“Before [Murphy] got there, Yale pretty much had its way with Harvard,” Hall said. “I think with coach Reno, and knowing him, a lot of what he has attempted to do and is attempting to do is based off of the recruiting model that Tim Murphy kind of put in place at Harvard over the past decade.”

In a nutshell, Hall said, Murphy changed the formula: Rather than recruiting from the same private schools throughout the country, he began to look at student-athletes from public schools. Opening up the applicant pool and convincing public school students to matriculate strengthened the team and allowed it to compete at a higher level.

From 2009 to 2011, Reno was part of this innovative effort. While at Harvard, he was responsible for recruiting student-athletes from the South, particularly Georgia and Florida. In his three years, Reno unearthed Crimson standouts like former captain and cornerback Norman Hayes and defensive end Zack Hodges, a two-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year.

Reno’s recruitment efforts reverberate through Harvard’s team today, as the members of his final recruiting class are currently in their senior season. The group includes, according to Reno, three current Harvard starters: quarterback Scott Hosch, wide receiver Seitu Smith II and defensive end Denzel Paige.

Reno, though, denied that his past involvement with Harvard added any significance to Saturday’s game for him, citing instead only “respect” for Murphy and his program.

“I was very fortunate to be on his staff for three years,” Reno said. “I learned a lot from him and from Coach Siedlecki when I was at Yale, so I’ve got a lot of respect for those guys and what they do. They’ve got a great program and I think they work really hard.”

As Yale and Harvard draw from the same recruiting pool — a pool that is smaller than those of other national programs due to the schools’ high academic standards — their competition extends beyond an annual game. Reno called the two schools “natural rivals,” observing that all athletic contests between the two schools contain the same “energy.”

That made Reno’s decision to become the face of the Bulldogs all the more difficult for Murphy.

At the time, Murphy released a carefully worded statement describing the situation as “unusual, if not unprecedented,” simply stating that Yale’s “lucrative offers” to his assistant coaches were the reason they left. Players did not hold back: The Harvard Crimson quoted one as saying The Game became more personal once Reno left.

Now, four years later, Murphy acknowledged that his relationship with Reno is not what it used to be, but said he does not believe there is tension between the two men.

“We had a very good professional relationship when Tony was on the staff, as I do with all my coaches,” Murphy said. “But when you go to a competitor and you take a bunch of coaches with you, I think it’s sort of obvious it would change a bit … It’s competitive and it’s professional, but definitely competitive.”

This competitiveness is only enhanced by the similarities between the schools, as the only difference, Hall claimed, is that one wears red and one wears blue.

“They are as similar as two programs can be,” he said. “They both want to be good at everything, whether it be sports or academics or chess-playing or just getting the best kids at the school. They are competing against each other for everything. In the microcosm of football, you recruit the same exact players, and year in, they play against each other.”

Murphy has gotten the best of his protege recently. Although the Bulldogs lead the all-time series 65–58–8, the Crimson have come away with the last eight, including a heartbreaking 31–24 win last season that cost Yale a share of the Ivy title. “I think it’s important to get over that hump for Tony,” Hall said.

“It’s been what, eight in a row now? They need to break this damn thing before Harvard gets to double digits.”