I've got a dirty little confession to make.

Now listen carefully:

I want the Ivy football championship. The title. The crown. The Big Enchilada. I want it bad. And I want it now.

You see, I am graduating this year, and I have spent every third week in November--like every other Harvard fan the past five years--giving myself the empty consolation that beating Yale is just as good as winning the title.

But it's not. Not by a mile. Sure you can be cocky and obnoxious to those poor saps stuck in New England's industrial wasteland. But what about the six other Ivy schools? They count for something--even Columbia. And the chance to rub it in their collective noses, at least once, is something I need before I graduate.

No matter what anyone says, football--not hockey, not lacrosse--is still the consummate Ivy sport.

Just walk down to Dillon Field House and look at the walls. Row upon row of somber looking 20-year-old New England men. Over 100 years of pride (and ugly uniforms).

And then gaze over in Coach Joe Restic's office at the framed black-and-white portrait of the 1915 game: over 40,000 packed into Harvard Stadium (when it was a full "bowl" rather than the current horse shoe) with the simple inscription across the middle "Harvard 41, Yale 0." Now that's tradition.

So what if I'm getting sappy? This is my final year. I am entitled to that.

What's important now is believing, believing that Harvard can take the title. I've always been a cynic, (I'm also Red Sox fan, so what can you expect?), but starting September 19, when Harvard defeats, er, plays Columbia in New York, I'm going to start believing that the title can, and will, return to Cambridge this year.

There's certainly cause for hope.

Without question, the Multiflex--Restic's offensive set which presumably provides the quarterback with a wide range of options on each play--is in perhaps the best hands it has ever been in. Junior Mike Giardi runs the supremely complicated offense as if it were a match box car, while Robb Hirsch and Kendrick Joyce are ideal backs for the system.

Sure, Princeton looks light-years ahead of everyone, despite losing its quarterback. Yes, Dartmouth's Vanilla Thunder will contend this year with its solid coaching and recruiting.

And, I'll concede that Cornell still has, despite its losses, a secret weapon: running phenom Scott Oliaro.

But that's not the issue here. Who needs objectivity? I must believe that Harvard, despite the odds, is going to win.

And so, great football deities, help me through this tough time. Give me hope. Give me strength. But most of all, give me the Ivy title.