Lin says she already finds it challenging to balance athletics with academics while at Harvard, and asking students to take exams on the road makes it “10 times as hard.” But despite the difficulty involved with the process, Lin says she does not support the Ivy League banning postseason football due to academic concerns.

“Athletes are recruited to play for the school in their sport,” she said. “I’m not saying academics aren’t important, [but] I feel like it can be scheduled around.”

Andy Nguyen, co-captain of the men’s tennis team—which also recently returned from an NCAA Tournament that took place during reading and finals period—agrees, saying that taking exams on the road “wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“The academic officials are really accommodating,” explained Nguyen, who took a take-home test while at the tournament in Mississippi this year. “They understand we’re students first.”

Nguyen says that though things can become difficult when players are asked to take exams right after their matches, he does not find maintaining academic success while on the road to be inordinately challenging.

“I think the guys did well [on the tests they took at the tournament],” Nguyen said. “It’s what we’ve been doing all year, balancing tennis and school.... It’s just a little bit more intense.”

According to Tim McDonnell, who covers the subdivision for The Sports Network, one of two organizations that releases an FCS poll, football teams in other conferences, such as the Colonial Athletic Association, often face similar conflicts and thus have permitted their players to take tests on the Friday before the game or earlier in the week in order to allow them to compete in the playoff.

“I understand there’s a big difference academically between the Ivy League and other schools in the FCS, but I do look at some of those FCS schools [where] I know academically it’s not the same standards, but it’s still manageable,” said McDonnell. “It’s not like it’s impossible.”

Charlie Cobb, Chair of the Division I Football Committee, also says that were the Ivy League to agree to join the playoff, participating teams would undoubtedly be able to concurrently meet its academic requirements.

“We’ve done it in years past where we’ve had to proctor exams with our academic support staff, [or with] our faculty athletic [representative] when we’ve been at the championship site,” Cobb said. “Obviously you’ve got to take care of your work academically, and everybody understands that, but I think there is a way to do both.”

A POST-“GAME” LETDOWN?

Another reason often cited by Ivy League administrators for the postseason ban is tradition.

Some at Harvard claim playoff participation would be meaningless because the team already has what it considers a championship contest—The Game, the season-ending match between Harvard and Yale that annually draws sellout crowds of 30,000 to Harvard Stadium or 60,000 to the Yale bowl. By comparison, the first-round FCS playoff games last season drew an average of 4,442 fans.

“To be perfectly honest with you, to be able to end our season in a great national rivalry, on national TV in front of a full house...there’s nothing that could happen in the FCS playoffs that’s going to be a better experience for our kids than that, or a better way to end your season,” Murphy said.

But not all of the league’s teams have that luxury; over the past two years, the season finales of the other six Ancient Eight squads drew an average of just 5,392 fans per contest.