Week Six seems an odd time to be cooking up title scenarios, but Yale's early dominance means it's never too soon to start talking elimination.
And while the consensus No. 1 gets a tough road test tomorrow at Franklin Field, the only other unbeaten Ivy League team is getting an odd sense of deja vu this weekend.
Princeton (2-3, 1-1 Ivy)
at Harvard (3-2, 2-0)
Harvard had just the same Ivy record on Oct. 21 of last year, too. That hardly mattered to the Tigers, who dealt Harvard a huge blow in the Ivy title fight with their second straight three-point win in the series, 31-28.
Both Harvard and Princeton were ranked in that game, at No. 15 and 21, respectively. Neither can boast a mark like that this time around. In fact, Brown thoroughly embarrassed the Tigers last week. They turned it over six times in a 33-24 loss that prompted a return to the drawing boards in the locker room.
The Tigers held a team-only meeting Monday, and now they like what they're seeing.
"A change of mentality, a change of pace in practice, more of an upbeat mode," inside linebacker Tim Boardman told The Times of Trenton.
Funny how leading the Football Championship Subdivision in turnovers can create some urgency.
And speaking of changes of pace, Harvard's tailback situation may finally clear up. After tailback Gino Gordon and fullback Noah Van Niel took more snaps on Saturday - at the expense of usual starter Cheng Ho - Crimson coach Tim Murphy may have to finally tip his hand on who will be running the football for him.
Brown (2-3, 1-1) at
Cornell (3-2, 0-2)
Brown, meanwhile, seems to have discovered a key to success: Let Matt Dougherty throw the ball, then sit back and watch. He leads the FCS in passing yardage, buoyed by a 26-for-46, 360-yard effort against Princeton.
Brown senior Paul Raymond and sophomore Buddy Farnham are two of the top wideouts nationally - and they do more than catch. The pair had 81 yards on three hand-off kick returns last week.
And kicker Steve Morgan, who is now the Ivies' all-time field goal leader, is the Bears' ace in the hole. They may be converting in the red zone at a mediocre 78 percent (Columbia is a bit better), but with Morgan, the Bears can score outside of it, too.
Brown doesn't exactly match up well with Cornell, which boasts the second-best pass defense in the League.
Senior tailback Luke Siwula, who sat out last week's win over Colgate, is not listed in the Big Red's game notes; it would be surprising if he got in.
As they did last week, the rushing duties will likely fall to sophomore Randy Barbour and junior Shane Kilcoyne, who combined for just 47 yards on 15 carries against Colgate.
Columbia (1-4, 0-2) at Dartmouth (1-4, 1-1)
Leave it to Columbia to give Dartmouth another ego boost.
That is, if the Big Green can clean up their act - and we're not talking about last year's glorified shoving match at Holy Cross.
"We had a face mask, a punter interference and a pass interference that were caused by good effort," Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said Saturday. "But we had five procedure penalties and there is no excuse for those penalties."
