(STATS) – Ivy League teams start later than the rest of college football and play a 10-game season without a bye.
“I think our break comes out of league, to be honest with you,” Brown coach Phil Estes said.
It seems more the case this season than most, and seven of the eight teams had winning records outside the league a year ago.
Yale, the defending champ, was installed as the favorite in the Ivy preseason poll on Monday, but most of the other teams are brimming with optimism as well. Their deep title race is full of veteran, talented lineups.
“I think nationally there’s just greater balance across the board – a lot of well-trained kids coming out of high school,” Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said. “The fun thing for us is a lot of very intelligent kids coming out as well.”
Yale, under coach Tony Reno, finished 9-1 and 24th in the STATS FCS Top 25 while winning its first Ivy title since 2006. The Bulldogs earned 11 of the 17 first-place votes in the preseason poll.
Four other teams received first-place votes. Princeton, which finished seventh last season but gets back 2016 Ivy offensive player of the year John Lovett from injury, was second in the poll followed by Harvard, which in coach Tim Murphy’s 25th season hopes to rebound from its first sub-.500 finish in the league since 1999.
Columbia and Penn tied for fourth, then it was Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown.
KEY CONFERENCE GAMES
Spotlight Game: Harvard vs. Yale in Boston (Nov. 17)
The 135th playing of “The Game” will be held at Fenway Park. It marks the 50th anniversary of the epic 1968 meeting, which famously ended in a 29-29 tie (or as some say, “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29”).
Four More: Princeton at Columbia (Sept. 29), Harvard at Dartmouth (Oct. 27), Princeton at Yale (Nov. 10) and Harvard at Penn (Nov. 10)
IVY LEAGUE PRESEASON MEDIA POLL
1. Yale (11 first-place votes), 129 points
2. Princeton (3), 104
3. Harvard (1), 99
4T. Columbia (1), 76
4T. Penn (1), 76
6. Dartmouth, 65
7. Cornell, 37
8. Brown, 26
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