The seniors went out on top, taking advantage of their few opportunities—Harvard was outgained by over 100 yards on offense—on its way to beating Yale.

As they celebrated together on the field and as seven of those graduating seniors—plus former classmates Josué Ortiz and Collier Winters, both of whom will return for a fifth year next season—filed into the press conference grinning from ear to ear, it was hard to feel anything but incredibly happy for the class of 2011.

But as I walked away from the stadium for the last time, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness. After spending every Saturday for the last two falls watching this team play—and becoming intimately familiar with the highways of the Northeast in the process—a chapter of my Harvard life also closed this weekend.

Covering the football team has been one of my favorite parts of Harvard, and a big part of that is because the seniors have made this team a pleasure to watch.

Rising captain Alex Gedeon and his classmates have some big shoes to fill, but if history is any indication, they will rise to the occasion, just as the class of 2011 did this season.

And when I come back next fall to finally get that “real” Harvard-Yale experience, I bet that the rising seniors will make it an event to attend for one reason: the football game.