With the opening weekend of Ivy football behind us, it’s helpful to take a moment to summarize what we’ve learned about each team as league play begins in week two.

Ivy champion Penn may have put up 61 points in its opener against San Diego, but 313 of the Quakers’ 481 total yards and six of its eight touchdowns came on the ground. This performance, while staggering, left the questions surrounding junior quarterback Pat McDermott unanswered, as the first-time starter attempted just 27 passes, completing 13 and two for touchdowns.

Harvard’s defense had something to prove and came through in a big manner, holding a punchless Holy Cross team to just 131 total yards in sloppy, disgusting conditions that can only be described as New England-like. Boasting about holding the Crusaders offense in check is like a father bragging to his co-workers that he block his eight-year-old son’s jump shot in a game of one-on-one.

Dartmouth nearly pulled off the shocker of the weekend, driving 77 yards for a touchdown as time expired to pull within 17-15 of No. 10 Colgate. The Big Green’s subsequent two-point conversion failed—an attempt that wouldn’t have been necessary had Dartmouth not botched a PAT earlier in the fourth quarter. The Big Green defense, however, won its battle, limiting last year’s Payton Award winner, running back Jamaal Branch, to just 115 yards (which, for Branch, is an off-day) and the Raider offense as a whole to just 240.

Another possible “shocker of the week” nearly took place in Dayton, Ohio, as Yale found itself deadlocked with the mid-major Flyers at 17 a piece heading into the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs were bailed out not by Payton Award candidate and quarterback Alvin Cowan but rather by running back Robert Carr, who had a monster day with 172 yards rushing and scored the game winning touchdown early in the fourth. And that’s great news for Yale, which needed Carr to step up this season in order to create a quarterback-running back duo that could rival that of Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick and Clifton Dawson.

And now to the games on the docket for this weekend:

No. 22 Penn (1-0) vs. No. 11 Villanova (2-1)

This is the season for Penn.

Win, and the Quakers will jump into the top-15 and re-enter the national scene which had cast them aside after quarterback and Ivy Player-of-the-Year Mike Mitchell graduated.

Lose, and the focus shifts back to surviving a visit from Harvard and a trip to New Haven in order to stake a claim to the Ivy title for the third straight season.

The bad news is that Villanova is an even stronger team than their No. 11 ranking would indicate. The Wildcats lost 17-0 to James Madison last weekend, but that contest was waged in torrential downpours that limited both squads to a combined 213 yards of total offense and caused the two clubs to combine for 13 fumbles, nine of which were lost.

Villanova boasts a ridiculously talented defense that should give Quaker quarterback Pat McDermott fits. Add to that a rare primetime start, a buzzing stadium, and CN8 television cameras, and there’s no telling the amount of pressure that will be riding on McDermott’s shoulders. He won’t have to be great, as standout running back Sam Mathews will be ready and willing to shoulder the load, but he’ll need to improve a bit over his 13-for-27 performance against San Diego.

I’ll take Villanova in a squeaker, if only because the Quakers haven’t beaten the Wildcats since the Taft administration.

Yale (1-0) vs. Cornell (0-1)

Take a quick look at this one on paper. Yale has the better quarterback. Yale has the better running back. Yale has better wide receivers. And after Bucknell ran all over Cornell last week, I’m not so sure that Yale doesn’t have the better defense.