The 2011 Ivy League football season has been dubbed, “The Year of the Quarterback” by the New York Times. With each team returning a starter under center, there’s no dearth of talent calling the plays.
“Anytime you have all eight programs with an experienced signal-caller, you believe that the offense is going to function a little better,” Penn quarterbacks coach Larry Woods said. “Whether he’s gone 2-8 or 8-2, he’s been under the gun and he knows what to expect going into a new season.”
Brown welcomes back senior Kyle Newhall-Caballero. He was a first-team All-Ivy selection in 2009 but played in just two games last season due to injuries to his wrist and hand. Expectations are high for Newhall-Caballero and the team will hope for Peyton Manning-esque leadership in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage (minus the neck injury). Brown’s offensive destiny this season rests firmly in the hands of its quarterback, especially as the team lost its two first-team All-Ivy selections to graduation.
Columbia will be captained and quarterbacked by the league leader in total offense in 2010. Junior Sean Brackett shared the first-team all-Ivy quarterback selection with a certain Billy Ragone last season. Brackett threw for 19 touchdowns, also leading the league in that category.
Cornell will feature will be Jeff Matthews, the unanimous 2010 Ivy Rookie of the Year, under center. The sophomore will be saddled with the tall task of leading Cornell out of the bottom half of the Ivy League. The team went just 1-6 in Ivy play in 2010, despite Matthews’ impressive and record-setting season. His 1,723 passing yards were the most ever amassed by a Big Red freshman.
Dartmouth’s offense features senior Conner Kempe. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Florida native, who turned down an offer from Penn to attend Dartmouth, is already ranked sixth on the program’s all-time passing chart. His current coach and Dartmouth alum Buddy Teevens ranks just No. 20, despite leading the Big Green to an Ivy League title in 1978.
Harvard senior Collier Winters out of Claremore, Okla., won an accuracy-based passing competition at the Manning Passing Academy this summer, beating out several big name quarterbacks, including Heisman-favorite Andrew Luck of Stanford. The 2010 season was supposed to be a big year for Winters after he was named the preseason Ivy Offensive Player of the Year by The Sports Network. But the signal-caller missed the first five weeks after tearing an adductor muscle, an injury that continued to plague him throughout the rest of the season.
Princeton’s Tommy Wornham will attempt to return strong from a mid-season, year-ending injury. Wornham was named Ivy League Player of the Week for his performance against Lafayette last season, as he led the team to its only win of the year. With the graduation of wide receiver Trey Peacock and running back Jordan Culbreath, Princeton looks to be a bit short on offensive firepower. Look for Wornham, a senior captain, to use not only his arm, but also his legs to create opportunities on offense.
Yale may feature the most talented quarterback of all. Atlanta native and Nebraska transfer Patrick Witt enters his senior season on pace to break all of Yale’s major passing records, despite having played there for only two years. Witt’s build is that of a quarterback at a major football school; he stands 6-foot-4 and weighs in at 230 pounds.
Witt, whose brother played quarterback at Harvard, led the Ivy League in passing last season, averaging 246.2 yards per game. The signal-caller is also no slouch in the classroom, maintaining a 4.0 grade point average while at Nebraska and a 3.91 GPA in his time at Yale.
“He’s probably the best total package throwing the football,” Woods said of Witt.
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