Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - Some Ivy League football programs can look
down the road and know their schedules already are completed for quite a
while.
Princeton, for example, is booked through 2017, with some of the following
seasons not far behind in the planning stage.
But some teams in the Ancient Eight might be double-checking to see if their
schedules are marked in pencil and not ink. Monday's announcement by the
Patriot League that it will start to offer football scholarships with the 2013
season will have some affect on scheduling with its sister league, the Ivy
League, over the long term.
It's not that the non-scholarship Ivy schools are going to cut the cord on the
Patriot League competition - far from it. But Ivy programs no doubt will look
elsewhere for opponents a little more, especially when the maximum of 15
scholarships per recruiting class start to add up at Patriot schools and they
get markedly better.
Princeton often plays all three of its non-league games against Patriot
opponents, and it's the case on four of its next six schedules.
In future years, perhaps Princeton will schedule two Patriot opponents and
look toward the Pioneer Football League, the only other non-scholarship FCS
league beginning in 2013, or perhaps a scholarship school from a league lower
in stature than the Patriot League, like the Northeast Conference or the Mid-
Eastern Athletic Conference.
San Diego, from the PFL, already has built a relationship with Ivy
competition, while Marist and Columbia are a strong geographical fit and have
built a relationship.
PFL members like Butler (it has a home-and-home with Dartmouth over
the next two seasons), Jacksonville, Dayton, Drake, Davidson, Campbell, even
Mercer or Stetson when they begin play in 2013, could become more attractive
to the Ivies. Such games would satisfy wide-spread alumni and develop more
recruiting bases.
Ivy teams held their own this past season while going 3-3 against scholarship
programs, but they were a combined 6-21 in the five prior seasons (2006-10),
and that is not a welcomed trend to them.
Just looking to the past, Brown got out of its series with Holy Cross when the
Crusaders had scholarships in the late 1980s and early 1990s and only renewed
the relationship once the Patriot program dropped the scholarships.
Penn has played a lot of close games with Villanova in recent years, but the
CAA Football program keeps winning them. The Quakers (Villanova and William &
Mary) and Cornell (Fordham and Monmouth) are the only Ivy teams playing more
than one scholarship program this season.
Harvard, like Penn a perennial Ivy power, has avoided playing scholarship
opponents under veteran head coach Tim Murphy, enjoying rivalries with schools
like Holy Cross and Lafayette. Of course, those Patriot League teams have
scholarships on the way.
Georgetown will be in demand with more Ivy programs if, unlike the rest of the
Patriot League, the Hoyas decide to keep offering only need-based financial
aid and not the merit-based financial aid that is football scholarships.
Changes in scheduling between the Ivy and Patriot leagues might be subtle in
upcoming years, but greater change is out there when future schedules start to
have openings again and the Patriot scholarships keep adding up.
The two academically elite leagues have been great playing partners. Keeping
the same relationship just may not be smart for the Ivy League.
The Sports Network