AROUND THE IVIES: League Waits for Champs to Emerge

Parity is the name of the game in Ivy League football these days.

Since this year’s seniors were freshmen back in the 2006 season, four different teams have won at least a share of the Ancient Eight title—Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Princeton—while Penn and Cornell have at least remained competitive throughout that time.

This year, the Ivy crown is as up for grabs as ever. Harvard’s on top with its 2-0 record in conference play, but the winner of tomorrow’s Columbia-Penn game will soon join the Crimson. The Lions in particular have been exciting to watch, shaking off their long-time role as the Ivy League’s punching bag under the leadership of head coach Norries Wilson.

Yale and Cornell form the middle of the pack at 1-1. The Big Red is unlikely to threaten anyone this year, but the Bulldogs—while removed from their customary spot on the short list of top Ivy title challengers—should at least keep opponents on their toes and end the season with a respectable record.

Of the three teams yet to add a league victory to their names—Brown, Princeton, and Dartmouth—it’d be nearly impossible to throw either of the latter two squads into a discussion of contenders with a straight face. But Brown’s Ivy loss came to Harvard in a close game, and the Bears defiantly discouraged their detractors from dismissing them last week by upsetting then-No. 20 Holy Cross.

I picked the Crimson to win the Ivies before the season, and I stand by that prediction, not because I’m a shameless homer (which wouldn’t be an entirely ridiculous accusation), but because I truly believe that Harvard is the team to beat. But while I expect the Crimson to take the Ancient Eight title, it certainly wouldn’t shock me if it didn’t.

The Ivy League football season reaches its halfway point tomorrow, and there are a good number of teams in the league who aren’t half bad, and possibly even better than that.

PRINCETON (1-3, 0-1 IVY) AT BROWN (2-2, 0-1 IVY)

Last week, Brown’s Kyle Newhall-Caballero found himself in a place no Ivy League quarterback wants to be: in a shootout with Holy Cross’s juggernaut of a quarterback, Dominic Randolph.

Randolph, the two-time defending Patriot League player of the year, has devoured defenses from his sister conference, and this time was no different. The future NFL draft pick went 38-for-53 against the Bears for 411 yards and four touchdowns.

But “El Caballero” was better, at least when it counted. The first-year starter completed 46 of 61 passes for 431 yards and two scores to lead Brown to a 34-31 victory.

After taking on Randolph, somehow I don’t think Newhall will be too concerned when he faces off against Princeton’s Tommy Wornham tomorrow.

Prediction: Brown 30, Princeton 21

FORDHAM (2-3) AT CORNELL (2-2, 1-1 IVY)

The matchup to watch here is between Fordham quarterback John Skelton and the Cornell secondary.

If the aforementioned Randolph is the No. 1 quarterback in the Patriot League, Skelton is 1A. In five games, he’s thrown for a gaudy 1,525 yards and 10 touchdowns.

But Cornell’s pass D is ranked second in the Ivy League, and the Big Red might have as good of a chance as any team of holding Skelton down. On the other hand, Cornell’s rushing defense is virtually nonexistent, and Fordham boasts a pretty decent ground attack, as well.

This game seems destined to be a high-scoring affair one way or another, and the Big Red just doesn’t have the horses to keep up with the Rams.

Prediction: Fordham 35, Cornell 27

YALE (2-2, 1-1 IVY) AT LEHIGH (1-4)

Lehigh has been getting kicked around all season, and it finally got a gift last week when Georgetown came to visit. But the party’s over now.

Yale is mediocre, but it if knows one thing, it’s how to beat up on bad teams, with blowout wins over Georgetown and Dartmouth. Lehigh is a bad team.

Prediction: Yale 28, Lehigh 14

DARTMOUTH (0-4, 0-2 IVY) AT NO. 24 HOLY CROSS (4-1)

Remember that whole thing about Dominic Randolph getting outgunned by an Ivy League quarterback? Yeah, not going to happen again.

With all due respect to the actually good Alex Jenny—and for taking the ball for Dartmouth every Saturday and not deciding to just join the fraternity guys in the stands and get hammered so he could forget that he plays for Dartmouth, he’s due a lot of credit—Randolph is going to throw for enough yards for both of them to win their respective conference player of the week awards.

This is going to be ugly. Think Giants vs. Raiders ugly.

Prediction: Holy Cross 44, Dartmouth 7

PENN (2-2, 1-0 IVY) AT COLUMBIA (2-2, 1-0 IVY)

This is by far the most interesting matchup this week.

The Ivy League’s highest-scoring offense (Columbia) against its stingiest defense (Penn). Two teams that have won the games they’re supposed to win and stayed close in the games they’re supposed to lose. A chance for one of these programs to put itself ahead of the pack in the Ivy League title race.

It’s really impossible to tell who’s going to win this one, but I’ve been high on Columbia the whole season, and the Lions are the home team anyway.

Prediction: Columbia 17, Penn 14

LAFAYETTE (4-1) AT HARVARD (3-1, 2-0 IVY)

Just to reiterate how tight the Columbia-Penn game is going to be, both teams lost to a very good Lafayette squad by three points this season.

As for the Leopards, like Harvard, they’re a borderline Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division 1-AA) Top-25 team, having garnered two votes in the polls this week.

This should be a very close matchup, and Crimson coach Tim Murphy is predicting that weather and the quality of the teams involved will turn this into a low-scoring game. I’m not going to argue.

Prediction: Harvard 13, Lafayette 10

Last Week: 4-2

Record to Date: 16-10

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.