1) Harvard
I boldly pick the Crimson for 6th, and as soon as all eight Ivy teams play at least one league game, it's clear Harvard is #1. The convincing win on the road (technically a neutral site) against Holy Cross was worth watching to see the Crimson's overall team speed. Do I get a pass on my preseason prediction because of the caveat I set saying all bets were off if Harvard finds a good QB? (they have).
2) Dartmouth
What you saw Saturday at Franklin Field wasn't really a team playing for its departed and beloved coach. You saw a very, very good defense confound the Quakers and expose Penn as a team without a varied enough attack. The Big Green's ground and pound plus that defense will win a lot of games this fall.
3) Yale
Don't look now, but the Elis came back to life last week with a vengeance. This sets up a great matchup vs. Dartmouth Saturday.
4) Penn
Penn needs a RB who can do more
5) Brown
The Bears have a consistently lethal offense and only a few Ivy teams will be able to match it in an individual game.
6) Princeton
It's hard to really assess the Tigers after their win over the Lions Friday night. For now, it's still wait and see on the Princeton offense.
7) Cornell
Losing to Colgate at homecoming should never have happened if the Big Red were a very good team. They're not.
8) Columbia
There are still plenty of chances for the Lions to roar, but the Princeton loss was a huge emotional setback and the passing attack is not developing.
33 comments:
I think you have Yale too high. But we will find out soon enough if they deserve it...
Out of curiosity, Jake, where would you have had us if we’d held on to beat Princeton? For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume we succeeded in stopping Princeton on that fourth-and-goal and that we were then able to hold onto the ball (and run out the clock). Would you put us at sixth or somewhere thereabouts?
Columbia is a bottom third team. Let’s hope we win 1-2 Ivy games so we’re not last.
Jake is no homer.
While it was a huge emotional setback for the fan base I am unaware of the impact on the team. I think the passing game is unproven at this point since no combination of Sid Luckman, Marty Domres and Archie Roberts would have had much success in those conditions.
Jake don't feel bad. I thought that Holy Cross would destroy Harvard. How about G Town beating Fordham?
Who do we beat in the Ivies? Two or three wins keeps us firmly within the Post Penn Bagnoli tradition. You don't fool the knowledgeable who see through the cupcakes.
We were one play away from beating a good Princeton team on the road at night in horrific conditions. We can be a very good team if our passing game starts to click. Giorgi is an excellent cutback runner who has had to contend with 7 and 8 defenders in the box. We need the passing game to open up the run game.
Anonymous
Does this tell us something?
Championships by team
College Titles Last
Dartmouth 20 2021
Penn 18 2016
Harvard 17 2015
Yale 17 2022
Princeton 13 2021
Brown 4 2008
Cornell 3 1990
Columbia 1 1961 (actually a co-championship)
We need to stop reminiscing about the Rose Bowl, the 1946 win over Army, the 1961 co-championship, Lou Little, etc.
It has been 61 years since Columbia won a co-championship!
Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Penn, and Princeton shrive for excellence.Columbia strives for mediocrity.
If we are not willing to put forth the effort required to become competitive in the Ivy League, perhaps we should transfer to an easier league.
The problem is not the coaches or the players. They're fine. It is the university administration that sees MBB going from the Coach Smith era to the current disaster and sees nothing wrong with it. Cultural change has to start at the very top of the administration.
How about baseball where we have been Champions many times Recently!
Have we seen any evidence that our passing game will click against an Ivy opponent? Assume we roll Marist and everyone here will praise Bell, Fabish and the OC.
Marist has a very good running back that the Lions need to stop to pick up a "W."
I do agree with the comment that cultural change starts at the top of the Adminstration and that something is very wrong when the Administration allows an obviously inept coach to blow up a men's basketball program that had thrived under his predecessor. What is ridiculous is that some of the biggest donors to the University have highly successful sports backgrounds, but for whatever reasons they seem satisfied with a head Men's Basketball Coach whose only success during the last seven years or so has come against schools like Vassar and SUNY Maritime. Shame on them for not stepping up and replacing Engles with a decent coach.
http://culions.blogspot.com/2023/10/ivy-power-rankings-104.html
Yes. We do occasionally win championships in baseball and other minor sports at the local or Ivy League level, but at the collegiate level football, MBB, and WBB generate all the excitement and attendence.
Can you imagine Stanford, USC, UCLA, Duke, or Notre Dame, all very strong academically, telling their students and alumni that because they have successful fencing teams it's okay that their football and MBB teams are ranked amongst the worst in the country.
We don't win any Ivy games until there is a meaningful upgrade in the vertical passing game.
And for those conditions vs PU- Wit would have picked them apart. Food for thought: how many bad weather wet games do you think Joe Green played in HS in the State of Washington? A lot would be the answer.
If you think back to last year’s game in Poughkeepsie, it was not an easy, runaway win. We did not cover the spread. (Though beating the spread does get entered into the record books.)
But for an amazing play by the safety, the score would have been tied well into the contest.
The turning point was a long run off tackle, (yes, challenging the corner).
Do we really feel this team is better prepared than last year? That it has jelled, even though this is Week Four?
Hopefully, this Saturday is not a wild ride. By the way, rain is forecasted.
I agree, and with the Administration adding Hillary Clinton as a “University Professor” this fall,
I’m confident that athletics as well as academic farces like “clmate
vbange” will lead to the extinctio
of Alma Mater very soon, and then
we won’t have a damned thing to worry about very soon.
So obviously the PU loss was a tough pill to swallow. I suspect the team is in a very tough place mentally and this is where the team captains will earn the "C" on their jerseys.
While the margin of error is smaller, the team's goal of winning an Ivy championship is still there for the taking. Nobody is going undefeated this season ... even Harvard. The offense needs some work, no doubt about that but Columbia is still in control of their destiny. Defense wins championships and we seem to be pretty good on that side of the ball
There is plenty to be positive about from my perspective. We know the running game works. We know our special teams is miles ahead of where it was last year with a solid kicker, a punter who can turn field position in our favor, a dependable long snapper, and a returner who can put the offense in good starting field position. We know the defense will keep the team in every game. If the passing game can get squared away then plenty of good things are ahead. The talent is there.
Words of wisdom, Hoke, words of wisdom!
Go Lions!
5-5 at best
I love the optimism, HokieToph. But can we be realistic for a second? A team that has not scored a touchdown on offense in two of its first three games isn’t finishing first in the IL, no matter how much parity there is. My absolute best-case scenario is that we go 5-2 in the Ivies (which would mean we’d win five of our last six in league play), which is really pie in the sky. I think 3-4 or 2-5 is much more probable, so I’m going to revise my earlier predictions (from before the season began) and say that we’ll end up 4-6.
Fully agree.
Let the Search Committee get on the early case. Don't set up in February, interview until April, decide in June and appoint in August
CU at it's best!
Let’s presume we beat Marist this weekend; a team we did not blow away last year.
Penn, Harvard, Brown all at home.
Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell on the road.
Can someone elucidate where two wins come from, never mind the five that some are saying are plausible?
Lafayette and Georgetown should have been opportunities to fine tune the machine. One a disaster, one not indicative of anything. It also should have been a chance to see what depth we have.
Princeton should have and could have, been what ignited the rocket. A failed chance.
This week is essentially Week One in our season. So, going forward, are we going to be last night’s Chicago Bears; emerging from our shell? Tomorrow, will not tell. This is the last chance to rev it up. Next weekend will tell us all we need to know.
I think we beat Penn and Brown at home. We will want to avenge last year’s ugly loss to the Quakers, and we generally tend to get the better of Brown. I could also see us potentially beating Cornell on the road. Forget about Yale and Harvard, and Dartmouth away will be tough.
NJ Lion always has head on straight. Bases his opinions on fact.
Since Troxell arrived in Easton, Lafayette has improved significantly. Legitimate FCS program at this point. Lost nail biter to Holy Cross in 2022, just 10 months after the staff was hired. They're only going to improve. Great opportunity to win the Patriot.
If our defense plays thru 10 weeks as they have thus far, we can win any game we play.
We have a field flipper in Hughes, range with Hugo and a plenty of play makers in the specials.
I trust the offense will improve relative to points, and the kids play hard thru 10 games.
Anyone counting us out at this point is making a mistake.
My 2 cents.
KISS analysis of the season so far:
Defense(run and pass)- good enough to keep us in most games
Special teams- exceptionally good, our secret weapon
Offense (run)- good enough to sustain drives
Offense (pass)- fails to give our Vertical pass game time to develop separation
Unless we figure out how to pass the ball downfield we will lose most Ivy contests. What is the problem here ? We have the talent and desire (kids playing
hard) so why is the execution so poor ?
Regarding specials: surprised i have not seen mentioned that missed fg from 43 against Gt would have been good from about 50 - into the wind - special teams are indeed night and day from last year. And i never have seen so many opponents knocked on their backsides on both coverage and return plays.
But it is the same coordinator! How could that be? Shouldn't he have been summarily fired after last year’s yale game? Just because things dont go the way we would like does not mean coaching is problem
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