Harvard rolled up the yards and added more points to the scoreboard, and whatever hopes Columbia had of winning an Ivy League championship went in the other direction as the Crimson scored the first 42 points of the game on the way to a 49-21 win over the Lions on Nov. 6 at Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium in Manhattan.
It took some time, but Dante Miller infused electricity into the air and that proved to be the tonic as Columbia picked up a milestone win in the long history of the program.
This was unquestionably “hard reset” week for the Top 25 as this was the first real slate of games that changed the way people thought about their ballots.
In 2006, I wrote two pieces for the website I-AA.org about a Fordham/Columbia game I attended. The two crosstown Rivals competed for an actual cup, the “Liberty Cup”, and it was a 9/11 themed rivalry game for a time.
If these are the only two plans that are actively being considered by the Ivy League, it means that, effectively, all out-of-conference games involving Ivy League opponents are cancelled for the fall.
It’s somewhat serendipitous, according to John Feinstein of The Washington Post, that this week’s battle of undefeated teams between Dartmouth and Princeton came to be.
Undefeated Princeton and Dartmouth look to not slip up going into a potentially enormous matchup of undefeated teams in the Bronx.
This week, two of the nation’s unbeaten teams play tricky challengers: one in prime time on Friday night, and the other takes on a rival in one of the marquee games of Saturday.
Last week’s battle of unbeatens ended up not much of a battle – 4-0 Dartmouth jumped all over Yale early and never looked back, crushing the Bulldogs 42-10 and established themselves every bit the frontrunners for the Ivy League title. As we sit and wait for the inevitable clash of titans between Dartmouth and Princeton later in the season, let’s take a look at this week’s games.
After the Big Green took it to Penn last weekend on Friday night, Dartmouth returns home for Homecoming in a huge battle between undefeated teams as they take on Yale.
This week we see a primetime Ivy League matchup in actual prime time, as undefeated Dartmouth and undefeated Penn face off under Franklin Field’s lights.
The Ivy League had a hugely successful opening weekend, as many expected. As a whole the Ancient Eight went 6-2, the only losses coming from a missed two-point conversion attempt by Penn at Delaware, and a furious Harvard rally falling short to San Diego. This week the Ivy League seems poised to have another great week, and additionally league play is starting with two early-season conference tilts.
Finally the wait is over – the Ivy League awakens from their annual football slumber and rejoins the college football universe almost a full month after the rest of college football has started their season. Top 25-caliber powerhouses Princeton, Dartmouth and Yale finally will be able to prove where they stand in the national picture.
Last season was one for the ages in the Ivy League, with Princeton going 10-0. It was the fourth outright Ivy League title in Princeton history, and the first since 1995. It was also the program’s second 7-0 Ivy season since league play officially began in 1956, and the 13th 7-0 season in Ivy League history, and the first since 2014. 9-1 Dartmouth was a heartbreaking second place to the Tigers, their only loss a 14-9 instant classic at Princeton. This season, will it come down to another battle of unbeatens?
The good news was that head coach Al Bagnoli guided the Lions to their second consecutive winning season. The bad news is that they weren’t able to take that next step towards to becoming Ivy League title contenders, going 3-4 in league play and losing to Harvard and Yale by a combined score of 97-28.
