They already beat out FBS schools for recruits and are only not P4 by choice.
The players themselves are the ones who pushed for this change.
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@Cougardue will your nephew still be eligible to play for Brown in 2025?
If so…what are the odds that his team can win the Ivy League and be in the FCS playoffs?
Ivy League football is good quality FCS football. I can imagine a good Ivy League team making a decently deep playoff run.
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On a tangential note, it’s always been interesting to me that the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC), a Division 3 league that includes many elite Northeast liberal arts colleges like Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, and even one AAU school: Tufts, follows the Ivy League example and declines participation in the D3 playoffs.
I’d like to see the NESCAC follow the Ivy League’s example and throw off their playoff aversion as well.
I mean, other academically elite D3 schools such as MIT, Johns Hopkins, and UAA schools have all participated in the D3 playoffs, so there’s really no reason for the NESCAC not to, just as there’s no reason for the Ivies not to participate in the FCS playoffs.
Funny enough Johns Hopkins plays in the D3 Semifinals on Saturday
NESCAC schools don’t play any out of conference football games.
My Alma mater lost a rival when Hamilton got invited to the league making it the only non New England school in the league.
That should change as well.
Again…if Johns Hopkins, MIT, and UAA schools all participate in the d3 playoffs, then there’s no valid “academic” reason for the NESCAC not to.
As for playing no out of conference games…the Presidents’ Athletic Conference did the same for a while; they played a 10 game round robin schedule with only conference opponents; that is changing apparently. Of course, their champion gets a playoff bid.
I would say that the NESCAC schools should go to a 10 game schedule, add a non-conference opponent if necessary, and give their champion a chance to go for the title.
How long before the Ivy League schools play body bag games against P4s in football?
Why not?
I’d replace SFA with an Ivy!
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I think P4s will tread carefully. Army thought they were going to have any easy game against Yale, even went to the Yale Bowl as a courtesy for the 100 year anniversary (and received a waiver for it since FBS normally cant play FCS on the road) and lost.
Also keep in mind that the Ivies dont need the money.
If anything, they can pay the P4 to come to them.
Didn’t we use to have some Ivies come by Hofheinz in basketball back then for body bag games?
I’m sure that was money related.
Ben Moseley
Brady Dever
Nick Hudson
are only Texas football players on the '24 roster. I didn’t see any players on the roster from SJS since 2021. I’m guessing that the QB from SJS transferred, or more likely, gained acceptance to Brown and dropped football to focus on college.
Kind of sad to see the Ivy League do the playoff. Winning the Ivy League was meant to be enough. They do some strategic out of town non-conf games for recruiting. There’s already a huge gap between athletes and non-athletes’ academic preparedness. I vote for NESCAC to hold the line.
Columbia played at UH baseball a couple years ago and took two out of three.
Back in the Rayner Noble days, we hosted an NCAA Baseball Regional and Princeton was was part of it. They wern’t an easy win.
We’ve played Ivies lots of times at home in basketball.
Played Penn just last year at the Fertitta Center.
I remember we swept Princeton in baseball a few years back.
If we continue to schedule I-FCS opponents, then why not an Ivy?
I’d just as soon have Ivy opponents than Toledo and Troy. At least Troy’s assistant is a former UH player. Maybe Ivy wants home/home? Remember when Harvard played at UH hoops in the 2014-17 range? Did they beat us? Matt Fraschilla was on the team. Fran’s son. Matt’s now in his third year as an assistant at Harvard after five years at Villanova.
I think Harvard beat us in BBall during the 2nd year of the Sampson era; I’d have to double-check.
Yes he’s back. Got a safery last year and improved a lot. Brown releaesed an announcement for the FCS playoff. They are hypwd but i think they would be a Long shot
We played Princeton in the baseball regionals around the turn of the century. They had a stud pitcher, Chris Young who was 6’10" and had a pretty lengthy MLB career. After that, he became an executive with the Texas Rangers, and is now their GM and president of baseball operations.
Ivy League schools do not give out Athletic Scholarships. I wonder how well they can compete in this setup?
While they cannot give athletic scholarships, they can give “need based” financial aid that’s nearly equivalent.
In basketball, the Ivy League champ sometimes is good enough to win a tourney game, even though none of their players is on an “athletic” scholarship. As I said, I remember at least one Sampson team losing to Harvard; they had seven footers if I remember correctly.
Top Ivy League football teams often appear in the I-FCS Top 25, despite the fact that the other FCS teams can give 65-ish ATHLETIC scholarships, and the Ivy League schools, in theory, cannot.
In practice, the Ivies can indeed compete.
And in sports like Hockey, Wrestling, Rowing, and Squash…Ivies are often some of the best teams.