Ivy League Football Preview 2014

State of the League

The immovable objects blocking Ivy League Football from moving into the 20th, let alone the 21st century, are all in still in place.

There is still no chance of ever adding an 11th game to our schedules or lifting the hypocritical, feckless and discriminatory ban on FCS postseason play.

Publicity for the league and its players has improved, but only relative to the Ivy League efforts of the past. Compared to the rest of even smaller college sports, Ivy football is still a good product that looks more ashamed of itself than eager to win new fans and reward existing ones.

And yet despite the apathetic and sometimes hostile atmosphere, something unexpected has happened on the actual playing field: the quality of the game and its players are getting undeniably better.

Consider this metaphor as I explain:

Imagine a very exclusive hotel and resort that is so expensive, luxurious and in-demand that reservation waiting lists stretch years in advance. Imagine that long waiting list that used to 5-10 years long has stretched to 10-20 years long just in recent years.Consider just how much more eager potential customers of all kinds would be to bypass that line.

Ivy League schools, deservedly or not, have gone from super-exclusive to impossibly exclusive since the late 1990's. Every year, the percentage of accepted applicants to each of the eight undergraduate institutions shrinks so much that even the best students have little better than state lottery-like odds of getting in. That's created a buzz so intense around the sheer idea of Ivy League admission, that even the most aggressive downgrading of football by the Ivy presidents has not effectively stopped more higher quality football players from wanting to come play for the Ancient Eight.

The results are clear. Last season, only one team in the league played poor quality football week after week. Four of the teams were competitive and sometimes even brilliant, while three teams played impressive and exciting games every week.

I expect more of the same this season.

So while the league officials themselves continue to stand in the way of progress, the academic reputations of the individual schools are just too much of a lure to water down. And if we fans can't swallow our frustration about the lack of decent support for the sport, we can at least relax and enjoy a better quality of football for 10 weeks each fall.

As far as who will be the best team in 2014, the answer lies just as much in the home and away schedules as it does in the rosters and practice fields...


2014 Predicted Order of Finish

1. Princeton
2. Dartmouth
3. Harvard
4. Penn 
5. Yale
6. Brown
7. Cornell 
8. Columbia


Princeton

I like Princeton's super-charged offense. I like their QB Quinn Epperly, (when he isn't Tweeting about how great he is), and I mostly like their defense despite the graduation loss of DT Caraun Reid.

But what I really like is the fact that the Tigers get to host the other three best teams in the league at Princeton Stadium this year. Dartmouth, Harvard, and Penn all have to visit New Jersey this fall and that gives Princeton a huge advantage.

I think RB DiAndre Atwater is poised for a breakout year to relieve the pressure on Epperly and the passing game. DB Anthony Gaffney may be the best overall player in the Ivies. LB Mike Zeuli is another star to watch.

Of course injuries are the only wildcard here. The Tigers still do not have the kind of depth that Harvard enjoys at key positions. But Epperly and company have avoided serious injury so far and that's good enough for me.


Dartmouth

The conventional wisdom is that the Big Green are a 3rd place team again this year and Buddy Teevens and company should be happy that they now seem like a perennial first-division team.

But I see a little more in the guys from Hanover. Too much weight is being put on the graduation of RB Dominic Pierre, who was a great player but not as vital to Dartmouth's success as another player who still has two years left in his Big Green career.

That would be QB Dalyn Williams, who is almost a prototype of the perfect QB for Ivy play in this decade. He has a strong arm, fantastic running ability, and a knack for staying healthy that guys like Penn's Billy Ragone and Columbia's M.A. Olawale never quite got.

But now Williams has to step it up and take ownership of his talent, be the man to finally get Dartmouth over the hump and end the 18-year championship drought for the former powerhouse program. Williams maturity is a question, especially judging by his Twitter feed which is littered with anger and inappropriate conspiracy theories. He's still a 19-20 year old young man, and we all get that, but he and Epperly down at Princeton need to start thinking more about their public image as team leaders.

Getting back to the field, I think RB Kyle Bramble will not be nearly as good as Pierre but he'll be good enough to augment Williams' abilities as a running and gunning QB. The receiving corps looks excellent, and the defense should be just as good as last year after getting its feet wet during the first two non-league games.

The Big Green's ace in the hole is the schedule, as they get home games against Penn and Harvard and thus a better chance to beat the teams they have not been able to overcome for a long time. The bad news is the home schedule does not include Princeton, and that seems like a bar too far to overcome.

If anything, Dartmouth is looking a lot like next year's champions.


Harvard

Harvard has had the most overall talent and depth in the Ivies every year since 2000.

Head Coach Tim Murphy has built a reloadable machine that sucks up the best talent year after year.

This year is no different. QB Connor Hempel has something to prove after being unfairly overlooked the last two seasons by most fans. RB Paul Stanton is a little firecracker who can burn every team in this league for long TD's at any time. Concerns some have about the Crimson receiving crew are the result of bad attention spans; Harvard never lacks for talent. Ricky Zorn is the man at WR and he should have an All Ivy season.

The defense looks even better. Zach Hodges and Obum Obukwelu are a DE-DT combo every other Ivy team could never assemble. Harvard's recruiting edge just makes it happen. Maybe the secondary is soft, but I think that's a stretch.

So why am I making the seemingly insane choice of picking the Crimson for 3rd?

Track record.

Just like the track record clearly shows Harvard never lacks for talent, Murphy's track record in key road games against quality Ivy opponents is surprisingly bad.

The trend started in 2000, when a Crimson team with a 4-1 Ivy record came into Franklin Field and lost an impossibly close 36-35 game to the Quakers. Two years later, a 5-0 Ivy Harvard team was mauled by Penn 44-9 on the road. The 2004 Crimson, probably Murphy's best team ever, did beat Penn at Franklin Field, but the trend resumed in 2006.

In 2008, Harvard lost an early road match-up against Brown and it forced them to eventually share the title with the Bears. In 2010, they lost to both Brown and Penn on the road to finish entirely out of the money. In 2012, they lost at Princeton and Penn and suffered the same result.

In 2014, the Crimson must travel to Penn and Princeton AND Dartmouth. Can, or should Harvard win all those games. On paper the answer is, "yes." But the one thing Tim Murphy simply has not done is show an ability to coach his enormously talented team to wins against tough teams on the road. Perhaps the all-too-coddled atmosphere in the Crimson program is the reason. So unless Murphy takes his boys into the woods for some hard core training sessions this fall, I think I'm going to stick with the historic record.

Yale 

If Yale had a QB who wasn't a question mark, the Elis would be a dark horse contender for the title.

But they don't, and that puts too much pressure on a very deep and talented running corps that can't do it alone. The star RB is Tyler Varga, who appears to be back from injury. But don't sleep on Khalil Keys and Candler Rich, who both torched CU for 100 yards games last season.

The Bulldog defense is young but very talented. DE Victor Egu will feast on a lot of ball carriers this season and the Yale secondary is better than many might think.

And the schedule maker is being kind to the Elis, as I think the home game against Penn will be the difference in not only that game but also in deciding who will finish the season in the top four.

Penn

The Quakers start a totally new QB this season in sophomore Alek Torgerson. He's supposedly very talented, and there's no reason to doubt it. But I expect him to need a little more seasoning before he can do real damage consistently.

Lyle Marsh's late return for a 5th/6th season will help Penn, but the Quakers already have good runners in Spencer Kulcsar and Kyle Wilcox. And my bet is that Marsh won't stay healthy the entire season. That's been his M.O.

The defense is questionable by Penn standards. It fell off a cliff last season, especially against the pass.

I keep coming back to the fact that the only reason many people think Penn is contender this year is because it's Al Bagnoli's last year as head coach. That's not a good enough reason. I expect Penn to come in fifth.

Brown

Head Coach Phil Estes is a miracle worker, but this is a rebuilding year in Providence.

The Bears have a new QB, new RB and a lot of new starters on defense.

Oh, and they have a new kicker too.

The schedule is brutal. Princeton, Dartmouth and Penn are all road games this year. The good news is they get league weaklings Cornell and Columbia at home, and could steal the home game against Yale too.

That said, Brown will still be competitive against the big guys, but they're always at least competitive under Estes. And I think the defense could be a real strength by the end of the season; a very good omen for 2015 when the offensive skill players will be more prepared.

Cornell

The Big Red salvaged their season with two wins to close out 2013, including a thrilling upset victory over Penn at Franklin Field.

But super-passing QB Jeff Mathews is gone and Cornell now needs to reconstruct its entire offense.

The good news is they have a very talented halfback in Luke Hagy and he's a senior with experience to back it up. Plus, the Big Red coaching staff has had a long time to prepare for the post-Mathews world.

The bad news is the defense still looks spotty and second-year Head Coach David Archer is still learning on the job. 

And the Big Red have to travel to Columbia in week 9, making their best chance to win this season that much harder. 

This just doesn't look like a very good team right now. 

Columbia

My full preview of the 2014 Lions will be published later this week.