Yeah, that's what I figured. I also don't see them consistently being a 2-bid league, so the 2nd at-large isn't really gone.
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Ivy League Joining FCS Playoffs in 2025
- Thread starter get'em_griz
- Start date
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
I am guessing the Ivy doesn't get an at-large very frequently.
griznative24
Well-known member
This is actually pretty cool. I have no idea anymore, but wasn't there a time when Harvard, Princeton, and Yale were all decent football programs?
Yes from the invention of football until the 1930's and even the '40's. Ivy League schools often played in major bowl games.
Harvard did beat New Hampshire this year and UNH got a 16 seed for the playoffs.
Bowl games?! Pssh! At least now they’ll know what it’s like to settle it on the field.
MontanaBornFan
Well-known member
Harvard ended the year in the Top 25, I think. There have been seasons where the end of season Top 25 included more than one Ivy.
Yeah and Jack Nicklaus is still eligible to play at the Masters but nobody really believes he can beat anybody.
MontanaBornFan
Well-known member
hahaYeah and Jack Nicklaus is still eligible to play at the Masters but nobody really believes he can beat anybody.
It would be pretty impressive if he had a Top 25 Ranking!
MontanaBornFan
Well-known member
Eastern is going to have stop their slide into mediocrity.
HelenaHandBasket
Well-known member
They took the first step by not extending Bes....never mind.
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
Did you read the article in the first post? It says this.
"This season, Harvard was ranked No. 25 in the last FCS Top 25 Media Poll.
And in previous years, some Ivy teams have been ranked in the final Top 25 media poll:
2021:
No. 24 Princeton
No. 20 Dartmouth
2019:
No. 25 Yale
No. 22 Dartmouth
2018:
No. 11 Princeton
No. 18 Dartmouth"
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
The Ivies are small. Only 1 school, Cornell ( 15,503,) over 10,000. Penn is just under 10,000. The other 6 range from 4566 (Dartmouth) to 7349 (Brown). Cornell's "college", which is high academics, is much smaller. Cornell has other schools like Hotel Management/Hospitality and Ag, with lower academic standards, so they can admit lower academic student. Source: Wiki.
The schools really try to limit the "slots" given to football and other sports. These allow athletics to make a recruit list and then have an easier time persuading the admissions office to admit some amount of players at lower academic standards. I believe the Ivies still have an Academic Index, which sets limits for each school as to how many lower academic kids can be admitted each year, based on reductions from the average academic level of the schools. This is a sliding scale for each school.
At most Ivies, and certainly Dartmouth, almost all football players graduate. Some hang around 99%. I suppose this now be changing a bit with the Portal. I don't know any football player from my era who didn't graduate.
The schools really try to limit the "slots" given to football and other sports. These allow athletics to make a recruit list and then have an easier time persuading the admissions office to admit some amount of players at lower academic standards. I believe the Ivies still have an Academic Index, which sets limits for each school as to how many lower academic kids can be admitted each year, based on reductions from the average academic level of the schools. This is a sliding scale for each school.
At most Ivies, and certainly Dartmouth, almost all football players graduate. Some hang around 99%. I suppose this now be changing a bit with the Portal. I don't know any football player from my era who didn't graduate.
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
"Most are unaware that this most popular American sport was created by the teams that now make up the Ivy League. From the day Princeton played the first intercollegiate game in 1869, these major schools of the northeast—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale—shaped football as we now know it. Almost every facet of the game still bears their imprint: they created the All-America team, produced the first coaches, devised the basic rules, invented many of the strategies, developed much of the equipment, and even named the positions. Both the Heisman and Outland trophies are named for Ivy League players.
Crowds of 80,000 no longer attend Ivy League games as they did seventy years ago, and Ivy teams are not the powerhouses they once were, but at times they can still be a step ahead of the rest of football, as in 1973 when Brown and Penn started the first black quarterbacks to face each other in major college history.
In this rich history, Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League. The college fight song is an Ivy League creation (Yale's was written by Cole Porter), as are the marching bands that play them. With their long winning streaks and impressive victories, Ivy teams started a national obsession with football in the first decades of the twentieth century that remains alive today. But football was almost abolished early on because of violence in Ivy games, and it took President Theodore Roosevelt to mediate disagreements about rough play in order for football to remain a college sport. Gambling and ticket scalping were as commonplace then as now, as well as payoffs and recruiting abuses, fueled by the tremendous amount of money generated by the games, revenue that was oftentimes greater than that collected by the rest of the university. But the Ivy teams confronted those abuses, and in so doing helped develop our ideals about the role of athletics in college life. Although Ivy League football and its ancient rivalries have disappeared from big-time sports by their own accord, their legacy remains with every snap of the ball."
Source: An Amazon review of a book on the Ivies.
Crowds of 80,000 no longer attend Ivy League games as they did seventy years ago, and Ivy teams are not the powerhouses they once were, but at times they can still be a step ahead of the rest of football, as in 1973 when Brown and Penn started the first black quarterbacks to face each other in major college history.
In this rich history, Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League. The college fight song is an Ivy League creation (Yale's was written by Cole Porter), as are the marching bands that play them. With their long winning streaks and impressive victories, Ivy teams started a national obsession with football in the first decades of the twentieth century that remains alive today. But football was almost abolished early on because of violence in Ivy games, and it took President Theodore Roosevelt to mediate disagreements about rough play in order for football to remain a college sport. Gambling and ticket scalping were as commonplace then as now, as well as payoffs and recruiting abuses, fueled by the tremendous amount of money generated by the games, revenue that was oftentimes greater than that collected by the rest of the university. But the Ivy teams confronted those abuses, and in so doing helped develop our ideals about the role of athletics in college life. Although Ivy League football and its ancient rivalries have disappeared from big-time sports by their own accord, their legacy remains with every snap of the ball."
Source: An Amazon review of a book on the Ivies.
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
Some famous Ivy players. Bob Kraft, owner of Patriots, Columba. Tommy Lee Jones, Harvard, all-Ivy. Sid Luckman. Calvin Hill, Yale, father of Grant Hill. John Heisman: "He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954. The son of a German immigrant and a native of Cleveland, Ohio, John William Heisman was born on October 23, 1869. Heisman attended Brown University in Rhode Island (1887-89) and the University of Pennsylvania (1890-91), playing football at both schools." Brian Denehy, actor, Columbia, all-Ivy. Jason Garrett. Joe Paterno, Brown. John Kennedy, Harvard. John Carney, Dartmouth, Gov. of DE. Ed Marinaro. Chuck Bednarick, Penn. Lou Gehrig, Columbia (okay, just baseball). CEO's of many corporations.
MontanaBornFan
Well-known member
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montanaguy
Well-known member
18 Ivy League players have at least one Super Bowl ring. A dozen were on NFL rosters in the past few years. The Ivy League is not a football backwater and I'm excited to see some possible matchups with our conference. in the years to come
Couldn’t agree more. This isn’t the NCAABB Tournament where they have to play the top of DI. The best of the Ivy will be a welcome addition that I think will increase the overall strength of the FCS bracket. I think it’s pretty cool.
mthoopsfan
Well-known member
Jack Kerouac played for Columbia in early 40s. “Kerouac was a capable athlete in football and wrestling. Kerouac's skills as running back in football for Lowell High School earned him scholarship offers from Boston College, Notre Dame, and Columbia University, where he enrolled in 1940.”
