Dartmouth just ended its 17-game losing streak.
It’ll probably start a new one tomorrow.
The Big Green (1-5, 1-2 Ivy) will travel to first-place Harvard (4-2, 3-0) so the chances of them extending their one-game winning streak to two aren’t too high.
Despite their impressive 28-6 win over Columbia, the Big Green still are in the bottom half of nearly every important team statistic in the Ivies, while the co-Ivy leading Crimson are in the top half of those same statistics.
Though all signs point to a big Harvard win, Crimson coach Tim Murphy believes last week’s victory for Dartmouth means it’s no pushover.
“Starting with Dartmouth, people would have thought that looked like a guaranteed ‘W,’” Murphy said during the Ivy League teleconference. But “Dartmouth’s decisive win shows they believe in themselves and their coaches. It’s going to be a great game.”
For it to be a great game, Dartmouth must shore up its shoddy run defense, which is last in the Ancient Eight with 221.3 yards allowed per game. It’s not going to be easy to improve since Harvard leads the League with 172.3 yards per game on the ground.
If Dartmouth were to pull off the major upset, it would be the first time it won consecutive games in six years.
Yale (3-3, 1-2 Ivy) at Columbia (2-4, 1-2)
Reeling after a 9-0 shutout, and a 7-0 sloppy win just a week before, Yale needs to restore its offensive mojo.
Luckily for the Bulldogs, their favorite Ivy punching bags are up next.
Yale faces Columbia this weekend, and the Bulldogs’ .744 winning percentage (65-18-2) against the Lions is their highest for all Ivy foes.
Columbia has been struggling itself; it’s on a three-game losing streak during which it averaged just 13.33 points.
But the game in some ways is much bigger than just a matchup between two middling Ivy teams. It will mark the first time in the history of the Ivy League that two black coaches face off against each other.
Columbia coach Norries Wilson became the first Ancient Eight black coach when he was hired in late 2005, and Tom Williams became the second one this past January. (Wilson is 0-3 versus Yale.)
The best matchup of the day will be Yale’s stellar defense (first in the Football Championship Subdivision with 11.8 points allowed per game) and Columbia’s offense (third in Ivy scoring with 21.8 per game).
Cornell (2-4, 1-2) at Princeton (1-5, 0-3)
When your coach calls Princeton “a dangerous team” and then says “hopefully they feel the same way about us,” you probably aren’t feeling so hot about yourself.
Or you’re the Cornell football team.
Jim Knowles told both of those things to Cornell Athletics for his preview video. And to be honest, the Big Red have been as scary as the cellar-dwelling Tigers of late — both are on four-game losing streaks. The Big Red have lost by an average of 18 and the Tigers 24 during their respective skids.
Regardless of who wins, it should still be an exciting game. Twelve of the last 14 Cornell-Princeton matchups have been decided by a touchdown or less, including the last two years (31-26 in ’08 and 34-31 in ’07, both Princeton wins).
Knowles is actually the active Division I leader in games decided by three points or less in his career; he’s 9-2. But both of those losses came to the Tigers in the team’s last two trips to Princeton Stadium.
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