Football Prepares to Face Georgetown on the Road

I used to be an idealistic young man.

I used to think that Harvard students would come to football games if you made them more fun. That deep within every student was the same innate desire to see players batter each other for glory. That getting A’s in college was easy. That Santa Claus was real. That Yale was a good school.

I get reminded of my insolence every Saturday as I sit among the concrete sea of empty seats. Last weekend’s tailgate, that happened to be more populated by students during the game than the game itself, further solidified my opinion that most Ivy League kids simply do not care about football.

But for the three that do, my picks:

URI AT BROWN

I don’t know which is more surprising: the fact that URI beat Harvard or that Rhode Island has enough colleges to actually have a state rivalry, which apparently this is. The two will meet for the 102nd time to play for the “Governor’s Cup,” which in Rhode Island I guess is a shot glass.

With a 1-3 record, URI is in the midst of their best start to a season in four years. No, I am not kidding. The team sent a good(ish) Central Michigan squad to overtime in its season opener and beat Harvard two weeks ago. We’ll call the latter a fluke.

Harvard had a fluke of its own Saturday when Brown forgot to field its actual quarterback. When the 2016 playcaller, Thomas “Golden Arm” Linta, finally did take the helm of the Bears’ sinking ship late in the third quarter, he was beautiful in every sense of the word. The man threw for 232 yards, three touchdowns, and ran in another all in the span of 15 minutes. That’s 10 more yards than Harvard threw all game. You’d have to go to Brown to not start him this week, which luckily for the Bears, their coach didn’t.

Pick: Brown 35, URI 24

DARTMOUTH AT PENN

The only thing that could possibly save Dartmouth from the impending loss this weekend is a stray bullet hitting Penn wideout Justin Watson in the knee. Even so, the kid would probably just wrap it up and still drop 30 points on the Big Green.

Both are undefeated this season, but Penn just scored 65 points last week against Lehigh, the most in a single game for the team since 1946. Dartmouth merely went to OT against a competitive Holy Cross team. Dartmouth is good, just not Justin-Watson-without-a-bullet-in-his-leg good.

Pick: Penn 46, Dartmouth 31.

HARVARD AT GEORGETOWN

This game will be hosted in Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in D.C., which seats 45,000 people. For reference, Georgetown games are typically attended by about 3,000 people. My Hebrew Bible lecture Friday morning will be less empty. On the net, I think this is for the best. The larger the arena, the harder it will be to hear the band, which means everyone wins.

Harvard’s defense was stellar in its last game against Brown, and I don’t see that changing. The Crimson’s offense thrived under the direction of senior quarterback Joe Viviano and will probably do so again.

Georgetown lost to Marist. Stick to basketball.

Pick: Harvard 34, Georgetown 14

COLUMBIA AT PRINCETON

Both teams are undefeated, but neither has had a particularly tough schedule. Princeton beat Lafayette, 38-17, which seems alright until you realize that Lafayette is so bad that anything less than a 40-point victory is a moral loss. Speaking of moral losses, Columbia beat Wagner by only three points. Neither team looks particularly exceptional.

One of the Transformers movies was filmed at Princeton, which I feel delegitimizes the institution from the outset. As for the football team, their quarterback might just be a Transformer. Chad “Rain Maker” Kanoff has completed over thirty passes in both of the season’s games. Columbia’s weak defense won’t be able to stop him.

Pick: Princeton 21, Columbia 7.

COLGATE AT CORNELL

Legend has it that on Dragon Day, Cornell students parade around a giant dragon and then light it on fire. No one is really sure why but some speculate it’s to celebrate graduation with a physical representation of their job prospects with a Cornell degree. The only dumpster fire more impressive than a melting dragon on a crisp March morning is the school’s football program.

In the season’s first two games, Cornell didn’t come within 25 points of either opponent. Which is weird because you’d think that as a student-athlete living in the Ithaca, N.Y., you’d have nothing to do but practice. Guess not.Colgate exposes the cavities in the Cornell defense.

Pick: Colgate 31, Cornell 14

YALE AT FORDHAM

Traveling to the Bronx for a football game might be disconcerting for any regular team, but then again Yale is no regular team.

Hailing from the trashcan of New Haven they call home, it turns out the Yale football players will be statistically safer in one of New York’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods than their classmates holed away in Yale’s libraries. Will the decreased probability of being shot have an effect on the way Yale plays? That remains to be seen. Yale does come into the match up sporting a 2-0 season record. Its sophomore quarterback has hung more than 45 points on both opponents thus far and Fordham hasn’t scored that many points once. The only thing easier than this pick was getting into Yale.

Pick: Yale 54, Fordham 21

—Staff writer Cade Palmer can be reached at cade.palmer@thecrimson.com.