Ivy Roundup | Imagining an Ivy League realignment

The theme for this week’s Ivy Roundup is realignment. From teeth to tires to major college athletic conferences, it’s the talk of the town now that Pitt and Syracuse are heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference, dropping the Big East like a bad habit.

Interestingly, our own Ivy League has to be the most stable athletic conference in the history of athletic conferences. Since its inception in 1954, she’s been plugging along with the same old eight members, and thanks to a little thing called tradition, she doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.

But for the sake of mental exercise — and to fill these 14 inches that would otherwise just be a large picture (probably with more meaning than this column) — let’s take a look at what would happen were the Ancient Eight to dissolve tomorrow.

The more-moral-than-thou code of no athletic scholarships would have to go, but like the old adage says, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. And the Ivies are having serious trouble beating ’em. In this opening week of Ivy League play, only one of the top-three preseason teams won its non-conference game. Harvard fell to Holy Cross, 33-20, and Penn was absolutely demolished by Lafayette, 37-12. The winner was Yale, over Georgetown. Enough said.

With the pull of scholarships and lucrative television contracts, Penn — always hated in Ivy football and eager to jump ship — would make the logical move to the Conference of Champions, aka the Pacific-12. The high-stress Ivy wouldn’t quite mesh with a low-key West Coast attitude, but give it time and we’ll be wearing board shorts 12 months a year.

Harvard, well-known for its shady dealings, would fit right in at just about any major conference. They could be the next Ohio State in the Big Ten or the next Auburn in the SEC.

Solely as a matter of convenience, the Bears could move to one of the openings in the Big East, which, like Brown, is headquartered in Providence, R.I. And they’ll get to see their old friend Glen Miller each year when they play Connecticut in basketball!

Princeton would probably pull a Notre Dame and go independent. But good luck getting a national TV deal with that football program.

That leaves Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Yale; They could all join the Big 12 — which really only has nine members — and make it Bigger than ever.

Alternatively, the Ivy could build it’s own superconference: invite Duke, Stanford, and Northwestern.

And nothing sounds better than the Ancient 11!

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