Penn's quarterback picture has been muddied by injury and underperformance, but Harvard coach Tim Murphy won't even have a chance to make a decision on his signal-caller this weekend - and perhaps the rest of the season.
Harvard (1-2, 1-0 Ivy)
at Cornell (2-1, 0-1)
Senior starter Liam O'Hagan is sidelined indefinitely with a dislocated shoulder. Classmate Chris Pizzotti will start in his place. He's completed 28 of 44 passes for 353 yards this year.
The injury may cap a frustrating career for O'Hagan, who burst onto the scene as a sophomore, slumped as a junior and looks like he may never live up to Murphy's early prediction that he would be an All-Ivy quarterback.
"It's not out of the question that he could be out for the season, unfortunately," Murphy told the Harvard Crimson.
Harvard should get a boost from the return of sophomore tailback Cheng Ho, who sat out last week's loss to Lehigh with a shoulder problem as well.
The Big Red piled up over 200 yards both on the ground and through the air against Georgetown last week. Harvard has the best rush defense and worst pass defense in the Ivies, so the Big Red's gameplan seems simple enough.
Not so in the only other Ivy-Ivy matchup this week.
Dartmouth (1-2, 1-0)
at (18)Yale (3-0, 1-0)
Nice job upending Penn for the first time since 1997. Now go beat the team no one seems able to beat.
Fresh off of a big home win over the Quakers, Dartmouth's reign at the top of the standings gets put to an early test.
Yale has key injuries on defense, but its plus-seven turnover margin means that Big Green quarterback Tom Bennewitz will have to tread carefully. The matchups facing his receivers - like junior Eric Paul, who had a breakout game against Penn - may dicate whether the Big Green can put up points on Yale, which has the best scoring defense in the League by a seven-point-per-game margin.
Tight end John Sheffield is the No. 1 receiving threat for Yale, with twice as many catches as anyone else. But like the rest of the offense, he plays second fiddle to tailback Mike McLeod.
Holy Cross (2-2) at Brown (1-2, 0-1)
Once more, Holy Cross faces off against an Ivy League team. Once more, it's all about stopping Dominic Randolph.
Randolph, the Crusaders' junior quarterback, ranks sixth in all of Football Championship Subdivision (I-AA) in both passing yards and total offense.
Even a fearsome passing attack may be a nice change of pace for the Bears' defense, though, after yielding 479 rushing yards to Rhode Island last week.
(21)Hampton (3-1) at Princeton (2-1, 1-0)
Princeton faces an uphill fight in the first Ivy game in history against a historically black college. A week ago the Tigers would have been the clear underdogs, and they still are, but a 570-yard output against a good Columbia defense makes you wonder.
Columbia (1-2, 0-1) at Lafayette (3-1, 1-0)
Norries Wilson was the first Columbia coach since 1930 to go .500 in his first season. Whether he accomplishes that in year No. 2 will depend on whether or not the Lions can pounce on their winnable games - like this one.
