Ivy League Football Report, 1995 September 11

Last year's Ivy League season got off to an impressive start, as both the Penn Quakers and Cornell Big Red went undefeated through the first half of the season, thanks in part to their non-conference sweeps of Patriot League opponents. With successive come-from-behind victories over Harvard and Dartmouth, the Red upped their league mark to 3-0, and a whopping 6-0 overall, and even made it to #25 on the Division I-AA Coaches' Poll. With Penn standing at 5-0, 3-0 in the Ivies and #13 in the nation, the Ivy League seemed about to make it big. ESPN's SportsCenter, hosted by Cornellian Keith Olberman, even mentioned the Cornell-Dartmouth game a few times. All eyes were turning towards a potential showdown between the Red and archrival Quakers in Ithaca at the end of the season. But then Cornell collapsed, falling to Brown, Yale and Columbia, while Penn continued to roll, extending their I-AA winning streak to a record-tying 20 games. With their second straight Ivy League title already in the bag, the Quakers came to Schoelkopf field looking to complete their second consecutive undefeated season, but Cornell scored two touchdowns in the first quarter to jump out to a 14-3 halftime lead. But the 101st installment of the Cornell-Penn saga seemed a re-enactment of the 100th a year earlier in Philadelphia as the Quakers once more came back in the second half to take the contest by an 18-14 score.

So now as the first breath of Autumn hits the Northeast, we gear up for another season of Ivy League action. Defending champions Pennsylvania look to extend their streak at home this week against the Big Green of Dartmouth. My alma mater Cornell travels to New Jersey to open against Alfred's Princeton Tigers. The Brown Bears hop one state over to take on the Elis of Yale in New Haven, as the Harvard Crimson play host to the Columbia Lions.

Although the Ivy League slate starts this coming weekend, most of their neighbors in the Patriot League hit the field two days ago in non-league action. (Fordham actually played their second game of the season, having lost 49-13 to Buffalo a week earlier.) The Red Raiders of Colgate were pasted 44-3 by Northeastern, Lehigh fell to Army 42-9 and Holy Cross lost to Hofstra by a 24-9 score. The Engineers' rival Lafayette fared better, downing Buffalo 24-17 while Bucknell and Fordham pulled off shutouts, the Bison winning 20-0 over Southern Connecticut and the Rams by a 46-0 margin over Marist College.

Those Fordham Rams and Bucknell Bison meet in the Bronx as league play starts this weekend. Lehigh also travels to Hamilton, New York to take on Colgate, while Holy Cross and Lafayette are on the road in non-conference contests with Umass and Hofstra, respectively.

With the Ivy and Patriot League football report, this is Joe P------k, Mr. Squishy Sports.


Last Modified: 1995 September 26
Joe Schlobotnik / squishy@physics.ucsb.edu