Ivy League Week 2 Games

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Saturday, September 24, 2022Football

Date	Away	Home	Time	Location	Links
Saturday 9/24/2022	Columbia -12.5 / 47.5	Georgetown	12:30 P.M.	Washington, D.C./Cooper Field	TV: ESPN+
Saturday 9/24/2022	Harvard -14.5 /64	Brown	12:30 P.M.	Providence, R.I. (Conf.)	TV: ESPN+ Stats Video
Saturday 9/24/2022	Lafayette	Penn -9.5 / 35.5	1:00 P.M.	Franklin Field	TV: ESPN+
Saturday 9/24/2022	Dartmouth -16.5 / 32.5	Sacred Heart	2:00 P.M.	Fairfield, Conn.	NEC web stream
Saturday 9/24/2022	Yale -4..5 / 51	Cornell	2:00 P.M.	Ithaca, N.Y. (Conf.)	Stats TV: ESPN+
Saturday 9/24/2022	Lehigh	Princeton -24 / 44.5	3:00 P.M.	Princeton, N.J.	TV: ESPN+

 

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I would expect Columbia to duplicate what they did to Marist last week.

My notes on last year's Harvard-Brown game is that Harvard recovered a fumble at the B04 leading to a TD, had an 18y "drive" after an INT, had another 18y "drive" after tackling the Brown Punter and also had a 13y fumble scoop-score - all in the 1st H! Harvard led 42-0 (-9.5/33.5 1H). Brown outscored them 17-7 (+7/31) in the 2H. Harvard did outgain them 451-360 (6.3-5.1). Brown was in the RZ 3x and only got 1 TD. So alot of easy scores for Harvard in that one, huge rushing edge to Harvard 243-14 (5.4-.5). 49-17 Final (-15.5 / 66).

The line last year home vs Brown was 15.5. Now it is just 1 point different shifting to Brown's home field. Total is 2 points lower to 64.

Harvard Offense was a wreck last week, just bad in so many ways. Historically Brown D is bad and they allowed Bryant 462 (4.5). I'd put the Merrimack D ahead of Brown, especially their secondary in terms of athleticism. The Brown D is veteran unit, but they just are never good period. Brown won't be able to run on Harvard nobody runs on Harvard. New Brown QB did fairly well last week except that he threw 3 INTs, throwing INTs is simply something Brown QBs do regularly and the new guy doesn't appear any different so far. It's rare I'd side with a DD road fav, but it appears that is the way to go here. Just that Harvard O last week, it must've haunted them all week in practice as well, that should produce some better results I'd expect.

I have gone against Lafayette successfully the last two weeks and expect to do so again with Penn. Lafayette actually won last year as a 3.5 home dog. 10-7 1H, 14-7 2H, 24-14 F. As I said in one of the other Ivy posts, Penn O was a mess to start the season last year and while they did get off to a rocky start last week in the opener, they righted the ship and played to their potential (that being atleast an average type unit). Lafayette only outgained them by 43 yards last year. 3 turnovers did the trick. Penn should get revenge and win by DDs.

I followed some Sacred Heart games to start the year and they were bad. The lost to Lafayette 0-6 as a 7pt favorite - you might remember I posted that Lafayette won that game with just 113 total yards of offense! Then Sacred Heart followed that up with another poor showing, beating Central Conn St 14-10 (Central Conn outgained them). Then last week, Sacred Heart was still getting respect on the point spread from last year...but they lost straight up as a 14.5 point favorite at Morgan State!

Last year Dartmouth beat them 41-3 (20-3 1H, 21-0 2H). Big Green was only favored by 12.5 with a total of 37. This year they are 16.5 road fav with a current total of 32.5. Sacred Heart simply doesn't score and they have played bad teams. I do look for Dartmouth to take a step back this year. They were good, not great in the 22 point win vs Valpo last week. Only ran 55 plays but averaged 7.1ypc. Won 35-13 failing to cover the 1H, 2H, or the game spread. Still, I think you have to like Dartmouth here.

Big chance for Yale to atone for that really poor showing at a good Holy Cross last week. Yale was bad and they have some expectations to be good this year so I'm sure they were very disappointed and should be out to prove a point. On the other side, we have a Cornell team who upset VMI as a 14.5 pt road dog! Cornell D had 6 sacks in that one, VMI did turn it over 3x. So both teams surprised for different reasons last week. Yale outgained Cornell at home last year 409-336, but befitted from a +3 TO margin (Cornell only scored 2 TDs on 5 RZ trips and had two empty possessions). I'm a little gun shy on this Yale team and Cornell took it to me last week also. I call for Yale to win, but can't say I have a ton of confidence.

The biggest line of the week is Princeton -24 vs Lehigh. Princeton did beat them last year in their season opener 32-0 (16-0 1H, 16-0 2H). They were -21 pt road favs in that one and held a 516-92 (6.8-2.0) total yard edge! 26-7 first downs! Princeton should've had more points, I don't know how it went down exactly except for they only scored 1 TD on 5 RZ trips. I do believe Lehigh is a little better this year after watching them vs Villanova. But still, Princeton has to be the play here. They did start a little slow vs Stetson last week, but Stetson actually has a pretty good passing offense and QB. I can't imagine Lehigh offering a ton of resistance or putting up much O, but if Princeton doesn't make the most of their opportunities on O, then this Lehigh team might be able to back door late in the game unlike the 2021 version.

 

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I watched some of all these games.

Columbia did end up with a comfortable win, but they had to work a little harder than the Marist game. Georgetown was off a bye and they beat Marist, so Columbia had to work a little harder. 13-0 1H, 42-6 F. Only 3 TDs on 5 RZ trips kept the score down a bit, but they did have a 93y pick-six. Columbia was 14-of-18 on 3rd down! They outrushed Georgetown 206-0, yes zero. Georgetown only had 14 rush attempts. Columbia's top returning RB is still a no show, not sure what is up with Ryan Young. It's hard to get information on these FCS schools. I still am pretty high on this Columbia team and they have been very profitable 2-0 1H and 2-0 full game ATS. Schedule gets tougher now though.

Harvard nearly blew a 35-7 3rd Q lead! I'd say they were good not great, even leading 21-0 HT I wasn't overly impressed. Brown actually made some plays on O, but they couldn't string those plays together in the 1H to sustain drives. They did miss a FG. Harvard was better passing than rushing. Harvard opened the 2H with a flee-flicker 81y TD and then their RB Borguet was bottled up behind the LOS, but he slipped some arm tackles and raced 67y for TD. That made it 35-7. Brown hit a big wheel route RB TD where he made some guys miss for their first TD. This is where the game got pretty interesting. The Harvard O went away, they had three 3-and-outs over a 4 possession stretch and actually had less than 100y on their final 6 possessions. Brown started clicking and made a comeback. There were some critical penalties on Harvard that both kept Brown drives alive and killed two Harvard third down conversions where they had to punt. So that was weird to see multiple really untimely penalties for them. Brown was throwing into the EZ down 7 in the final seconds. Harvard won 35-28 while outgaining them 468-393 (7.7-4.3). In two games so far, Harvard has yet to put together a complete game and I'd say they even looked shaky on D last week, uncharacteristic. They were good, not great 1H and their 2H play was borderline concerning. Maybe a compliment to Brown who's good WRs and RBs are making life for the new QB easier. That new QB Wilcox only threw 1 INT after 3 last week and his sole INT was a late 1H pick as time expired so no harm. I learned that Allen Houston's son (NY Knicks) plays for Brown at WR. He caught a nice deflected TD pass. If nothing else Brown is proving to be a great 2H team as they outscored Bryant 41-28 and Harvard 28-14 after halftime this year. I didn't have any action in this game.

In my post above I felt Penn would win by DD...but I didn't think it would just be 12-0! Wow this game was ugly, but of course I had 1H and full game action on it so I was watching - I mean who wasn't watching Lafayette at Penn? The 1H pushed and full game won. I thought that Penn could field an average Ivy League O this year, but so far against weak competition it appears they have a very low ceiling on this offense. They only attempted 2 passes of 20+ yards (1 completion and 1 INT) and they actually only completed 1 pass on 5 attempts of 10-19y. They were 19-of-39 on their 0-9 yard passes. I make it a point to try and bet against Lafayette, but they really weren't significantly worse than Penn here, which is concerning for Penn. Penn D is good enough and can keep them in some games, but that O is going to be a liability this year.

Huge shocking upset with Sacred Heart beating Dartmouth. I lost money on this game. It was pretty surprising 1) Sacred Heart has played pretty bad this year 2) Dartmouth has good history vs them and 3) I thought the game started great, Dartmouth was gashing them on the ground and led 21-3 and then 31-17 2H. There was a very large crowd at this homecoming game and Sacred Heart obviously cared a lot. Sacred Heart scored a total of 23 points in their first 3 games and somehow they go off here for over 30. It was a lot of screens that Dartmouth couldn't contain guys in space. The Sacred Heart QB was 31-36-274. Dartmouth ran for 393 (7.9), you'd think that would be good enough? But most of it was in the 1H and while everyone said that Howard was going to be able to pass after being the running QB last year, he was just 8-of-16 for 120y and Dartmouth O was really bad the 2H and they lost in OT 31-38. I'm not surprised that the Dartmouth D is taking a step (or steps) back this year, but I am very surprised it showed itself here vs this opponent.

Yale righted the ship. I saw just a couple minutes of this one, I only had a 1H play on them. The Yale D really stepped up after being humbled last week and Cornell played more like I anticipated them playing last week. Total Yards for Yale were 453-184 (6.8-3.9).

Another surprising game was Princeton's 29-17 win vs Lehigh (10-10 HT). I lost bets on Princeton, and barely hit the game over. I noted that Lehigh was better this year and could back door if Princeton wasn't better converting their drives and opportunities into points this year. Well, they weren't. Princeton got just 2 TDs on 6 RZ trips. Still, not a very impressive showing. There were 5 combined turnovers, Princeton threw 2 INTs and Lehigh outrushed them 83-62 (2.6-2.0). The Princeton OL was going to be an issue this year, but I didn't expect it to happen vs this opponent.

So that's the Ivy League 2 weeks in. The supposed top of the league (Harvard, Dartmouth and Princeton) are a combined 0-6 ATS full game and just 1-5 ATS 1H.