Tale of the Decade

Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2004, the best of the best


Here are the standings for the past decade of Ivy League Football (2000-2009)


1. Harvard

Overall: 76-23 Ivy: 56-14 Championships: 4 (one shared)

2. Penn

Overall: 70-29 Ivy: 53-17 Championships: 4

3. Yale

Overall: 58-41 Ivy: 38-32 Championships: 1 (shared)

4. Brown

Overall: 56-43 Ivy: 40-30 Championships: 2 (one shared)

5. Princeton

Overall: 47-52 Ivy: 35-35 Championships: 1 (shared)

6. Cornell

Overall: 38-61 Ivy: 26-44 Championships: 0

7. Columbia

Overall: 26-74 Ivy: 15-55 Championships: 0

8. Dartmouth

Overall: 21-78 Ivy: 17-53 Championships: 0


A couple of thoughts/notes on these numbers:


-Columbia was the only Ivy team to play the full 100 games in the 2000's as it was able to reschedule the game canceled by the 9/11 attacks for Thanksgiving Day. The Lions didn't let the terrorists win!! (But we did let the Rams win, as Fordham won that rescheduled game, 31-10).

-It's no surprise that Harvard was the top team of the decade, but I was shocked to see how close Penn came to matching the Crimson's overall record. Penn's swoon in the middle part of the decade didn't do too much to erase the dominance of 2002-2003, when the Quakers went undefeated in the league.


-Brown finishes just a hair behind Yale for overall wins, but it sure feels like the 2000's were the best decade in modern Brown football history. Meanwhile, most Yale backers I know bemoan the last 10 years despite a very strong run from 2006-2008.


-Columbia had the fewest Ivy wins, but I was surprised that it had five more wins overall than Dartmouth. Clearly, this was a rough decade for both schools.


-Princeton really knew how to have a split personality. It finished an even 35-35 in the Ivies and came super close to going .500 overall. But if you take out that stellar championship season of 2006, the Tigers would been feeling a lot more pain.


-Cornell fell on hard times during two key stretches, 2001-03 and 2007-09. The Big Red were unable to keep up the momentum after a generally strong decade of the 1990's.


-I would give the title of "Best Team of the Decade" to the 2004 Harvard squad, with the 2003 Quakers as a close second.


-"Worst Team of the Decade" has to go to the 2008 0-10 Dartmouth team, but sadly, the 2005 Columbia Lions would be my second place team on that list.


-Brown had the best turnaround decade, while Dartmouth had the worst reversal of fortunes in the 2000's.