Whatever happened to College Football?

Are you tired of the bowl alliances, national polls, TV timeouts, Heisman-trophy poses and all the other ugliness of the NFL's minor league, Division I-A Big Time College Football? Well, don't despair; there's still plenty of old-fashioned Saturday afternoon fare at the Division I-AA, II and III levels, where people still remember what it's all about: trounce your rivals and win your conference. My favorite example is the Ivy League; although it may be tough to read about your favorite lower division team in the paper if you're far from home, the magic of the internet makes the job a lot easier. Here are a few Ivy and I-AA links I've come across.

Ivy League Football

The Ivy League website has been contracted out to one of those professional outlets, so there is a little more in-depth coverage on the official Ivy football page than in the past. Another good bet has historically been USA Today's Ivy Football page, and for Ivy coverage with archived game reports try Nando SportServer's Ivy Football page

Ivy Football Internet Radio Broadcasts

Having trouble tuning in those Ivy League radio broadcasts in Louisiana? You may be able to listen to the radio broadcast from your favorite school over the internet. Unfortunately, Brown, Cornell, Penn, and Princeton have joined an evil pay service which charges you $7 (minus 5 cents) per month to listen to radio broadcasts of their sporting events over the internet. If you're lucky enough to be a fan of one of the schools listed below, though, you'll be able to listen to your team's webcast for free.

Ivy Football via satellite

It's a mixed bag for those of us trying to watch a little Ivy Football action on the tube this fall through the magic of the minidish. The YES Network will be televising four Ivy contests live, and it's a good thing, since Empire Sports Network doesn't seem to have any games on, and New England Sports Network has dropped most of the Ivy games from their college football coverage. The composite schedule:

DateTime (Eastern)NetworkTeams
September 21 7pm YES Fordham at Columbia
October 4 1pm FOX Sports Pittsburgh Harvard at Lehigh
October 12 1pm YES Cornell at Harvard
October 19 1pm YES Columbia at Penn
November 9 12:30pm YES Yale at Brown
November 9 3pm (tape delay) NESN Yale at Brown
November 16 12:30pm YES Harvard at Penn
November 23 1pm YES Dartmouth at Princeton

I-AA Information

The Ivies actually play only a small part in the national I-AA scene; Eric Gemunder's I-AA Preview, continuing in the tradition of Patrick Dunn, is a weekly newsletter on the whole division.

ECAC Football

The Eastern College Athletic Conference, best known for its hockey leagues, does keep tabs on the football activities of its member institutions, including the Ivies, as they compete mostly at the I-AA and Division III levels.

Real-Time Score Updates

What fan of small-time college football hasn't gotten sick of staring at the sports ticker on TV in hopes that the Columbia-Fordham score will be posted? Well, my friend, that's the kind of thing the internet was made for! USA Today's scores page gives you all the scores at once so you can pick out the one you want. Nando SportServer's Ivy League Scoreboard and ESPN's Ivy League scoreboard go them one better, providing a ticker with all of the Ivy results in one place. (Plus corresponing tickers for the other I-AA conferences.)

AP Stories

If your local newspaper skimps on the real college results, never fear. The Nando sports server has an "Other/Small Colleges" section where you can read the AP stories the local paper doesn't care to show you.

Ivy Pigskin Challenge

For the past few years a couple of Ivy football fans have been entertaining themselves by offering competing picks for the Ivy League results each week, and this season several more of us have joined them. These guys are up on the weekly happenings in the Ivies, so you may want to check in on the link above, as well as their IPC Central page for an up-to-date Ivy lowdown.

Go to the Source

Finally, a good source of info on the distributed world of Ivy League Football is the schools themselves. Here are links to the football or athletic department page for each school: