Archive For The “Yale” Category
By now you’ve seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm.
Perhaps it was Penn’s 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago. Or maybe it was Princeton’s 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale’s shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend.
The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League.
But it’s not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.
Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.
The four losses – Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown – were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League.
Why the Ivy League, and why now? How has the Ivy League turned things around, completely, as a league?
The answer appears to lie with three converging trends that every Ivy is starting to exploit to their advantage – increasing the overall number of athletic admits, using their so-called non-scholarship status to make a mockery of the scholarship limits of FCS football, and allowing essentially an unlimited roster size for home games.
By now you’ve seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm.
Perhaps it was Penn’s 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago. Or maybe it was Princeton’s 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale’s shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend.
The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League.
But it’s not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.
Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.
The four losses – Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown – were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League.
Why the Ivy League, and why now? How has the Ivy League turned things around, completely, as a league?
The answer appears to lie with three converging trends that every Ivy is starting to exploit to their advantage – increasing the overall number of athletic admits, using their so-called non-scholarship status to make a mockery of the scholarship limits of FCS football, and allowing essentially an unlimited roster size for home games.
I know it’s not the most mature of responses, but I weeded yesterday.
Our garden, so clean and so perfect back in May, was in mid-September form when I went out there Sunday after Lehigh’s loss to Yale. In this case, mid-September form means the grass and weeds were as high as my thighs, and it was time for me to rip them out.
I’m well aware that I love Lehigh football too much; that it overly affects my mood, sometimes lingering for days or even weeks after particularly bad losses. That love allows me to summon a passion for the game that sets me apart from others, I think, but the flipside of that love is a frustration that can sometimes only be vented by pulling up grasses and wild growth from a garden that has been growing there unchecked for months.
Yeah; I was frustrated with the loss. But in the garden, I don’t sit there and assign blame to anybody. I don’t grumble about kids, players, attendance numbers, coaches, the weather, the athletic department, or the scoreboard. I just weed, clearing out the junk in the garden that prevents the last plants to generate tomatoes, peppers, leafy greens and everything else I ask it to provide me and my family. And overall, I think it helps.
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Stop me if you’ve read this before.
“Lehigh gives up a couple of early touchdowns. The Mountain Hawks rally, but mistakes doom them – they turn over the ball on offense, give up some big plays on defense, and special teams miscues make it harder to come back, and they get blown away in the second half.”
It describes the Villanova game, it describes the Monmouth game, and now, unfortunately, it also now describes the Yale game this weekend.
On Saturday, the Mountain Hawks gave up a couple of early touchdowns. Undeterred, Lehigh would get a couple stops and take advantage of good special teams play, and rally to make it a one point game. Then, a pass interference call would resurrect a Yale touchdown drive, then a Yale sack and fumble recovery would set up another Yale score at the end of the half for a 28-13 edge at halftime.
At the beginning of the second half, Lehigh would score a quick-strike touchdown, but would give up a touchdown in response, getting outscored 28-14 in the second half en route to the defeat.
It’s the script that Lehigh has found themselves following the last three weeks, and until Lehigh deviates from that script, the Mountain Hawks will find themselves winless.
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In front of about 5,000 fans, Lehigh fell into a too familiar game script.After falling behind by two touchdowns, Lehigh clawed to get back into the game but ultimately gave up touchdown after touchdown, falling 56-28 in what felt like a role reversal …
Not going to the game today?
First of all, what’s wrong with you? The weather is perfect!
OK. So your Vespa is in the shop, it’s the Karate Kid semifinals, or some other very good reason has arisen where you can’t make it to Murray Goodman for the game.
Never fear. LFN’s here.
Not going to the game today?
First of all, what’s wrong with you? The weather is perfect!
OK. So your Vespa is in the shop, it’s the Karate Kid semifinals, or some other very good reason has arisen where you can’t make it to Murray Goodman for the game.
Never fear. LFN’s here.
We break down the Yale game – and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.
This week, College Sports Journal picked their order of finish of the Ivy League and the Elis were picked to finish 5th, in contrast to the preseason Ivy League media poll, where they were picked fourth.
“Exhale, Elis, you did it,” it said. “For only the second time in a decade, Yale finally beat their most bitter Rival in The Game, 21-14, giving head coach Tony Reno something pleasant to bring into the offseason for a change. That win, however, somewhat masks a maddeningly inconsistent 2016, where Yale went 3-7, gave up more than 40 points on defense four times, and somehow managed to lose to Cornell 27-13 at Schoellkopf Field. The win in The Game will provide hope in New Haven and a good feeling in the offseason, but will it translate into a winning season and an Ivy League title run?”
“The past is the past and we aren’t concerned with it. We have learned from our mistakes, and we are ready to move on.”
That comes from junior RB Micco Brisker, who was quoted two years ago after the Mountain Hawks came back from a trip to Princeton where Lehigh fought hard, but fell, to the Tigers 52-26.
The similarities between that week and this week are something that I cannot shake.
Like this week, Lehigh came back home that season to face off against Yale after a tough, physical loss. Like this week, the Mountain Hawks were coming off a school record being set by senior WR Troy Pelletier in a losing effort. Like this week, Yale started RB Deshawn Salter, a mild surprise after the expected starter went down to injury. And like this week, Lehigh came back home after a loss looking to right the ship.
In 2015, Lehigh lost the game.
In 2015, Brisker and LB Colton Caslow talked a good game about being prepared for that week, fixing mistakes and moving forward. But it didn’t result in a win, nor did it result in a Patriot League championship season.
The 2016 Yale Bulldogs might have experienced the biggest swings of any other school in college football.
They experienced the low of getting destroyed at home against Lehigh, giving up an amazing 63 points to the Mountain Hawks led that day by QB Brad Mayes in a 28 point defeat.
And they were dominated by some of their bigger rivals in Ivy League play, losing 42-7 to Penn and 31-3 to Princeton.
Yet of their three wins, they pulled off two enormous upsets – beating Ivy League title contender Dartmouth at home, 21-13, and finally breaking Harvard’s nine year hex against them in “The Game”, scoring a touchdown with 4 minutes left to secure a tremendous 21-14 win over their bitter Crimson Rivals.
The Ivy League starts play on September 16th, where Lehigh will find Yale travelling to Murray Goodman Stadium in the Bulldogs first game of the year.
The Mountain Hawks will be playing their third game of the season, and Mayes will be going against the team which he had a record-breaking performance.
The Eli will have had all offseason to bask in the glow of breaking the nine-game winning streak of Harvard against them – and once the enormity of their win over Harvard fades into the distance a little, to focus on avenging last season’s 63 points that Lehigh put on them last year.
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