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Ivy League football has neither an end-of-season playoff nor a championship game, which means that all regular season matchups mean something. If you lose, you risk dropping off the map; if you win, you come one weekend closer to an Ancient Eight title.

This Friday night at home, the Harvard football team (6-0, 3-0 Ivy) will play the most important 60 minutes of its season, squaring off against Dartmouth (6-0, 3-0 Ivy) in a matchup that seems destined to decide the Ivy League champion.

“Every game is important because we know that we get every team’s best shot,” said senior offensive lineman Cole Toner. “But this is the big one.”

The stakes have been building ever since August, when media pundits picked the Crimson and the Big Green to finish one-two in the Ivy League. Since then the two sides have fulfilled those preseason expectations, largely speeding from blowout to blowout in advance of Friday’s showdown.

Forget Harvard-Yale. In the 2015 football season, this is the Game.

“Your senior year, every game, especially in conference, is a championship game,” senior safety Scott Peters said. “[If] you can’t get excited for this one, then something’s wrong with you.”

Last season, in Hanover, N.H., Harvard dealt the Big Green its only league loss—a 23-12 defeat in which Crimson running back Paul Stanton, then a junior, rushed for 180 yards. That result left Dartmouth’s hopes in limbo until the final weekend of play, when Harvard beat Yale to take the Ancient Eight Championship and leave the Big Green alone in second place.

Old grudges die hard, and Dartmouth will take the field this weekend with lingering resentment from 2014, not to mention the emotional baggage of 11 straight losses to the Crimson.

This long winless streak reflects the historical mediocrity of the Big Green, but all signs indicate that this year is different. Dartmouth has not started a season 6-0 since 1996, and the 2015 team boasts NFL-caliber skill, deep experience, and undeniable hunger.

Senior quarterback Dalyn Williams possesses all three traits. The dual-threat play-caller has averaged 318 yards of total offense a game and thrown 14 touchdowns compared to one pick-in short: nearly flawless.

Along with Williams, the Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, the Big Green has the Preseason Defensive Player of the year in linebacker Will McNamara. He anchors a defense that ranks second in all of college football with nine points allowed per game.

The Crimson ranks first with seven.

On these steely defenses, both teams return enviable depth. Exactly half of the Preseason All-Ivy Defense hails from Dartmouth, and all seven of these players are seniors.

“They’ve had kids playing on that defense since my freshman year,” Toner said. “They’re the most physical defense we play for sure, but I think we’re ready.”