KING JAMES BIBLE: Ivy Football Starts Strong

So much for that supposed disadvantage of starting two weeks late.

In six games against their Patriot League brethren, the Ivies came out on top in all six, including four road victories.

Princeton and Dartmouth, picked sixth and seventh in the preseason Ivy media poll, respectively, each scored upsets against Patriot powerhouses.

The Tigers traveled to Easton, Pa. and took down last year’s Patriot League champion—and preseason second-place pick—Lafayette 23-21. With just one experienced skill position returning on offense, Princeton scraped together points by relying on the steady foot of kicker Derek Javarone and its gritty defense, which chipped in a valuable six when All-Ivy cornerback Jay McCareins took an interception 75 yards to the house.

After dropping four of its last five down the stretch in 2004 and, due to graduation, getting ostensibly worse in the offseason, the Tigers’ road victory over a squad which was on the cusp of cracking the top 25 should have been the shocker of the weekend.

That honor, however, goes to Buddy Teevens’ boys from Dartmouth.

Coach Teevens took over a Big Green squad that had won just one game last season, possessed little talent at the skill positions aside from quarterback Charlie Rittgers, and faced one of the toughest non-conference slates of any Ivy team.

It could have reasonably taken four to six weeks or more to match last year’s win total. Some fortunate bounces reduced that number to one.

Dartmouth’s defense forced four turnovers and converted all but one into a touchdown, including a 29-yard fumble recovery by linebacker Josh Dooley that put the Big Green up 7-0 early on, en route to a 26-21 victory over Colgate—the Patriot’s third-place preseason pick. Throw in the field goal that the Big Green converted after the Raiders turned the ball over on downs just past midfield and the safety and that’s how a 26-point performance is possible despite having a junior varsity offense.

The interesting part of the story is that Colgate’s 17-14 upset of then-No. 15 UMass the week prior was driven by the eight turnovers—five interceptions and three fumbles—that the Raiders forced. In a battle of dormant attacks—as Colgate’s and Dartmouth’s are for the most part—turnovers are critical, and it was surprising that the less experienced and less talented team did such a better job of holding onto the ball in its season opener.

Columbia capped off the big day for the Ivies in the nightcap, venturing over to the Bronx to take down Fordham 23-17 and bring home the Liberty Cup for the first time in three years. The Lions, the preseason pick to be the Ivy cellar-dweller, had the same offensive concerns as Princeton and Dartmouth. But like the Tigers and Big Green, Columbia found other ways to score—including a 94-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Prosper Nwokocha—in order to get past the Rams, the Patriot League’s fourth-place preseason pick.

While the Lions are still searching for a running game, they seem to have a couple of serviceable quarterbacks in Craig Hormann (22-of-33 for 215 yards) and Joe Winters (5-of-8 for 53 yards). With All-Ivy caliber wideout Brandon Bowser, Columbia is starting to put the pieces together on offense. Since a matchup with I-AA

major Duquesne is on tap this weekend, the Lions could move to 2-0 and eclipse last year’s win total before league play even begins.

Along with those three upsets, the Ivy League also held its ground in the games in which its teams were favored. In the No. 5 versus No. 5 contest, Big Red quarterback Ryan Kuhn passed for just 49 yards, but ran for 151 yards on 19 carries to lead his team to a 24-7 victory. Harvard held its ground in the 2-6 matchup, despite trailing early in the fourth quarter, slipping past Holy Cross 31-21. Brown scored the biggest victory in the Ivy-Patriot showdown, blowing out Georgetown in the 3-7 game, 34-3.

A year after going just 6-9 against the Patriot squads, the Ivies matched that win total in week one with 11 games still remaining between representatives of each of the two leagues.

In all, the Ivies went 7-1 on the opening weekend of play, including Penn’s 41-14 win over Duquesne and Yale’s embarrassing 17-14 loss at San Diego. If the league can continue this torrid non-conference pace, it could improve upon its standing as the fifth-best grouping in I-AA and see a couple of its teams break into the top 25 along with No. 19 Harvard.

With non-league foes like New Hampshire and Villanova on Saturday’s schedule, this would be the perfect weekend for the Ivy League to make its case.

--Staff writer Michael R. James can be reached at mrjames@fas.harvard.edu.