Moving Ahead

The main focus of Ivy League football the past few days has been the controversial ending of the Princeton-Harvard game.

If you're rooting for Harvard, you'll never the Princeton perspective. If you're rooting for Princeton, you'll never see the Harvard perspective. 

Or will you? It's like one of those debate societies, where you're made to argue the opposite point from the one you believe. TigerBlog tried that in this case, and well, he still comes back to Princeton.

If anything, the game last weekend speaks to two issues that are for another day: 1) the way replay is used and 2) if ties are okay and if not how overtime should be run. That's sort of 2A and 2B.

The game will be discussed by fans for a long time. The reality is that the teams had to turn the page immediately, since the Ivy race moves on.

Both Princeton and Harvard have incredibly tough challenges in front of them, and they have to respond to them without holding on to the emotions of last weekend. It won't be easy for either team.

Harvard is now one of four teams in the league at 2-1. By chance, there are two games this weekend between those 2-1 teams, meaning that by Saturday night two of those teams will be 3-1 and the other two will be 2-2. They're not exactly elimination games, but history is not kind to two-loss Ivy teams.

Harvard is home against Dartmouth tomorrow, while Columbia is at Yale in the other 2-1 vs. 2-1 game. Dartmouth is another team looking to get past last weekend, when the Big Green were shut out 19-0 by Columbia. 

The Lions themselves are 5-1, with only a loss to Princeton, and they are thinking big for the next four weeks too. The same is true of Yale, the only one of the four 2-1 teams who is not 5-1 overall but who is at home tomorrow and who shared the last championship with Dartmouth.

Factor in the forecast for tomorrow in New England, which is for heavy rain and wind, and who knows what direction those games will go in.

The weather for tonight in Ithaca is for rain but not for wind. The temperature will be in the 50s at 6, when Princeton and Cornell tee it up (you can watch it on ESPNU), and they will drop slightly as the game goes on. 

Princeton's task is really difficult. The Tigers have to put last week in the rearview, travel to Ithaca, play on a short week in iffy weather and take on a team that has given them all sorts of fits on Schoellkopf Field through the years.

Cornell comes into the game at 1-5 overall and 0-3 in the Ivy League, which means absolutely nothing. The Big Red have been a very tough out in their three Ivy games, falling by six to Yale, 14 to Harvard and four to Brown. 

Cornell had the ball in the fourth quarter down a touchdown to the Crimson three times but could not tie it. The game wasn't put away until Harvard scored a TD with 1:47 left. That will certainly get your attention.

As TB said, history suggests a tough night as well. In Bob Surace's tenure as Princeton head coach, the Tigers are 3-0 against Cornell in years they win the Ivy title and 3-4 in years they don't. Most recently, in 2019, Cornell gave Princeton fits all night in what became a 21-7 Tiger win.

Princeton follows the game against Cornell with another long trip for a Friday night ESPNU game, this time at Dartmouth. After that is the home game against Yale finally the trip to Penn.

There are any number of combinations left for the Ivy League race. Certainly this weekend's results will give you at least a sense of what's what as October turns to November. 

The bottom line is that nothing is a gimme in this league. Don't be fooled by the records. Don't look ahead to the rest of the schedule. Don't dwell on last week. 

Well, maybe there's one more thing about last week that's well worth remembering for Princeton as it heads to Cornell. 

If you want to win a championship, every possession matters.