counterparts to knocking off the Crimson, and Harvard escaped Ithaca, N.Y., with a narrow 41-31 victory.

Before the Crimson and Cornell square off at Harvard Stadium on Oct. 6, the Crimson’s first league test will come on Sept. 22 in a tough contest at Brown. In that rivalry, the home team has won the last five times.

“That night game down in Providence, I know they get really jacked up whenever we play them, and they’re a really physical [team],” senior center Jack Holuba says.

After taking on Cornell, the Crimson plays the weakest portion of its Ivy schedule: at Princeton, which is pegged to finish last in most Ivy League polls, at Dartmouth, and against Columbia on Nov. 3 at home.

The Crimson heads to Philadelphia to meet Penn on Nov. 10, a matchup that could potentially decide what figures to be a three-team race for the Ivy crown between Harvard, Cornell, and the Quakers. Plagued by inexperience and youth a year ago, Penn returns a tougher team in 2012, led for the third straight campaign by senior quarterback Billy Ragone.

But for many players, the season’s biggest contest comes a week later against Yale. This year’s matchup has meaning beyond the history of The Game, which Harvard won in a 45-7 rout in 2011. The flight to Yale of four Crimson coaches following last season, including current Bulldogs head coach Tony Reno, amplifies the emotions surrounding one of the most storied rivalries in college football.

“It’s not only The Game now,” Chapple says. “It’s a little personal.... Ever since we heard that [the coaches were leaving for Yale] in January, we’ve had that game circled.”

“[We’re] hearing from some of the Yale players that it’s like night and day for their program...which should be good,” Holuba adds. “It was a little boring last year in New Haven.”

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.