The last team standing once again belongs to the Ivy League.
Last year, it was Penn which ran through its schedule 10-0 and at the end of the season remained the only team in Division I football not to have suffered a loss.
This time, it’s Harvard’s turn.
With just three games remaining, the No. 16 Crimson sits poised to record only its second unbeaten and untied season since 1913 and post a 10-win season for the first time in 98 years. What are Harvard’s chances of pulling off this amazing feat?
Here’s a breakdown of the Crimson’s final three games of the season.
HARVARD VS. COLUMBIA (NOV. 6)
Last year, the matchup with the Lions marked game two of an abysmal three-game losing streak that dropped Harvard from national powerhouse to Ivy League also-ran.
With that in mind, as well as last weekend’s near choke in Hanover, the Crimson should have some extra motivation to hand Columbia a pretty stiff beating. But this is the Ivy League, and games just never wind up being that simple.
The question marks surrounding the health status of Harvard running back Clifton Dawson are troubling, as the Crimson’s offensive attack would become quite one-dimensional in his absence. The shaky 2-for-4 performance of seemingly unflappable freshman placekicker Matt Schindel last weekend doesn’t bode well for Harvard either.
And then there’s the fact that Columbia has played every Ivy opponent close, falling six yards short of a game-tying touchdown against Yale, trailing Penn just 7-3 heading into the fourth, dropping an overtime decision to Princeton and defeating the Big Green 9-6.
If we can assume that what happens in Hanover stays in Hanover, then there’s no reason to expect Harvard to continue its offensive slump.
This is still the same Crimson team—depending on the Dawson situation—that put up 34 points or more in each of its first six contests and, heading into the Dartmouth game, had defeated each of its last four opponents by double-digits.
There’s no doubt that the Harvard offense will find a way to move the football, but it has to find the endzone—something it couldn’t do effectively last weekend against the Big Green or last year against the Lions—or those gaudy yardage numbers mean nothing.
PENNSYLVANIA VS. HARVARD (NOV. 13)
If Harvard holds serve at home this weekend against Columbia and Penn avoids disaster on its trip to Princeton, both squads could be ranked in the top 15 heading into this one, making this the biggest Ivy game in recent history.
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