The Dartmouth football team that Harvard will face Saturday afternoon in Hanover, N.H., will bear little semblance to the ranked squad the Crimson defeated last season at home, 14-13, on a last-second blocked field goal.

“Two very different teams from a year ago,’’ said Crimson coach Tim Murphy. “Last year, arguably the two best teams in the Ivy League. We won a huge game that went right down to the last play of the game against them last year.

“We both graduated a bunch of players, so two teams that are very good football teams, but still a work in progress.’’

Despite a slew of injuries and the graduation of contributors from last year’s squad, the Crimson, 5-1 and ranked 23rd in FCS, have lost just one game this season, a 27-17 setback at Holy Cross Oct. 15. Dartmouth defeated Holy Cross earlier this season, 35-10.

Thanks to two key third-down plays — one on either side of the ball — Harvard narrowly escaped last week’s Ivy League matchup with Princeton with a 23-20 overtime win. The Crimson will look to ride the momentum into Saturday’s contest, eyeing a 4-0 mark in the Ivy League.

“We’re a very solid football team, obviously, with only one loss so far,’’ Murphy said. “But I think the strength of our team right now is our character, our toughness, and our resilience. Those are the things we’re trying to build on.’’

At Princeton, Harvard senior quarterback Joe Viviano, a first-year starter, sealed the victory with a 1-yard touchdown run in overtime after running for a 15-yard gain to convert on third down.

The Crimson have successfully converted 51 percent of third-down attempts this season in addition to three successful fourth-down conversions in six tries.

“I think we’ve done a really good job game-planning, and that’s No. 1 in terms of third down,’’ Murphy said. “And I think we’ve obviously done a good job executing and our kids have just stepped up and made some big plays.’’

Murphy added that the Harvard offense needs to improve on first down to give itself more manageable second- and third-down yardage.

“It all starts up front,’’ he said. “You’ve got to control the line of scrimmage and you’ve got to be unpredictable. You’ve got to be unpredictable by formation, every down-and-distance situation, every field zone.’’

Dartmouth (3-3, 0-3) is coming off a 9-7 loss to Columbia. The Big Green are averaging 20.2 points per game and have allowed an average of 19.2 per game. Dartmouth has logged 1,478 passing yards and just 815 rushing yards.

“Right now, if you look at their statistics, they’re not a terribly balanced team,’’ Murphy said. “But all that means to me is they’re going to work really hard to have a more balanced attack against us this weekend.

“We’ve been fortunate, we’ve had some close games that we’ve won and I think that’s been the difference. Dartmouth obviously is a good football team. They’ve got good athletes. They’re extremely well-coached. They’ve just had varying outcomes.’’

In addition to facing a highly-motivated Dartmouth team reeling from last week’s loss — a game decided on a missed field goal — Harvard will have to handle the Big Green’s homecoming crowd.

“We’re always their biggest game of the year,’’ Murphy said. “Every other year this is their homecoming weekend, their big bonfire, so this is always penciled in as the biggest game on their schedule.

“So we’re going to have to adjust to that sort of intensity and mentality and be ready for that. And we’re going to have to execute, quite frankly, in all phases, better than we did last week even though we got the win on the road.’’

Harvard has gotten the better of the Big Green in 12 consecutive games. Last season’s dramatic finish gave Dartmouth its only loss of 2015.

“We’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve obviously in that 12-year run had some really outstanding Harvard football teams,’’ Murphy said. “We’ve been fortunate to be, I think, No. 1 or 2 in the Ivy League race for all of those 12 years.’’

Should the Crimson knock off Dartmouth for a 13th straight time, Murphy will notch his 114th career Ivy League win, tying him for second all time with current Columbia coach and former Penn coach Al Bagnoli.

But Murphy isn’t very concerned about the win total.

“All it means is I’m not 30 anymore,’’ he said.

Emily McCarthy can be reached at emily.mccarthy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @emilymccahthy.