Backs Against The Wall

Losses by Harvard and Yale Saturday afternoon leave the two co-favorites with their backs against the wall. Quoted in the Yale Daily News, Bulldog quarterback Ryan Fodor said as much:

“We know that in order to win a championship we need to win out, but our goal from the start was to win every game, so nothing changes. We need to go win the next eight, starting this Saturday with Holy Cross.”

Fodor's analysis isn't completely accurate, but it's close. Yale or Harvard (or anyone else) could win the title with a second loss, but it isn't likely. Since the start of Ivy League play in 1956:

* 20 times the champions were undefeated (18 were 7-0 and two were 6-0-1)
* 30 times the champions had one loss (27 were 6-1, three were 5-1-1)
* 2 times the champions had two losses (1963 and 1982)

(For more on what it means, see last night's Green Alert premium story.)

The Boston Herald takes a look at the Ivy League race here. The story includes this quote from Yale coach Jack Siedlecki:

“The top two teams in the league are 0-1. We’re still in it as well as anybody else.”

He may be right but consider that five of the last seven years have seen the Ivy League champion go unbeaten. And of the 20 undefeated championship seasons, nine have come in the past 15 years.

The Daily Dartmouth has a story about the Big Green's loss to No. 7 New Hampshire Saturday. One clarification from that story: The loss was Dartmouth's 10th in a row to its in-state rival. The teams tied in 1990 and 1979.

The Daily Pennsylvanian has its weekend roundup here.

Dartmouth (0-2) will open Ivy League play Saturday against Penn (0-2), which hasn't played an easy schedule either, falling to Villanova and Lafayette. Quakers coach Al Bagnoli in the Daily Pennsylvanian:

"These are two teams that, between them, have a total of one loss, and that's to West Virginia at West Virginia."

Bagnoli in another DP story:

"We're still just a play or two, an assignment or two, from being a pretty good football team. We've played two really good football teams in two weeks, and unfortunately we came up short in both of them."

He's not kidding. Villanova – which needed overtime to get by Penn a week ago – just upended No. 1 Richmond, 26-20. Find The Sports Nework's story on that game here.

For a recap of Brown's big win over Harvard, check out the Brown Daily Herald. The Harvard Crimson manages to take a shot at Dartmouth in its story:

That double-overtime Crimson victory two years ago kicked off Brown’s last Ivy title season, so all is not lost for Harvard, nor for Yale, nor for any team for that matter—except perhaps for Dartmouth, who gave up 367 rushing (yes, rushing) yards to first-week opponent Colgate and more recently fell 42-6 against No. 7 New Hampshire.

The Cornell Daily Sun writes about the Big Red's stunner over Yale.

And finally, a photographer at the Manchester Nike Invitational Cross Country Classic Saturday has posted pictures of the Hanover High cross country team that won the race's elite division. To see a picture of that certain junior with her teammates, click here. She's third from the right in the blue hoodie.