Ivy League football 'more sophisticated game'

In 2004, Dave Cecchini helped coach the Harvard University football team to a 10-0 record and the Ivy League championship.

But when the field for the Division I-AA playoffs was announced, there was no Crimson to be found.

A snub? Yes, but in reverse -- the Ivy League does not allow its football teams to participate in the postseason playoffs.

"It was frustrating," said Cecchini, now the offensive coordinator at The Citadel, which will face an Ivy League team for the first time Saturday when Princeton comes to Johnson Hagood Stadium.

"As a competitor, you want to go to the playoffs, you want to test yourself against the best. I know a lot of the players on that team would have loved to take that next step. But when we were done at 10-0, it was, 'Okay, good job, now hit the road recruiting on Monday.'"

The Ivy League's ban on postseason football - teams in other varsity sports are permitted to go to the NCAA playoffs - is just one way that football at Princeton, Harvard, Brown, Yale, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell and Columbia is different.

Princeton played the first college football game against Rutgers in 1869, and the term "Ivy League" was coined by sportswriters. But the Ivy League has long prided itself on keeping football in its proper place while the game has seemingly taken over other college campuses.

"Because football is the most visible of their sports, it becomes the most visible way for Ivy League schools to demonstrate the place athletics has in terms of priorities," said Cecchini, who spent three years as offensive coordinator at Harvard.

Other differences:

* The Ivies play just 10 games with no bye weeks, and usually restrict travel to the Northeast. Princeton's efforts in recent years to play San Diego, Hampton and The Citadel is a break from that tradition.

* There are no athletic scholarships; all financial aid is need-based.

"That means there's nothing holding a player to that sport except love of the game," Cecchini said. "They play because they love it, not because it's what is paying their way through college. But that means they also have a pretty high level of drop-off. They bring in about 30 freshmen a year, and graduate about 20 seniors."

* Admission standards. Average SAT scores for Ivy League schools are in the range of 1,450 to 1,500. "You look at their rosters, you see kids from all over the country," Cecchini said. "You have to go to all 50 states to recruit. In South Carolina, there might be two kids who are good players who can even get in an Ivy League school. It's hard to find good players who are really good students. But when you do, it's pretty easy to get them interested in your school."

But change could be afoot in the Ivy League. The NCAA will expand the FCS (formerly I-AA) playoffs from 16 to 20 teams by 2010, and eventually to 24, it seems likely. That's sure to increase pressure on the Ivy League to participate, something coaches and players are solidly behind.

In the meantime, the Ivy League title is the ultimate goal for teams such as Princeton.

"They utilize what strengths they have," Cecchini said. "It's a very sophisticated league in terms of their schemes on offense and defense. They might not be as big or as fast as some other teams, but they make up for that in other ways."

PRINCETON PORTFOLIO

Location: Princeton, N.J.

Established: 1746

Students: 4,918 undergrads

Endowment: $15.8 billion

Athletics: 38 varsity teams

Mascot: Tigers

Colors: Orange and Black

Alumni: U.S. presidents James Madison, Woodrow Wilson; U.S. Senator Bill Bradley; Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito; Gen. David Petraeus; activist Ralph Nader; Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos; Fed chairman Ben Bernanke; author F. Scott Fitzgerald; actors Dean Cain, Jimmy Stewart and Brooke Shields; Michelle Obama.