After three weeks of Ivy League football, the dust has begun to settle a little. The standings have become more orderly, and already there is some separation between the good teams and the not-so-good teams.
The first intra-league games seemed to validate the non-conference records, especially with the luck of three teams with .500 or better records playing three teams with .500 or worse records (the only exception was 2-0 Princeton against 2-0 Columbia) in their first league games.
So at first glance, it seems that there are two good teams - Harvard and Princeton - three mediocre teams in Penn, Yale and Columbia, and three bad teams - Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth.
And I do think that Harvard was the best team in the league going into the season, especially with its returning star running back Clifton Dawson.
The senior from Ontario delivered with three touchdowns Saturday to singlehandedly save the Crimson against Lehigh. Not to mention the fact that Tim Murphy's squad has been beset with off-field problems and suspensions, and injuries on the field that have forced the Crimson to play their fourth-string quarterback.
So while all of this leads me to believe that while Harvard is still the team to beat, it's not necessarily that simple.
The Crimson is certainly not invincible - especially if Dawson can be contained.
Meanwhile, Princeton has benefited from playing against the one team that is 2-0 out-of-conference that I (and most observers, including their own coach) do not think is very good: Columbia.
Princeton's other two games were at Lehigh (14-10 win) and at home against Lafayette (26-14 win). Those two games are not much more impressive than Penn's win over the Leopards (21-11 on the road) or Harvard's scare against the Mountain Hawks last Saturday (35-33 in Bethlehem, Pa.).
I do think Yale is a decent team, but the 26-point loss to San Diego at home is
troubling. The Toreros have not fared well in their recent games against Ivy League teams, and the Elis definitely have some serious holes. On defense, they have surrendered 86 points in three games, including a win over Cornell where they only gave up nine points.
I don't think the bottom four teams - Brown, Cornell, Columbia and Dartmouth - will contend for anything but last place. The Bears are suffering from the graduation of last year's player of the year Nick Hartigan, who essentially rushed Brown to a title on his own. The other three teams have looked bad so far, even in wins.
That, of course, leaves Penn.
I was not too impressed with Al Bagnoli's team when the year started, and I'm still not particularly high on them. They've had severe lapses in all facets of the game in all three games, and have yet to play 60 minutes in which I've looked back and said, "Now that's a good team."
At the same time, the Quakers are definitely better than at least half the other Ivies, and with Harvard and Princeton yet to really make a statement about their respective calibers, Penn is very much in this race in its premature form.
(In case you're wondering, Dartmouth, one game out of first, is not in the race.)
Penn played its best game of the year last season against Bucknell, this week's opponent. If the Quakers can play a similar game against the Bison this year, then I may start to believe that this year's Penn team can do something special.
They haven't distinguished themselves yet, but in the Ivy League so far, no one else has either.
Josh Hirsch is a senior urban studies major from Roslyn, N.Y., and is former Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jjhirsch@sas.upenn.edu.
