Bigtime Game Saturday for Ivy League Title?

[The Ancient Enemy]

Ah, The Ivy League. A whole conference of football teams that exist in the FCS in little more than name alone. Although a member conference, The Ivy League does not participate in the FCS playoffs to crown a national champion.

A playoff? They crown a champion? That sounds like a really good idea!

The Ancient Eight remains outside all that hoopla and pizazz. Maybe its an effort to preserve the beauty of the conference, battling it out against one another in what is really a special and mostly overlooked race. Then again, maybe its the sweater-wearing, bad haircut-having, Rolls Royce-driving yuppy kingdom that cannot subject themselves to mingling amongst this... rabble.

I'm kidding of course, that's not the reason they don't participate.

Right?

At any rate, there's two teams playing this weekend that are anything but prissy. Coming into the 2008 season, Penn and Brown were both penciled to finish somewhere in the middle of the conference. This weekend in Philadelphia, in the gorgeous venue known as Franklin Field, the two conference leaders will collide in what very well may be the conference title game. Both teams are currently sitting at 4-2, and are both undefeated in the Ivy at 3-0.

The home Quakers are anything but passive and benevolent. Penn's 2 losses came to Villanova and Lafayette, two teams that are having very good years in the FCS. Both losses were close contests. Now perched again, the Quakers are used to the view from the top of the league. For the better part of a decade, Penn dominated the conference. Over the past few seasons however, the Quakers have taken their downswing, like all programs do sooner or later. Nobody expected this season to be the year they got back on track.

Junior quarterback Robert Irvin is not lighting up any scoreboards, but he manages the games well. Irvin has 947 yards passing on the year, with 4 TDs and 5 INTs. On the ground, Quaker running-back Mike DiMaggio is 4th in the conference in rushing, with 294 yards and 2 TDs.

But the Penn defense is the real reason why the fans at Franklin Field have been throwing toast all season long. They may not participate in the FCS playoff race, but they participate in their statistical categories. The Quaker defense is ranked 3rd in all of the FCS in defense, are 1st in the Ivy, and are ranked 1st nationally in scoring. They are also 1st in the Ivy in tackles for loss. Much of that success is because of the excellent secondary play they are getting from Chris Wynn, an All-Ivy selection in 2007, and Josh Powers. Both are tied for the lead in the conference with 3 interceptions apiece.

That secondary better perform as well this weekend on the field as they have been performing in the classroom. Brown signal-caller Michael Dougherty is ranked 3rd in the conference with a rating of 124.14 He has 1,669 yards passing (2nd in the conference) and has a good 10-8 TD/INT ratio. The senior's success is no fluke. In 2007, Dougherty threw for over 3,000 yards. He is helped greatly by how exceptional his top receiver really is. Junior WR Bobby Sewell is ranked 1st in the Ivy with 697 yards receiving, to date. Like Penn, on the ground Brown does not have a punishing rushing attack. However, senior running-back Dereck Knight is ranked 3rd in the Ivy in yardage, with 352 and 2 TDs.

On defense, the Bears' defense would make alum Joe Paterno proud, ranked 5th in all of the FCS in rush defense. Brown's 2 losses came at the hands of teams who are not having great seasons. Rhode Island is struggling, and Holy Cross is decent. The Crusaders did however defeat Harvard early in the year, a team with great Ivy expectations in 2008.

The elephant in the room? The Bears also lead the conference in sacks allowed. That's bad news going into a game against a defense as tough as Pennsylvania.

The two squads are pretty evenly matched, Brown having an offensive edge and Penn the defensive. Both teams are surprises this year. Everyone knew that Penn would get back into the swing of things at some point, and Brown has been really making a lot of progress over the past 2 seasons. After this week's battle for conference supremacy, Penn still has Harvard on the schedule, the 2007 conference champions. Likewise, Brown will have to face Yale before it is all said and done. But this weekend in Philly, there will be beakers and pocket protectors and maybe even some isosceles triangles shrewn all over the field as these two intellectual juggernauts put the books aside and go pound for pound for what very well may be The Ivy League championship.