Penn and Cornell on top after wild Ivy season

The Ancient Eight all started the 2000 season with identical 0-0 records, and during the first three weeks of league play, the competition only got closer. After Week Three, five teams shared the lead at 2-1, and another two only trailed by a game. Even through last weekend, it looked likely that four teams might share the Ivy title.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Cornell quarterback Ricky Rahne (14) '02 has led the Big Red to the brink of an Ivy championship.

But suddenly, the parity is gone. Penn and Cornell, by hook or by crook, have distanced themselves from the pack, and when the two meet in Ithaca on Sat., Nov. 18, the winner will claim the league crown. In a wacky Ivy season marked by high-scoring, come-from-behind, one-point victories, parity, in the end, turned out to be as fragile as those missed extra points that came back to haunt so many teams.

The story of this year's Ivy season begins and ends with offense. Believe it or not, the Ivy League has been the second highest scoring conference in Div. I this season. Three league teams are averaging over 450 yards per game—all eight are managing well over 300 per game—and Brown set a new league record with 690 yards in its game against Cornell in October. Three Ivy teams are even poised to break the league scoring mark this weekend. A flurry of touchdowns has resulted in a shootout mentality, with teams swapping leads in what feels like only a matter of seconds. In fact, the team that has scored last has won all but two Ivy games, making no lead seem safe.

On Sat., Sept. 23, Yale traveled to Ithaca for a critical Week One matchup. In quarterback Peter Lee's, TD '02, first league game as a starter, the Yale offense controlled the ball and racked up an impressive 442 yards in total offense. However, two late-fourth-quarter touchdowns engineered by Cornell quarterback Ricky Rahne '02 put the Big Red ahead by one with only 42 seconds left.

Yale had its last chance when the Bulldogs got possession of the ball on their own 32-yard line. All eyes were on Lee, who—after four quick passes—pushed the ball to the Big Red's 14-yard line with only two seconds left. Victory seemed assured as Mike Murawczyk, MC '01, who had not missed a field goal inside 40 yards in his last 24 attempts prior to the game, strode on to attempt the 32-yarder. But Murawczyk's kick sailed wide left, and the season continued in a similar fashion.

The Elis fell to Brown 28-14 on Sat., Nov. 4, despite many opportunities to come back in the fourth quarter. The next week, the team lost to Princeton 19-14 on an improbable last-minute scoring drive that culminated in a 32-yard touchdown strike from second-string quarterback John Blevins '01.

Cornell, on the other hand, has had the sort of luck during the season that only George W. Bush might know about. On Sat., Oct. 7, Rahne threw four second-half touchdowns to lead Cornell back from a 28-0 halftime deficit to beat Harvard 29-28. On Sat., Oct. 28, Rahne connected on a touchdown pass and an extra point with 1:54 left to put the Big Red up for good. Princeton scored a touchdown with 11 seconds left to bring the score to 25-24, but kicker Taylor Northrop '02, who had been 16 for 16 on extra points thus far in the season, missed the kick. On Sat., Nov. 4, Rahne threw three TD passes in the last six minutes to beat Dartmouth. Finally, on Sat., Nov. 11, against Columbia, Cornell running back Justin Dunleavy '02 ran for a touchdown with 43 seconds left to give his team a four-point win, its fifth fourth-quarter comeback in five Ivy games. Cornell has been outgained by an average of 65 yards in the five wins.

Penn, which stands between Cornell and the title, is no stranger to comebacks, either. Penn got down early in games against Princeton and Dartmouth, and came back to beat Brown by three and Harvard by one. And if one quarterback in the league can complete more clutch passes than Rahne, it's Penn's Gavin Hoffman '02, who ranks atop the league in total yards and passing efficiency.

Nevertheless, many in the league think the odds favor the comeback kids from Cornell. "I'll give the edge to Cornell," Brown running back Michael Malan '02 said. "It seems like they're probably destined to win." Yale Coach Jack Siedlecki said, "Penn can run and throw. I don't know if Cornell has enough defense to stop them." But then he stopped and reconsidered. "But I should not be betting against Cornell the way things are going," he said.

Fate is certainly on Cornell's side. The Ivy League has led the nation in an offensive renaissance this year, and the Big Red has led the Ivy League, riding the comeback wave so expertly that they still shock you when they pull one off. In a press conference after the Yale game, Cornell Head Coach Pete Mangurian said, "This was not about football, it was about character. We stayed with it even when we were down. This is a tremendous step for our program."

Whether it's character, luck, the butterfly ballot, or the absentee ballots, it always come down to that bottom line. This season, Ivy contests may not have been pretty nor predictable, but the last-second twists have certainly made for exciting finishes.

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