Coming weekend will end thrilling year of Ivy football

You've probably read this column before.

Every year, no matter how much we promise not to, one columnist uses this page to extol the virtues of Ivy League football. We talk about how outrageous it is that students sit in their rooms watching college football all day every Saturday, but won't go near our fabulous stadium when the Tigers are in town.

Well, this time it's for real, folks. These games are suddenly worth watching.

First off, the Tigers are improved, but what is happening this year is more of a conference-wide phenomenon. Scoring has skyrocketed. Brown comes out every game and lines up with five wide receivers. Penn's quarterback is good for 350 yards just about every time out.

And these games aren't just high scoring. They're close as well.

If they were any more hotly contested, people would be in court right now demanding recounts. But I guess the prospect of a Cornell Ivy title isn't quite as high on the list of disturbing developments as, say, a George W. Bush presidency. (Just an opinion, folks. Save your e-mails.)

The bottom line is that 6-0 snoozefests like the inaugural game at Princeton Stadium in 1998 are now the exception instead of the rule. The first six weeks of Ivy play this year have seen several years' worth of thrilling finishes.

You probably remember how Princeton won its first Ivy game. It was 27-24 over Columbia, after the Tigers recovered their own onside kick and scored a late touchdown to send the game into overtime.

Columbia has been losing games like that for decades now, and the trend continued even through last weekend. Against Cornell, the Lions gave up the game-winning touchdown with 44 seconds left, and then saw their final drive end when the clock expired with the ball on the Big Red's two-yard line. Cornell escaped with a 35-31 win.

Ah yes, Cornell. Now here things really start to get interesting. The Big Red has managed to win five out of six Ivy games despite outscoring its opponents over that span by a total of nine points.

Cornell's most improbable victory of the year was an Oct. 7 win over Harvard. The Crimson led that game 28-0 at halftime, but eventually fell behind, 29-28, when Cornell connected for a 48-yard touchdown on fourth down with 1:16 remaining.

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Undaunted, Harvard drove back downfield and set itself up for a seemingly un-missable 27-yard field goal. Big Red wide receiver Joe Splendorio blocked it. Cornell survived.

The Harvard kicking game has been a subplot in and of itself this year. Here are the final scores from six of Harvard's nine games this season: a 42-37 win; a 42-19 win; a 29-28 loss; a 35-21 win; a 49-7 win; a 36-35 loss.

I can only think of two explanations for the pattern that you've no doubt noticed. One is that the students at the nation's No. 2-ranked university are suddenly incapable of counting except in increments of seven. The other is that Harvard's field goal unit this year has been slightly below average.

Statistics appear to support the latter theory. The Crimson is 3-for-12 this year on field goals. Yes, you read correctly — three for 12.

This past weekend, Penn scored a touchdown with 1:24 to play to take a 36-35 lead over Harvard. Naturally, the Crimson drove back into field goal range and attempted a 33-yarder. Wide left.

The league's cycle of cliffhangers does not end there. Penn beat Brown earlier this year, 41-38 — a Rob Milanese touchdown reception with 0:28 remaining completed the Quakers' fourth-quarter rally from a 38-20 deficit.

Brown, of course, handed Cornell its only league loss, but only after racing out to a 42-0 lead, nearly blowing it, then hanging on, 56-40.

Cornell's first conference game of the season was a 24-23 win over Yale in which the Big Red had trailed, 23-10, in the fourth quarter.

And Yale, of course, lost last weekend, 19-14, on a last-minute touchdown. That defeat was at the hands of a Princeton team that has clearly come a long way since that first win over Columbia.

Got all that? Such is life in the Ivy League in the year 2000. We've become the league of high-scoring shootouts, last-second field goal attempts and Hail Mary touchdowns.

Three games into the season, there was literally a five-way tie for first place in the conference. Now, there are only two teams deadlocked atop the Ivies — Penn and Cornell.

They will play each other this weekend in Ithaca, N.Y. It doesn't get much better than that.

From Princeton's perspective, it doesn't get much better than last weekend against the Elis. There is always plenty of complaining around here every time the Tigers fall short of bringing a bonfire to Cannon Green. But the situation is, in fact, even worse than many people realize.

Beating Harvard and Yale in the same season is what all fans dream of, obviously. But, up until last Saturday, the Class of 2001 had only seen Princeton beat Harvard or Yale once.

That has all changed, however, and if the Tigers can finish off Dartmouth's winless Ivy season this Saturday, they will end the year with a very respectable 4-3 league record.

But, of course, all bets are off. It doesn't matter that the Big Green is 0-6 in Ivy play.

Dartmouth was the one team that was conspicuously absent from the merry-go-round of close games that were listed earlier in this column. None of the Big Green's games have really come right down to the wire. Uh-oh.

Dartmouth is due. And there is still one more week of football to be played in the craziest Ivy season in years.