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The story of the 2016 Harvard football team starts where the story of the 2015 team ends.

November 21, 2015. A clear evening in New Haven, Conn. The final fans have vacated the Yale Bowl, leaving the place in mausoleum silence.

Beneath the empty stands and scoreboard that still reads HARVARD 38, YALE 19, the Crimson is dissolving. Seniors hug each other and spray champagne. They remove jerseys that they will never wear again.

Fifteen starters. Nine first-team All-Ivy selections. Six NFL prospects. The Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year at quarterback. Jointly they have achieved enormous feats; jointly they leave an enormous hole.

In this way, the 2016 Harvard team embodies an age-old riddle: How many ship planks can you replace without changing the name of the ship? How much talent can the Crimson graduate without losing its characteristic dominance?

These questions will come to life tonight at 7 p.m., when Harvard kicks off its 143rd season with a home tilt against Rhode Island.

“The only benchmark, the only metric that we’re looking for is a W,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “If you don’t have some butterflies and adrenaline on game day, then something’s wrong.”

No one expects a close game. The Rams (0-2, 0-1 CAA) finished 1-10 last year, conceding 35 or more points six times; so far this year, they have lost 55-6 to a middling Kansas team that went winless a year ago and 35-7 to Albany at home.

Moreover, as much as the Crimson has changed, vital facts remain the same. For example, captain Sean Ahern: The two-time All-Ivy defensive back returns as a fifth-year senior, and he promises to wreck havoc in the secondary.

The appeal of the opener hardly lies in the suspense of the outcome. After all, Harvard has won 14 straight nonconference matchups, dating back to 2011.

Rather, the appeal lies in the extent to which the Crimson will dehorn the Rams—whether the hosts will resemble a first-week program (which they are) or whether they’ll exhibit the polished confidence that fans have come to expect.

Stakes are especially high for senior Joe Viviano, a top-50 quarterback in high school who has yet to complete a college pass.

A year ago, Viviano broke his right foot in preseason, halting an apparently even competition with then-senior Scott Hosch. Since then, Viviano has recovered from that injury—not to mention a broken left foot last winter—and stands as the starter.

“I’m excited to see what the offense is going to do,” Ahern said. “Being a defensive guy, this might’ve been the best offensive preseason we’ve had in a while.”

But Harvard’s strength may lie on the defensive line, where the team possesses enviable depth. Murphy hopes that seniors Doug Webb, Miles McCollum, and others will provide season-long stability.

The rest of the defense follows a different narrative. Besides Ahern and a few senior holdovers, new faces round out the unit.

“There’s guys out here that are young and inexperienced, but they know how to play,” senior linebacker Eric Ryan said. “They want to play. They’ve been fighting to play, from the spring all the way up to this moment.”

In last season’s matchup with Rhode Island, however, defense hardly mattered. Harvard racked up six touchdowns and strolled to a 41-10 route.

Of course it’d be a mistake to dismiss an opponent as an automatic win—even one that has never beaten Harvard.

The Rams boast a pair of game-tested quarterbacks in sophomore Wesley McKoy and senior Paul Mroz. As a whole, the team has some athleticism, with five offensive linemen over 300 pounds—four of them freshmen—and a speedy sophomore receiver named Khayri Denny who burned the Crimson for a 62-yard touchdown last year.

But these offensive weapons look like slingshots compared to the full arsenal that Harvard possesses.

Last year then-freshman Justice Shelton-Mosley broke out for 589 receiving yards and eight total touchdowns; this year there are 25 more pounds of him. Also returning is senior tight end Anthony Firkser, who caught 54 passes over the last two seasons despite playing behind NFL prospect Ben Braunecker.

The run game has less definition, as a committee of backs including junior Semar Smith and sophomore Noah Reimers will take snaps. They’ll run behind a revamped offensive line that will depend on senior Max Rich and junior Larry Allen Jr., especially in the early season.

For one more night, then, Harvard lives in a zone of uncertainty. Players are names on paper. Numbers on a roster sheet.

Only by rushing onto the turf of Harvard Stadium will these athletes shake off their flimsy half-existence. Only then can they step out of the shadow of a dynastic senior class and into the Friday-night light of a new season.

“We’re definitely a work in progress,” Ahern said. “There’s a lot of new faces…[but] we’re ready to roll. It’s been a long preseason.”

—Staff writer Sam Danello can be reached at sam.danello@thecrimson.com.