That's A Wrap

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A reminder that the All-Ivy League teams will be announced on Tuesday and the Bushnell Ivy League Player of the Year on Monday, Dec. 3.

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Colgate, which gave FBS Army a very good game in a 28-14 loss before 26,086 at West Point, has earned a bye in the first round of the FCS playoffs. The Raiders (9-1) are seeded eighth and will host the winner of Saturday's Delaware-James Madison game on Dec. 1. (LINK) 

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Kudos to the Dartmouth women's rugby team which the Valley News reports, "won the nine-team National Intercollegiate Rugby Association Tier I title with a 19-14 defeat of Ivy League rival Harvard."

Green Alert Take: Does anyone else find it beyond indefensible that on the same day the Dartmouth women's rugby team wins its national tournament the FCS football playoff draw is held and Dartmouth and Princeton are left out because the Ivy League will not allow football to go on like women's rugby and every other NCAA sanctioned Ivy League sport? Shame on the Ivy League presidents.

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From yesterday's BGA Premium follow story:

Brown coach Phil Estes agreed in no uncertain terms after his team’s 49-7 loss Saturday that the Ivy League should be represented in the NCAA playoffs. And he left no doubt about how he felt Dartmouth and Princeton would fare. 

“They would be as good as anybody in the country,” he said. “I really believe that.” 

Added Estes: “When you look at the Princeton team and the scoring punch that they had and then you look at this Dartmouth team. I think physically Dartmouth could go up against anybody in the country. Case in point is that Dartmouth over the years has played UNH pretty well. They beat them two years ago. 

“There’s no question the best in the Ivy League should have a chance to be in the playoffs. And it’s about time we wake up and get out of this era of  ‘This is the way the founding fathers founded it.’ Grow up and figure it out. If everybody else in the league, every other sport can go to a national playoff, why can’t football 

“The other part of it is what they say about missing school at this time of the year. Listen, they don’t leave until Friday to go play a game. So it’s not like you are gone for a week or so. We probably miss less class time than any other sport." 

Don’t expect Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens to be glued to the TV for the NCAA draw but he wouldn’t have minded hearing the Big Green being picked for a playoff berth. 

“It would be nice,” he said. “But I’m past the point of even considering or thinking or worrying about it. Some day I will wake up and someone will have made the decision that there’s an opportunity to continue 

“But right now, it is what it is. That’s what we do. We have 10 games and we play that schedule. It’s nice to be nationally ranked. It would be nice to challenge yourself against others that are nationally ranked but that’s where we are.”

And . . .

Princeton coach Bob Surace as quoted in Jay Greenberg’s PrincetonTigersFootball.com (LINK):

“I will speak for our players because I know how they feel. Tuesday at 4:45 and we are going to be sick to our stomachs because we don’t get to practice for another game.

“When I watch other (Princeton) teams get to (be in playoffs) we all root for them. They may end up crying their eyes out (after elimination) but they at least know they came close.   

“For (football) it’s a unique (situation), I know the commissioner is expanding opportunities, but (the Ivy Presidents) don’t know how hurt these guys feel to not be able to participate.  

“(Executive Director) Robin Harris has done a great job. If you don’t get football into the playoffs, it’s a black mark on her legacy.” 

And with apologies to Jay for reposting this, Surace has more to say in the next story (LINK):

“Dartmouth was the most talented team I ever coached against,” said Surace on Saturday.  “We were one play better, that’s all.”

It’s not a coincidence that Princeton’s 2013 record for points lasted only five years. As more and more Ivy Leaguers make it in the NFL, the level of play clearly is improving and the itch to prove it is not being scratched.

 “Our president (Christopher Eisgruber) is about excellence, social and economic diversity, all those things,” said Surace. “This is all about opportunity. 

“These guys should be on Cloud Nine getting ready to play somebody. All we have now (by way of comparison) is we beat Cornell by more than Delaware beat them and that’s not football. It’s got to be us against them on the field.  

“It’s an empty feeling for us. And almost all Ivy coaches have now experienced this, with their players feeling the same way our guys do today.

“We have to work together on this. You see the lacrosse and basketball tournaments and I think most of the AD’s are on board. We just need to educate. When Cornell’s president (Martha Pollack) is quoted saying she is worried we would have to play Alabama, they haven’t done a good enough job educating that president.”