PRINCETON, N.J. – A 52-player Ivy League football team is set once again to participate in the Japan’s National Football Association’s Dream Japan Bowl in Tokyo on Jan. 21, 2024. The contest will be played at National Stadium, newly built for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Kickoff will be at 1 p.m. JST (11 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 20).
 
Last season the Ivy League team won by a score of 24-20 in the augural game.
 
The Ivy League contingency will be led by Brown head coach James Perry, currently in his fifth year at the helm of his alma mater. A 2000 graduate, Perry guided the Bears to an Ivy League title his senior year and won the coveted Bushnell Cup as the ivy League Player of the Year. The Bears are currently 5-4 on the season and have been led by quarterback Jake Willcox who ranks second in the FCS in passing yards per game with an average of 302.9.
 
The Japan squad will be coached be Yo Yamamoto for the second consecutive season. Yamamoto played football for the Fjitsu Frontiers of the X League as a running back and wide receiver from 1997-2005. After stints as an assistant with the Frontiers, he took over as the head coach in 2019 and has led the team to a 34-2 overall record and three Rice Bowl wins, the league’s title game. 
 
“On behalf of the Japanese team, I am delighted that the second Dream Japan Bowl will be held on January 21, 2024, as we continue the growth of international exchanges through American football,” Yamamoto said. “As we did last year, I believe that the U.S. team will be formed with talented players and a great coaching staff. So, our Japanese team will need to commit to preparing well and I look forward to the challenge once again.”

The X League is Japan’s professional football league consisting of 55 clubs split between four divisions. The league’s top division is X1 Super, which has 12 teams the next highest is X1 Area and is followed by X2 and X3 respectively.
 
The Ivy League group is set once again to participate in numerous cultural experiences on the trip. Last year the group toured Kamakura, visited a US Embassy, learned about Maglev Trains and visited with Tachibana High School.
 
The Ivy League roster will be announced in the coming months.