Highlights of two league competitions on Saturday

PRINCETON, N.J. – League play begins Saturday with two Ivy football matchups. Harvard-Brown will be the first league contest of the season, with a 12:00 p.m. kickoff in Providence, Rhode Island, and Yale-Cornell will follow with a 2:00 p.m. kickoff in Ithaca, NY

QUICK CONCLUSIONS

• Columbia was named FCS National Team of the Week by Stats Perform following its 31-20 win over No. 14 Lafayette. It was the sixth all-time win against a ranked opponent in program history.
• Four different schools (Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale) receive votes in both the AFCA coaches and Stats Perform media polls.
• For the second straight year, the Ivy League went 5-3 overall in the league’s opening weekend. Over the last 19 seasons, the Ivies are 93-59 (.612) in season openers.
• The league finished non-conference last season with an overall record of 15-9, marking the 11th time in the last 13 seasons that it finished with a winning percentage of .500 or better. Since 2017, the Ivies are 108-44 (.711).
• Four current Ivies were named to the East-West Shrine Bowl 1000: Brown CB Isaiah Reed, Columbia WR Bryson Canty, Penn S Shiloh Means and Princeton WR Connor Hulstein. The league’s four representatives tied for the fourth-most points of all FCS conferences.
• Reed was also one of 64 FCS prospects named to Reese’s Senior Bowl Watch List.
• The league welcomed three “new” head coaches this offseason: Columbia’s Jon Poppe, Cornell’s Dan Swanstrom and Harvard’s Andrew Aurich. All have extensive experience as assistant coaches in the league.
• In the last two seasons, 16 of the 28 league games were decided by one possession of the ball. Last year, five contests were decided in overtime, which was the most of any FCS conference.
• Six teams ranked in the FCS’s top 25 in scoring defense in 2023: Princeton (6th, 17.5), Columbia (10th, 18.2), Dartmouth (14th, 19.3), Yale (17th, 19th). .9), Harvard (20th, 20.2) and Penn (25th, 21.7). Since 2018, at least two Ivies have finished in the top 10 in the category every season.
• Three of the league’s head coaches were Ivy League football players: Brown HC James Perry (Brown, 1996–99), Harvard HC Andrew Aurich (Princeton, 2002–05), and Princeton HC Bob Surace (Princeton, 1987–89).