The Game is the name of the annual football contest between the Harvard University Crimson and the Yale University Bulldogs. The history behind one of the oldest rivalries in college football dates all the way back to 1875. Through the 2009 football season the two schools have played a total of 126 games against each other with Yale having a sizable lead with an overall record of 65-53-8 against the Harvard Crimson.
The physical location where The Game is played alternates every year between the Harvard Campus and the Yale campus. When the game is played at Yale it is held at the historic Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut. On the years when the football game between these two institutions of higher learning is hosted by Harvard the game is played in the Allston area of Boston, Massachusetts. The main Harvard campus is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts but the horseshoe shaped stadium that holds just over 30,000 people is located in the nearby Allston area.
Yale University is located in in southern Connecticut near the coastline in the city of New Haven. Harvard, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts is about 135 miles northeast of New Haven and is near the eastern edge of Massachusetts near that abuts the Atlantic Ocean. When students make the road trip from one school to the other for the annual rivalry game it takes about two and a half hours by car to get from one campus to the other.
Harvard and Yale both compete in the Ivy League. While many people unfamiliar with the Ivy League incorrectly assume that the title has been around for centuries the Ivy League name for the conference that includes eight teams has only been around since 1954. The annual Harvard versus Yale football game has historically been the final game of the regular season for both schools and this tradition has been dutifully followed for at least the last several decades.
Because all eight of the Ivy League schools choose to abstain from participating in postseason bowl games the annual matchup between two of the most academically elite universities in the world (Harvard and Yale) always marks the final game of the season. Due to the conference success of these two programs the Ivy League conference championship is often on the line when the two programs line up against one another in November.
While the Ivy League is almost always correctly described as being more focused on academics than athletics The Game played by Harvard and Yale at the end of each football season attracts hordes of alumni who treat the event like a scr888 homecoming of sorts. For many fans how their alma mater fairs in the Harvard versus Yale football game is more important than what happens for the entire season leading up to it.
Despite all the hoopla surrounding the friendly rivalry centered around The Game alumni of these two schools are truly quite friendly with one another. When the weather is nice in New England it's not unusual to see a pair of golfing buddies playing together with one player carrying a Yale golf bag .
