Andrew DeLaney: Season not done just

And now comes the morning after.

The Quakers won the Battle of the Unbeatens II in a 44-9 thrashing of Harvard at Franklin Field. ESPN College GameDay departed impressed with the Quakers' talent and with the highest ratings in the show's history. ESPN ran highlights of the game all night.

What more does one need for an Ivy League title?

Well, for one thing, to win it.

Outright.

Penn did not clinch the outright Ivy League title Saturday. The Quakers need to win against Cornell this Saturday to assure themselves of the undisputed Ancient Eight title.

Despite their win over Harvard, should the Crimson win and the Quakers fall they would both end up with identical 6-1 league records, and therefore would share the title.

If a tie is like kissing your sister, then sharing the league title with a team you beat by five touchdowns would be about an order of magnitude worse.

The lack of a tie-breaking rule might not be fair, but it did give Penn the same opportunity a year ago to tie for the Ivy League title.

Harvard did not open that door. Despite Penn trouncing Cornell 38-14, Harvard's victory in the Yale Bowl assured that Penn would finish the season in second place.

"Both teams had to win some big games before getting to the big game," said Penn coach Al Bagnoli, about the obstacles each team had faced in advance of Saturday's showdown.

The unspoken second half of that statement is that there might be one more big game afterwards.

It's hard not to overlook this game in advance. It's in Cornell, and contrary to anything you've heard, Ithaca, N.Y., is not lovely in late November. It is a fairly average Big Red team.

It's safe to say that GameDay won't be present this weekend.

Cornell is 3-3 in the Ivy League. They are coming off a 17-14 comeback win against a Columbia team that the Quakers defeated, 44-10. But, it is on the road, and anything could happen.

Bagnoli was right in saying that this season was a Cinderella story for the Quakers.

The Red and Blue were voted the fourth-best team in the Ivy League in the preseason.

You're not supposed to lose your all time rusher and passer and end up ranked number three in the nation in I-AA by the Jeff Sagarin's USA Today rankings.

Currently, the Quakers are ahead of three Big Ten teams in this ranking. This is the best Ivy League football team in at least a decade.

This is not to say the team will be unprepared or will give in to the temptation to rest on their already ample laurels. The coaching staff is too good for that to happen.

"We've responded the magnificently the whole season," Bagnoli said.

This is just a reminder to anyone who forgot in Saturday's exuberance that the season isn't over yet.

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