It’s that time again, Crimson fans!

The defending Ivy League champions, Harvard, kick off their 2008 football season tonight against the Holy Cross Crusaders, and pundits expect the evenly matched teams to put on quite the gridiron spectacular.

Each team is looking for their first win of the season, but instead of strategizing behind closed doors to maintain their competitive advantage, they’re speaking publicly about their intended strategies going into tonight’s game. 

The Harvard Crimson reports:

“There’s no question we’re going to be challenged immediately,” Murphy said. “There’s no question that, both in the quality of teams, and the quality of offenses, we better hit the ground running, because probably two of the three best teams on our schedule are weeks one and two.”

 

The key to stopping the Holy Cross attack may lie in Harvard’s talented front seven, a group that Murphy has called the best he’s had as the Crimson’s coach. Harvard will start seniors at every position along the defensive line and in the linebacking corps, and has just one sophomore, defensive end Ben Graeff, in the two-deep at those spots.

 

“They’re very, very good up front,” Holy Cross coach Tom Gilmore said. “That’s going to be a challenge against them. Obviously the strategy is to try to keep them off balance.”

Harvard and Holy Cross should have just mailed each other their playbooks. Why beat around the bush?

Then again – maybe both teams are simply feeding each other misinformation through the media. If that’s the case, those attending the game can expect an edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Kickoff begins at 7 PM EST on the venerable field of Harvard Stadium.