It's helpful to look at the cumulative records of teams over five-year periods, so let's look at where Columbia ends up over the past five years and how that compares to the previous five years:
2016-2021
School Overall W-L Ivy W-L
Princeton 40-10 26-9
Dartmouth 39-11 24-11
Yale 31-19 22-13
Harvard 30-20 19-16
Penn 27-23 17-18
Columbia 27-23 16-19
Cornell 16-34 11-24
Brown 11-39 5-30
2011-2015
School Overall W-L Ivy W-L
Harvard 45-5 31-4
Dartmouth 34-16 25-10
Brown 30-20 17-18
Yale 26-24 16-19
Penn 24-26 21-14
Princeton 24-26 17-18
Cornell 14-36 9-26
Columbia 6-44 4-31
A couple of things that jump out at you looking at these two 5-year composites:
1) Columbia enjoyed a 350% increase in overall wins and a 300% increase in Ivy wins from 2016-2021 compared to the previous five seasons.
2) While the ranking of the teams based on their overall records and Ivy records were identical from 2016-2021, the difference between overall and Ivy records for many teams from 2011-2015 was much more skewed. This may be the result of the overall weakening of non-Ivy opponents for all programs.
3) Harvard dominated the 2011-2015 period in a way that's probably unmatched in Ivy history. The last five years have been much more competitive overall.
4) Brown's drop from the top three to a distant last in the Ivies has been stunning. The "little program that could" under Phil Estes has amassed just one more Ivy win from 2016-2021 than Columbia produced from 2011-2016,
5) The most consistent program over the last 10 seasons, and that's not a good thing in this case, is Cornell. Almost as consistent during this period, in a good way, is Dartmouth.
3 comments:
What an extremely insightful metric.
The rightmost column is the most telling, particularly for the reason mentioned.
The caliber of “outside the league” competition has diminished at many places, including Columbia.
What is most apparent, is that even with the “Bagnoli Surge”, and Cornell’s lengthy, precipitous fall; both Cornell and Columbia have the same record in league play over the last ten years. Sadly, no one has won fewer Ivy League games.
The good news is that the snapshot includes only the last ten years.
One can say, “the people in the Dark Ages did not think it was the Dark Ages”; but how could we have tolerated M. Dianne Murphy for so long? Imagine if she had not offered to “step down” on her own?
The most shocking change is from Brown
Jake, the most shocking change is us. Because we weren't just bad for five years, but for 40 years prior. I had seen in person a handful of football victories in my life prior to Al. Was a student during the streak. Lost every homecoming I attended prior to Penn in '17. A lot easier to go down than come up and it was surprising that Brown was ever that good in the first place. Less FA and weak commitment to athletics, Estes finally couldn't overcome the crummy aid available.
We have dingbat trolls on your site and Voy who want to minimize what Al has done ... but it's pretty incredible. My two cents.
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