Crowded Winner's Circle?

This year's Ivy race has been more muddled than any we've seen in the last 7-8 years or so. But after last week's games, I think the most likely result is Princeton will grab the title outright as the Tigers have a very winnable home game against Dartmouth, while Yale must travel to a hostile Harvard Stadium and try to beat the Crimson for the first time since 1999.

The 2006 Princeton Tigers are not the most dominant team I've ever seen, but they may be the most balanced. Every unit on this team is pretty strong, even if no one player is the best at his position. One exception is QB Jeff Terrell, who has quietly risen to the top of the Ivy quarterbacking corps and whose stellar play was really the difference in the thrilling wins over Harvard and Yale. I think Clifton Dawson will probably get the Bushnell Cup at the end of the season because of his monster stats and body of work over four years, but I'd give it to Terrell.

I was never much impressed by Tiger Head Coach Roger Hughes until last season, when Princeton's win over Harvard and second place finish earned him my respect. Now, Hughes has my admiration for putting an even better team on the field this season despite the loss of Jay McCareins and the entire starting offensive line to graduation. Princeton has defeated all the top teams in this league - Yale, Harvard, and Penn - and all in exciting fashion.

Thus, it would be a travesty if Princeton and Yale win this Saturday, because then the two teams would officially share the Ivy title. That's despite the fact that Princeton defeated Yale this past weekend on the Elis' home field. The Ivy League must start instituting a tiebreaker in football where the championship goes to the team that won the head-to-head game. But again, the most likely scenario is that Harvard and Princeton will win, giving the Tigers the championship and sending the Crimson and Yale into a second place tie.

The rest of the league seems headed for a logjam at the bottom. Penn seems like a good bet to beat Cornell and grab fourth place, but the Big Red have been strong at home and this game is in Ithaca. If Columbia beats Brown and Dartmouth loses to Princeton, then there will be a four-way tie for fifth. That would be a pretty nice ending from the Lions' point of view.

These scenarios are indicative of how much parity has returned to Ivy football. After what seems like 10 years of Harvard-Penn dominance, it was nice to see Brown grab a solo title last season, and now it looks like Princeton is having its season in the sun. Parity can get boring if it continues for long, but having the same two or three teams at the top every year is deadly for a sports league.