Princeton in Prime Position for Ivy Football Title

This Saturday’s Harvard-Penn game could have been the biggest of the year, another de facto Ivy League Championship Game in a long line of them. But then the Quakers played the fourth quarter last week.

Penn had jumped out to a 16-0 lead over Princeton at Franklin Field and held a lead midway through the third quarter. Then the Tigers pounced. The Quakers’ 23-17 advantage turned into a 24-23 deficit, and then a 31-23 hole. Princeton’s defense held Penn to 41 fourth-quarter yards while the visitors pulled away from the defending Ivy champions, 38-26.

The loss was Penn’s (4-4, 3-2 Ivy) first to Princeton (7-1, 5-0 Ivy) since 2006.

The Tigers have quickly gone from pretender (1-9 in 2011), to contender (3rd in the Ivy League in 2012), to undisputed king. It shouldn’t be that easy.

Turnarounds are supposed to take time. It’s supposed to be a long, painful process. But evidently Princeton coach Bob Surace found the cheat code, the shortcut from the basement to the penthouse so he did not have to climb the stairs.

Either Harvard or Penn has won at least a share of the last six Ivy League titles. The Tigers appear poised to change that this season.

And that makes this Harvard-Penn matchup different. Instead of Google vs. Apple, it’s Yahoo! Vs. Bing. Or maybe Saturday’s squads are more like AOL and Myspace, trying to stay relevant after years of success.

Rather than a fight for supremacy, Saturday will bring a struggle for survival. The winners will not be celebrating, they will be hoping.

And regardless of the outcome, Penn will also be worn out. A week after falling in front of 21,000+ fans at homecoming, the Quakers are playing the most important game of their year for a second straight week.

Meanwhile, Harvard is coming off a laugher against Columbia, except it wasn’t funny. The Crimson cruised to a 34-0 win as Harvard coach Tim Murphy rested everyone who had so much as a scraped knee.

Will what amounted to a bye week against the Lions be enough to help the Crimson beat Penn and stay alive in the title hunt? I guess you’ll have to read on…

PENN AT HARVARD (7-1, 4-1 IVY)

It’s hard to believe the defending-champion Quakers are now tied for third in the league. But there’s a good chance they finish even worse than that. Despite returning a number of key players from last year’s team, Penn has lost two Ivy games by a combined 39 points. 2013 could turn into the Quakers’ worst year in quite a while, or they could rally, beat Harvard this week, blow out a winless Cornell next week, and finish a respectable 5-2 in the league. I think the former is much more likely.

PICK: Harvard 31, Penn 20

DARTMOUTH (4-4, 3-2 Ivy) AT BROWN (5-3, 2-3 Ivy)

Could the Big Green be the next Princeton? Dartmouth’s only two losses this year are to Penn and Harvard, the first of which came in quadruple-overtime, while the Crimson squeaked by the Big Green by three at home. Dartmouth relies on its defense, the best in the league, and has given up just as many passing touchdowns as it has accrued interceptions. A win at Brown will give the Big Green some more momentum heading into 2014.

PICK: Dartmouth 23, Brown 17.

COLUMBIA (0-8, 0-5 Ivy) AT CORNELL (1-7, 0-5 Ivy)

Don’t let the records fool you, this game will be exciting: The Battle for New York and the Battle for Last Place, all in one place. Saturday, we will find out what happens when a very stoppable force meets an easily moved object. Columbia scores just seven points a game, but Cornell gives up 38 each week. All of that said, there is bad and then there is horrible. Saturday, Cornell will be happy to be the bad team.

PICK: Cornell 45, Columbia 14.

YALE (5-3, 3-2 Ivy) AT PRINCETON (7-1, 5-0 Ivy)

The biggest game of the weekend pits Harvard’s newest rival against its most famous. Yale’s current spot of third in the conference is misleading given it still has games against the top two teams left on its schedule, but these Bulldogs are better than they have been in years.

They showed that last week, scoring a touchdown with 19 seconds left to beat Brown. The most impressive stat from that game might have been Yale’s near-50 percent 3rd-down conversion percentage, which it compiled while having four different players throw multiple passes.

Princeton uses multiple signal-callers too, but that’s by design rather than desperation. The Tigers also have the best defense on third-down situations and are looking more and more like a well-oiled machine with each win. Even if Harvard sells its soul and roots for the Bulldogs on Saturday, it still will not be enough to trip up the Tigers. They appear to be the team of destiny this year.

PICK: Princeton 38, Yale 24.

—Staff writer Jacob Feldman can be reached at jacob.feldman@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @jacobfeldman4.