The Ivy League and Its Place in College Football

For me, a very important part of the college football season (I’ll save most important for next week) is about to start Friday night when Rhode Island visits historic Harvard Stadium to take on the Crimson.  The Ivy League may not have been created until 1956, but the connections that these colleges have to the game go back to its’ roots. 

In fact, it was a future Ivy League team, Princeton, who played in the very first college football game back in 1869 against another New Jersey school – Rutgers.  Meanwhile, Walter Camp of Yale developed major rule changes that started football down a different path than rugby.  Other firsts by the “Ancient Eight” include:  the first forward pass, the first night game, and in a 1973 game between Penn and Brown, it was the first time in major college football that both starting quarterbacks were black.

A couple of stadiums and a field have also had their roots in the college game – of which two are on my bucket list, while the third (Yale Bowl) was crossed off two years ago.  Franklin Field, home of the Penn Quakers, is considered the oldest field still in use for football and is the site of the first scoreboard.  In Cambridge, MA, Harvard Stadium was the first collegiate stadium built in the United States.  Its U-Shape construction was a model for future structures and the stadium was made a National Historic Landmark in 1987 – along with the Yale Bowl.

It was at the Yale Bowl that my father attended his first college game with his family, so I was very proud when my family and I made the pilgrimage there in 2014 – its 100th year of hosting Yale football!  This was the first bowl-shaped stadium in the country, and like Harvard Stadium, it influenced other structures, particularly “The Big House” in Ann Arbor and the beautiful Rose Bowl.  The peculiar thing though about this unique stadium is that it doesn’t have locker rooms.

Enough about the past, lets now talk about the present.  If last season is any indication, in which there was a three-way tie for first, this season should be just as exciting!  Two of those first place teams (Harvard and Dartmouth) had significant graduation losses, so that would make Penn (the other co-winner) the conference favorite.  To borrow the catchphrase of Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend!”

Harvard has the two essentials it takes to win every year, great coaching and great depth, so they are not going down without a fight.  The only issue I see for them is that all of their key league games are on the road, except for the Yale game.  Meanwhile, Penn came out of nowhere last year to surprise everyone, but can they do it again?  Their offense will be explosive, but their defense susceptible.  Yale returns the most starters of all the teams, but they have to replace a record-setting quarterback.

The sleeper could be the Tigers of Princeton.  They return a lot of experience, and their front seven on defense will be tough.  Last year, the Tigers lost four league games by seven points or less.  I am predicting that Dartmouth will be in the middle of the standings, but the depth that they developed last year might suit them well this year.  A bad break, here and there, will drop them to the bottom of the standings

Lastly, don’t fall asleep on the other teams – Brown, Columbia, or Cornell.  There is a lot of experience returning to each of these teams, but I’m not quite sold on their skill level.  One or two of them though will be at or near .500 at the end of the year.

As you can see, there is a lot to like about this league, both in terms of history and talent (an Ivy League-record 24 players were in NFL camps this summer).  I know that I look forward to their TV schedule every summer, but I had a special interest in this year’s schedule because I believe that there will be a great title race in the Ivy League in 2016!  Take some time and watch a game or two of these “Ancient Eight” teams this year – I know that you’ll enjoy it.