A Week Off

The first weekend of the NFL season has come and gone, and don't look now but the Jets and Giants are both 1-0. 

It's looking like they're both headed for the Super Bowl, right? 

On top of the win, Giants' quarterback Jaxson Dart threw three touchdown passes against the Cowboys. That's one for each member of the Princeton field hockey program he took a picture with at Newark Airport two weeks ago. 

In college football "don't look now" news, suddenly Michigan is unbeaten and Ohio State has a loss. That's a pretty shocking turnaround, especially considering that Michigan sort of lost its opener against Western Michigan. 

Elsewhere in college football this past weekend, TigerBlog Jr. attended the Iowa-Iowa State game and sent this picture:

Those seem like pretty good seats. He said it was fun.

And then there's the Ivy League, which tees it up this weekend. Before TB talks about that, there is the matter of the news that was released yesterday that the Ivy League would be moving its season opener up one week for next season and then having a league-wide week off after Week 6. 

Seems like it only took 13 years and one day for the Ivy League to finally listen to TigerBlog.  

Where were you on Sept. 13, 2013? 

If you were reading TigerBlog that day, then you read this: 

TigerBlog's idea is a great one. Start this weekend. Play five weeks in a row. Take Week 6 off. Play five more weeks. That's 10 games, 11 weeks, one week for everyone to rest in mid-season. If it ever came to be that an 11th game was added, then the season could start a week earlier still. The idea of having the whole league off in the middle is perfect for resting and healing. 

Okay, so it's after Week 6. Still, it's a really positive move on a lot of levels. Also, keep in mind that while it seems like the Ivy League schedule has started later and later, it's really the rest of the Division I college football that's been starting earlier and earlier. 

Because of the non-conference scheduling commitments next year, the only way to insert a week off in mid-season was to move the Week 7 games to Week 1. In doing so, this meant that each of the eight teams will start with a league game. 

As such, Week 1 next year will see Penn at Yale, Brown at Cornell, Columbia at Dartmouth and of course Harvard at Princeton. There was a time when Ivy vs. Ivy games did occur annually in Week 1, from 1976-99. 

Which team did Princeton open its season with every year from 1954-75? That would be Rutgers, as you probably already knew.  

This year will see these matchups: Lafayette at Columbia, Dartmouth at Lehigh, Brown at New Haven, Harvard at New Hampshire, Cornell at Colgate, Yale at Holy Cross, Penn at Bucknell. As for Princeton, it'll be the Tigers at Bryant, with kickoff at 1.

Bryant brings a 2-1 record into the game, with wins over Stonehill and Hampton sandwiched around a 59-3 loss at Army. Bryant and Princeton have played once prior, a 16-13 Bulldogs win in 2023. Back then, Bryant was in its final year in the Big South/OVC for football.  

Starting in 2024, Bryant moved to the CAA for football (the school has been in the America East in other sports after moving from the Northeast Conference in 2021). The Bulldogs went 0-8 in the CAA two years ago and then 1-7 last year, with a win over Albany as its first in its new conference. 

Bryant matched that win total last weekend, with a 31-3 over Hampton in Virginia. The game against Princeton will be its first at home this season.

Princeton follows the trip to Bryant with its home opener next weekend against Albany. The Ivy opener will be at Columbia in Week 3, followed by the trip to Wagner. If you've never been to a game at Wagner's stadium, you won't believe the view from the stands. TB will leave it at that. 

Then it's home against Brown, at Harvard, home against Cornell, home against Dartmouth, at Yale and then home against Penn. 

You can trust TigerBlog. It'll be Nov. 21, the date for the Penn game, in no time.