Football Players Back to Reality

People at this school like to talk about the Harvard bubble. We live with a perpetual haze shrouding our eyes from reality, allowing us only to see a distorted conception of it, one in which every midterm means life or death and thesis deadlines mark the coming of Armageddon.

The illusion permeates every aspect of our lives. Candidates in student elections campaign with an urgency and self-importance befitting a presidential contender. Advocacy groups push for their righteous causes with such vigor and conviction that they might as well be lobbying for legislation in front of Congress.

The only arena seemingly left out of this arrangement of ours is athletics. While the common misconception is that sports aren’t huge here because our teams aren’t good (many of them are), the real reason is that most Harvard students are too immersed in their own great endeavors to care much. But sometimes we’re even able to cover up that reality.

Take last Friday night’s football game against Brown. We were raucous, we were drunk, and by the time the game arrived at its thrilling conclusion, we were really into it. Take away our Crimson Crazies t-shirts, ignore the vast swaths of empty seats (with 6,000 undergrads and 30,000 seats, the math doesn’t add up), and we could have been anybody at any school.

The players of the Harvard football team know that this week, reality sets in again. They might not see their audience hit four digits at a home game for the rest of the season. But I imagine that this brief taste of what they could have experienced every weekend elsewhere must have been nice.

Now they’ll trudge on, in front of their parents, significant others, and not too much more than that. But they’ll do so with their eyes set ahead—not in the stands—looking towards another Ivy League title.

And if they arrive at the Yale Bowl in Week 10 with that goal in sight—or even if they don’t, for that matter—they know we’ll be there, ready to delve into the surreal one more time.

PENN (0-2, 0-0 IVY) AT DARTMOUTH (0-2, 0-0 IVY)

“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything,” said my fourth grade teacher, Miss O’Leary. “Never kick a man when he’s down,” said various people in a bunch of movies. “Be nice to Dartmouth,” said the sports editor for today’s issue of The Crimson.

Fine, I’ll just talk about Penn—my “Numbers Don’t Lie, But They Can Deceive” pick of the week. Sure, the Quakers are 0-2. But they hung tough with No. 2 Villanova in Week 1, and fell in overtime to Lehigh last week after coming back from a 17-0 deficit—hardly anything to write Penn off in the Ivy League title race over. The Quakers have even more reason to remain optimistic when they look at their schedule. In the next three weeks, they have perennial Ivy League bottom-feeders Dartmouth and Columbia along with Bucknell, a mediocre-at-best Patriot League squad. That should be an easy 3-0, plus two Ivy wins to launch Penn into at least a tie for first in the Ancient Eight, so don’t count out the Quakers just yet.

Prediction: Penn 35, Dartmouth 13

LAFAYETTE (2-1) AT YALE (1-1, 0-1 IVY)

It’s hard to know what to make of either of these teams. Both have trounced Georgetown, but bragging about that would be like me talking smack after dunking on a third grader on a seven-foot hoop.

Lafayette nearly imploded against Penn last weekend and lost to Liberty—No. 24 in the country at the time, but since proven to be fairly overrated. Yale dropped an ugly 14-12 game to Cornell at home, losing on a failed two-point conversion attempt with time expired.

With neither squad making a strong case for victory, I’m going to go with the Bulldogs under the assumption that the team isn’t in the mood to get embarrassed twice in a row at home and quarterback Patrick Witt is going to have a rebound week.

Prediciton: Yale 24, Lafayette 20

RHODE ISLAND (1-2) AT BROWN (0-2, 0-1 IVY)

Here’s what I wrote about this matchup last year: “Rhode Island is an awful team, and any intrigue provided by the intrastate rivalry between the two squads will quickly dissipate after Brown jumps out to a big lead and clears the stands early.”

Of course, Brown lost that game, 37-13.

The worst part: I could easily write the same exact thing this year. Rhode Island has been outscored by its opponents by 49 points in three games. I am terrified of making this pick.

Prediction: Brown 28, Rhode Island 14

CORNELL (2-0, 1-0 IVY) AT COLGATE (4-0)

With Upstate bragging rights at stake, two undefeated behemoths march into Andy Kerr Stadium in Hamilton, N.Y., ready to prove, once and for all, who is the Sultan of the Sticks, the Baron of the Boonies, the Prince of Podunk. Cornell. Colgate. History begins now.

Actually, Cornell’s record is dubious at best, consisting of a win over the lowly Bucknell and an impressive, but nonetheless fluky victory against Yale. Colgate hasn’t exactly been playing the cream of the crop either, but its juggernaut rushing game and efficient aerial attack should be enough to put them over.

Prediction: Colgate 17, Cornell 10

COLUMBIA (1-1, 0-0 IVY) AT PRINCETON (1-1, 0-0 IVY)

Lions and Tigers and…Oh my, this should be interesting.

I’m still high on Columbia, despite a loss against Central Connecticut State last week. The Lions haven’t had a good offense since before it was my unpaid job to care about Ivy League football, but with a versatile attack featuring plenty of playmakers, they’re flying high this year. The defense isn’t quite there yet, but it’s coming along.

Princeton, on the other hand, hasn’t been able to generate any kind of offense, despite having the best running back in the league in Jordan Culbreath. I think we’re going to see Columbia finally make an early case to finish somewhere higher than “at least they’re better than Dartmouth” place this season.

Prediction: Columbia 24, Princeton 21

HARVARD (1-1, 1-0 IVY) AT LEHIGH (0-3)

Harvard has to drive six hours to Lehigh, Penn. to play a meaningless game against a mediocre opponent. Should be a doozy, but you never know, right?

Prediction: Harvard 27, Lehigh 17

Last week: 3-3

Record to date: 7-7

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.