BREAKING: Bushnell Finalists Named

The Ivy League has released the names of the finalists for offensive and defensive players of the year for football.

On defense, the two finalists are Harvard's Josue Ortiz and Penn's Erik Rask


On offense, the two finalists are Cornell's Jeff Mathews and last year's co-winner, Nick Schwieger.

All of the finalists are graduating seniors, except for Mathews... and boy is he not a senior... he's just a sophomore with a lot of passing records yet to break presuming he stays healthy.

If I were voting on these awards, my choices would be relatively easy ones.

On defense, I'd go with Ortiz who set a tone on a dominant Harvard team that mostly relied on offense to win, but got just enough defense thanks to Ortiz.

And while I think Jeff Mathews is one of the best passing QB's we've seen in years, I don't think he produced enough tough wins for his team compared to what Schwieger meant to Dartmouth.

Plus, Mathews' not-so-great performance in the Big Red's loss to Dartmouth seems like a good tie-breaker to me.

But if I were a publicist working for the Ivy League, I'd be pulling hard for Mathews - a very marketable quantity for another two years - to win this award as a sophomore and grab national headlines.

Of course, if Mathews does win it won't exactly be an outrage. He is a legitimate star.