Ivies look to the sky as scoring explodes

To Yale coach Jack Siedlecki, standing on the Yale Bowl sidelines on this late-November afternoon, Harvard's defense looked like a giant chain-link fence with the poles lodged in six feet of concrete.

There was no way the Elis were running through it. Not after the Crimson's last three opponents had managed just 64 yards on the ground in 77 attempts -- a 0.8 yards-per-carry average. Not after Yale running back Rashad Bartholomew tried and failed repeatedly in the first half.

So Siedlecki had to improvise. Yale would try to scale, not go through, the fence.

The Elis called nothing but pass for 54 straight plays in the second half.

Yale quarterback Joe Walland, who was in the hospital with acute tonsillitis and a 103-degree fever the night before, completed 20 of 33 passes in the third quarter alone. He finished with 437 yards passing. Elis receiver Erik Johnson finished with 21 catches for 244 yards.

And more importantly, Yale came back from a 14-3 deficit to win, 24-21.

Turns out hopping this fence was no problem. There was no barbed wire at the top.

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That was the last Ivy League game of the 1999 season, the last game before the complete extinction of the Ancient Eight's conservative, run-first offenses.

The Ivy League had evolved into a more offensive, pass oriented game over the last 15 years.

Yale led the league in passing offense with just 168.9 yards per game in 1985. Brown paced the Ancient Eight with 349.4 yards per game in 1999.

Penn led the league with 21.7 points per game in 1985. Brown paced the Ancient Eight with 32.1 points per game in 1999.

But things really took off last year. Literally.

Four Ivy League teams finished in the top 10 in passing offense among Division I-AA teams. Four Ivy League teams finished in the bottom seven in passing defense among Division I-AA teams.

Passing was standard. Rushing was an afterthought. Consequently, Ivy teams averaged nearly 30 points per game.

The Ancient Eight has transformed from the single wing to the run-and-gun, from three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust to four-wide-receivers-and-a-three-step drop.

And here's why:

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Coaching changes:

Mark Whipple might have started it all. As Brown's head coach from 1994-1997, Whipple was the first Ivy coach to rely heavily on the pass.

But the Bears were an Ancient Eight anomaly those four years. And Whipple's schemes weren't too radical.

"I don't know if Mark was a wide open guy as much as I am," current Brown coach Phil Estes said. "Mark certainly threw the football, but there were a lot more traditional sets with Mark. With me, there are a lot more spread sets."

Many contend that new experimental coaches like Estes and coordinators like Andy Coen -- who came to Penn from pass-happy Lehigh two years ago -- are to either thank or blame for the league's transformation.

But half of the Ivy coaches have been in the league at least eight years and another two have been in charge four or five seasons.

Defenses overload the run:

Harvard ended the 1999 season with an Ivy record of only 51.6 rushing yards allowed per game. But the Crimson gave up 269.7 passing yards per game -- including 392.5 yards per game in the final two weeks.

"You just couldn't run against them," Siedlecki said.

And that's because Harvard would have eight or nine men near the line of scrimmage, leaving defensive backs in single coverage.

"Defenses are taking the philosophy that they don't want to be beaten by the run," Coen said.

Pro football influence:

If the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl with a spread offense, why can't a team win the Ivy League with the same scheme?

That's the mentality today among many offensive coordinators around college football, the Ancient Eight certainly included.

"A lot of it has to do with what the NFL's doing," Penn defensive coordinator Ray Priore said. "It's a trickle-down effect."

Fewer good offensive linemen, more good skill players:

Stephen Campbell is 6'3", ideal height for a wide receiver, and he was an All-league selection in high school. Yet somehow he slipped through the I-A recruiting cracks, landed at Brown and set a I-AA record with 120 catches as a senior last year.

Maybe Campbell's an extreme case, but that kind of success isn't abnormal for an Ivy League receiver.

It is, though, for an offensive lineman.

"If you're big, you automatically get looked at," Princeton offensive coordinator Dave Rackovan said. "It's a matter of selection. How many big kids are there in the country?

"There's a lot more skill kids, more athletes with that kind of body."

But not all coaches believe that there exists a dearth in quality offensive linemen -- the kind of guys necessary for a grind-it-out ground game.

"I think there are a lot of big kids in the Ivy League," Estes said. "You can run the ball if you want to. Our line averages 285, 290 [pounds]."

Star quarterbacks:

Then-freshman David Splithoff was the third Princeton quarterback to start a game last year. But in his first game, Splithoff set a school record with 14 straight completions, totaling 289 yards and three touchdowns.

He's still probably one of the worst starting quarterbacks in a league that includes Penn's Gavin Hoffman (3,214 yards last season), Cornell's Ricky Rahne (2,944), Harvard's Neil Rose (2,655) and Yale's Peter Lee (2,136).

"There have been very good skill kids in the quarterback position the last two-to-three years," Penn head coach Al Bagnoli said.

And most of them are back this year for a final go-round. As many as seven of the eight Ivy quarterbacks will be seniors.

Meanwhile, there are a lot of returning feature tailbacks in the Ancient Eight, but only two (Brown's Michael Malan and Columbia's Jonathan Reese) had more than 800 rushing yards a year ago.

"People are trying to take advantage of quality quarterbacks," Columbia coach Ray Tellier said.

Young defenses:

Not all the credit for the Ivy's passing explosion belongs to the offenses.

"It may be because [the Ivy League teams] have bad defenses," Estes said. "For us last year, we were very young and inexperienced on defense."

Brown was not alone. Seven of the eight Ivy teams had more returning offensive starters than defensive starters last year. In all, 69 percent of last year's Ivy offensive starters had previous starting experience, as compared to the defense's 49 percent.

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So what's going to happen this year? Are teams still going to throw 45 passes a game? Is a 30-point offensive output still going to be considered average? Is anything going to change?

"That's the million dollar question," Bagnoli said. "You've given coordinators a full year to prepare."

Certainly, some things point to a decrease in Ivy scoring and passing.

The number of returning defensive starters is 60 -- two more than the total of returning offensive starters. And last year's two Super Bowl teams, teams college coordinators are likely to mimic, both ran conservative offenses.

But the Ivy League still has more quality quarterbacks than running backs, and offensive coaches are finding a passing-intensive game plan more beneficial.

"It's tough to go four yards for 15 straight plays," Tellier said. "If you can cover 40 to 50 yards at a time, you don't have to be precise, play after play."

Eventually, defenses will adjust, offenses will return to the run and scoring levels will deflate, but it doesn't look like that will happen to any great degree this year.

The fence is still there, and the best way to get past it is still to go over, not through.

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