The Princeton football team spent a week chewing on that reality after its brutal 28-27 loss at Brown in overtime and then took all of that frustration out on unbeaten Harvard. After the Tigers' 21-14 win Saturday on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, you can make that "previously" unbeaten Harvard.
This was an epic performance by the Princeton defense. Harvard came into the game averaging 262 rushing yards per game, turning that into 41 points per game and a 5-0 record.
Would that attack steamroll Princeton? Would the Tigers still be trying to figure out how a two-touchdown lead got away in Providence? Whatever would happen, this game would be the most important game in the league, probably for the entire season.
If Harvard won, the Crimson would be in the driver's seat, and Princeton would all but be eliminated. The rest of the league would clearly be chasing an unbeaten team that was starting to look invincible.
If Princeton won? Well, you'd have what it is you actually have today, which is an Ivy League that is completely wide open, unpredictable and very likely headed to its most dramatic November in a long, long time.
How crazy is the league? There are now five teams tied for first at 2-1 (Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn), with two 1-2 teams (Yale, Brown) and one 0-3 team (Columbia, who very easily could be 2-1 also). No opponent is a layup. Every game is a toss-up.
If you go back to the very beginning of the Ivy League, only twice has a team with two league losses gotten a share of the championship. It hasn't happened since 1982. This year? It seems almost certain to be the case.
Well, maybe "certain" is the wrong word. After all, this year is one big Ivy football uncertainty. There is one thing that's definite, though: There will be either two or three one-loss teams after this coming weekend, since Princeton is at Cornell and Dartmouth is at Harvard. The other league games are Brown at Penn (that's a Friday night game) and Columbia at Yale.
Hey, it's not stretching things outrageously to say that by every team could have two league losses by the end of Week 8.
All of that, though, is for later in the week. First, there's the matter of Princeton's takedown of Harvard.
There were so many subplots/numbers/turning points:
* Harvard came into the game with all of those rushing yards, and then Princeton allowed just one in the first half and just 68 for the day. How? Because Princeton is a team with great linebackers and great tacklers.
* A Princeton offensive line that was missing two injured starters did not allow a sack.
* Princeton went up 14-0 and held that lead until late in the third quarter. In a blink, Harvard put together back-to-back 10-play touchdown drives, tying it at 14-14. Stunningly, for the second straight week, a two-touchdown lead had gotten away. What was going through the minds of every Princeton player? Here we go again? Or no way, we're not letting this happen again?
* Harvard had punted 15 times in its first five games and then punted 10 times against Princeton. There were 19 total punts in the game, and the 18th was one of the two biggest plays of the game, as Brady Clark's 51-yard punt that rolled dead on the 3 yard line forced the Crimson into awful field position midway through the fourth quarter. Princeton's defense got a stop, and the Tigers took over on the Harvard 45 to start the winning drive.
* The other biggest play of the game came when Blake Stenstrom connected with Luke Colella for 18 yards on a third-and-9 to keep the game-winning drive alive. The winning points came on a 10-yard Stenstrom pass to Connor Hulstein. How unlikely a hero was Hulstein? The junior came into the game with one career reception and then had two against the Crimson, including the winning TD with less than two minutes to go.
* Ozzie Nicholas is, well, he's worth watching on every play. The Ivy League's leading tackler had 10 more against the Crimson, including a big-time sack on Harvard quarterback Charles DiPrima after the Hulstein touchdown. The game ended with a Will Perez interception on the next play. DiPrima, who came in as the league's leading rusher, had 17 carries for 10 yards (sacks count as negative rushing yards) and also completed 15 of 37 passes for 154 yards with three picks.
* That's six straight wins over Harvard for Princeton. The last time there was a streak this long? How about 1947-53.
You can exhale now after this past weekend, but not for too long. The next four games are coming up, and they will again turn the league race in some unforeseen and unpredictable direction.
So there you have it.
Chaos in the Ivy League.
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