AROUND THE IVIES: For Football, It All Comes Down to This

Hopefully, when Tim Murphy and Buddy Teevens worked together at Maine almost 30 years ago, they listened to a lot of Beatles music together.

In particular, track two from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

You see, Teevens is now the head coach at Dartmouth, and this Saturday, Murphy, now the head coach of Harvard, will need a little help from his friend.

Teevens’s squad will be playing Princeton, which sits atop the Ivy League as the lone undefeated team, in the final game of the season. For Harvard, which is in sole possession of second place, a Big Green win coupled with a Crimson victory on Saturday will mean a share of the Ivy League championship.

If Tim Murphy has been checking Twitter update on the Tigers the last two weeks, I can’t blame him. After all, Harvard’s fate lies partially in the hands of Princeton coach Bob Surace.

While Harvard was trashing Columbia, 34-0, Penn was attempting to topple Princeton. But as he tends to do at the end of close games—just ask Coach Murphy—Princeton quarterback Quinn Epperly tossed for a score, and that was the game.

If Murphy needed another downer after watching his team nearly let a 38-0 advantage slip away, all he had to do was pull out his phone last weekend. For just as the Quakers began mounting their own comeback against Harvard, Princeton began pulling away from Yale. Final score: 59-23, Tigers.

Despite how dominant Surace’s team has looked all season, Murphy probably couldn’t ask for a better Ivy team to try to knock off the Tigers. Dartmouth’s only Ivy defeats have come to Harvard and Penn, two close losses to teams that nearly upset Princeton.

Of course, for any of this to matter, Harvard needs to take care of business in New Haven. Sure, the Crimson has won 11 of the last 12 meetings, but Tim Murphy’s boys seem to be a fan of the thriller endings.

In any event, Murphy should send his buddy Buddy a friendly plea for a favor in the form of a well-known Beatles tune. The Crimson will certainly hope that Teevens will recall some nostalgia for the good ol’ Maine days and have Ringo Starr’s voice in his head on Saturday.

But even if Teevens gives the song a listen, will it be enough to knock off the Tigers and give Harvard a share of the title? Read on…

HARVARD (8-1, 5-1 Ivy) at YALE (5-4, 3-3)

This may be the only weekend where the question “We have a football game this weekend?” is not asked at Harvard. Rejoice, Harvard and Yale students who wished they went to a “real” football school—this will be your opportunity to cram into a packed stadium and watch two marching bands do inexplicable things during halftime. Just don’t complain about having to stand—you only do it one game a year (those poor souls at Bama…).

Oh right, the football. Harvard is 8-1, but it hasn’t been playing like an 8-1 team (really? Only 34 points against Columbia?), so I’m going to say that Yale will keep it interesting for a while, but the Crimson will be victorious in the 130th rendition of the Game.

PICK: Harvard 34, Yale 21

CORNELL (2-7, 1-5) at PENN (4-5, 3-3)

Congrats Cornell, you finally won an Ivy game! Oh wait… it was against Columbia. Well, at least David Archer has something to cheer about in his first year as Big Red coach, even if it’s kicking the eternally down Lions even more.

This game will be Jeff Mathews’ last chance to prove to NFL scouts that he is, in fact, a good quarterback. That Cornell leads the league in passing offense, yet is third-to-last in scoring just hammers home how very terrible we can predict the Big Red to be after Mathews does land on an NFL roster next year.

But Mathews remains in Archer’s arsenal for one final game, and against a Penn team that might be demoralized after coming oh, so close to putting together the biggest comeback in Ivy League history, perhaps Cornell will pull off a stunner. But probably not.

PICK: Penn 38, Cornell 17

BROWN (5-4, 2-4) at COLUMBIA (0-9, 0-6)

The last Columbia team to go 0-10 was the 1987 squad. Lions coach Pete Mangurian, after a 3-7 overall record last year, likely knows that he’s in the hot seat, so maybe this is his way of going out with a bang.

Meanwhile, Brown will most likely be laying with a chip on its shoulder. After downing preseason favorite Penn, 27-0, three weeks ago, the Bears have recorded two straight close losses to Yale and Dartmouth. This team, which once had a feasible shot at the championship, will be playing for some last-minute pride, while its opponent will be playing for… well, whatever it is that Columbia players still have to play for.

PICK: Brown 24, Columbia 3

PRINCETON (8-1, 6-0) at DARTMOUTH (5-4, 4-2)

Take away the triple-overtime Harvard game and the first contest of the year—a one-point loss to Lehigh—and Princeton has won every game of the season by double digits. Surace’s unusual offensive schemes must work, because the Tigers have an eight-game winning streak.

Princeton is a train with full steam ahead in control of its own destiny, and unfortunately for Harvard’s title chances, I don’t think that Teevens’ boys will be able to handle the Tigers, no matter how many times Murphy calls up his former head coach this week to plead for a win.

PICK: Princeton 52, Dartmouth 31

—Staff writer Samantha Lin can be reached at samantha.lin@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @Linsamnity.