Before covering last week’s Harvard football game at Lafayette, I made the very fortunate decision to spend the night in New York City rather than in Easton, Pa.

About 45 minutes before last Saturday’s game, we asked where we could get a bite in town. The locals were very friendly to their Harvard visitors, but after a solid 30 seconds of thinking and conferring between the three people running the student give-away table, they couldn’t really think of any place for us to go.

New York has two world-class delis, a farmer’s market, and an oyster bar all in a two-block stretch. It was an easy decision.

After watching the Crimson give Lafayette a good-ol’-fashioned beatdown, I returned to the city to spend the night at the apartment of a few friends. I had a lot of fun—watched a movie (ever seen Trainspotting? Never, ever watch it), played Risk, and hung out. Pretty wholesome, sure, but very enjoyable. I thought it was a solid way to spend the evening.

The next morning, before heading back to Cambridge, I got breakfast at 7:45 with my cousin, who just by chance was visiting New York from St. Louis for his friend’s 25th birthday.

My “fun” got blown out of the water. This 25-year-old friend of his just sold a company for some ungodly sum of money, so it wasn’t just a regular birthday party. After spending a brunch spraying champagne on various models, my cousin told me he partied later that night with Miss Holland or some other pageant winner from the European realm, finally getting to sleep around 5 a.m.

How he managed to drag himself out of bed to meet me for breakfast was nothing short of a miracle. But he did, and we were able to share our tales of the night.

What I learned from our meal at Le Pain—an appropriate name for a breakfast joint at that hour—was that there’s fun, and then there’s fun. Not the same thing.

Likewise, in Ivy League football, there are wins. And then there are wins.

Both Harvard and Cornell crushed its competition last week. But just because they add a tally to their win totals does not mean the wins are equal in any way outside the standings.

The Big Red beat Wagner, 31-7, but its opponent had already lost its last two games to mediocre teams. Lafayette, while up-and-down, beat Penn earlier in the year, so the Crimson’s dominant 31-3 victory makes a statement.

The game of the week was clearly the showdown between the Big Green and the Quakers in Dartmouth’s first-ever night game. The Big Green narrowly lost, giving-up a last-second touchdown that prevented the Ivy’s first major upset.

Yale also picked up a loss, its first of the year. But the Bulldogs were blown out by Lehigh, 37-7.

Point is, don’t read too much into the win-loss column just yet. It can be misleading.

DARTMOUTH (1-2, 0-1 Ivy) at YALE (2-1, 1-0)