Playoffs and the Ivy League

[clenz]

I caught part of the Ivy game on TV last night and they were talking about the playoffs. I don't know if I didn't catch the conversation right so I may be confused.

Why isn't the Ivy League allowed to go to the playoffs?

[SO ILLmatic]

they choose not to be involved in the playoffs

[Green26]

The Ivy presidents don't allow participation in the playoffs.

Until the end of the 1970 season, Ivy seniors were not allowed to play in post-season all-star games--according to my recollection.

[clenz]

Any reason behind that?

[LehighFan11]

Finals.

[DFW HOYA]

Any reason behind that?


The Harvard-Yale game.

[Green26]

Academics.

[OL FU]

Snobbery:D

[bulldog10jw]

Stupidity, arrogance, and discrimination.

[th0m]

East coast bias!

[art vandelay]

What would an east coast bias have to do with it? They don’t participate because the Ivy League fancies themselves an academic league and since the playoffs cut into their finals the powers that be say they aren’t allowed to participate. And all the other stuff they said about being snobs.

[rcny46]

Academics.

How could academics be the reason? The Ivy league allows participation in NCAA playoffs in all of the other major sports,including basketball,hockey and baseball.The seasons for the aforementioned sports last just as long if not longer than the FB season,and the playoffs can go on for several weeks as well with regional and national play.The presidents of the respective schools don't seem to have a problem with that.I've been wondering forever as to what the real reason is,but have never been able to find anyone who knew what their motivations are.

[Jackman]

I think they're still bitter about being forced into FCS against their will, and refuse to recognize the designation.

[proasu89]

What would an east coast bias have to do with it? They don’t participate because the Ivy League fancies themselves an academic league and since the playoffs cut into their finals the powers that be say they aren’t allowed to participate. And all the other stuff they said about being snobs.

Sarcasm. Everything is an East Coast Biasxsmiley_wix Even when it's on the East Coastxlolx

[OL FU]

How could academics be the reason? The Ivy league allows participation in NCAA playoffs in all of the other major sports,including basketball,hockey and baseball.The seasons for the aforementioned sports last just as long if not longer than the FB season,and the playoffs can go on for several weeks as well with regional and national play.The presidents of the respective schools don't seem to have a problem with that.I've been wondering forever as to what the real reason is,but have never been able to find anyone who knew what their motivations are.

Personally, and without the benefit of facts, it is the only sport that they do not compete at the "highest" DI level. xnodx That is the only thing that really seperates from other sports.

Does anyone know when the Ivies quit participating in post season play. I would imagine it was before I-AA which would discount my argument some if true. But in my opinion not discount it too much.

[DFW HOYA]

I think they're still bitter about being forced into FCS against their will, and refuse to recognize the designation.

Four Ivy teams (at the time) qualified for I-A, four did not. Bitterness does not enter into the playoff discussion.

The H-Y-P folks want their rivalry games to be the definining moments of the season, not a first round loss at UNH.

[bulldog10jw]

Basically because they would be one and done.


That doesn't matter. It's usually one and done in all sports.

[th0m]

Sarcasm. Everything is an East Coast Biasxsmiley_wix Even when it's on the East Coastxlolx

Thanks for picking up on that xrotatehx

[OL FU]

That doesn't matter. It's usually one and done in all sports.

Honestly what do you think? Do the administrations think football is brutish? I mean hockey is pretty toughxnodx

[proasu89]

Thanks for picking up on that xrotatehx

No problem. Got a minor in the Art and Theory of Sarcasm xthumbsupx

[JayJ79]

Stupidity, arrogance, and discrimination.

discrimination? how so?

[bulldog10jw]

discrimination? how so?

ALL the other sports can participate in the postseason.

[danefan]

They refuse to vote for Change. :D

[Dane96]

Four Ivy teams (at the time) qualified for I-A, four did not. Bitterness does not enter into the playoff discussion.

The H-Y-P folks want their rivalry games to be the definining moments of the season, not a first round loss at UNH.

We have a winner!

Though, Penn has been outspoken for the playoffs of late.

[JetsLuvver]

The last Ivy League member to play in a postseason football game was Columbia in the 1934 Rose Bowl, but I'm not sure when they decided extra games somehow violated their tradition.

The Ivies also refuse to hold a conference tournament in basketball, so this isn't just a football thing.

[Eight Legger]

Pretty stupid and outdated logic, IMO. Hopefully they will use their collective brainpower to right this wrong before much longer.

[OL FU]

The last Ivy League member to play in a postseason football game was Columbia in the 1934 Rose Bowl, but I'm not sure when they decided extra games somehow violated their tradition.

The Ivies also refuse to hold a conference tournament in basketball, so this isn't just a football thing.

While I understand that everyone else has a conference tournament in basketball, it isn't exactly the same thing. They do participate in the NCAA playoffsxnodx

And thanks for the info on the last postseason appearance.

[Green26]

The rosters of football teams are much bigger than other sports, so football playoffs or bowls would have an impact on many more students than in the other sports.

On the other hand, the other sport argument is often made in this debate.

I suspect there is also some latent bias against football by some Ivy presidents. I think some Ivy presidents and schools tolerate football, rather than support it in a significant way.

[Green26]

This is what Dartmouth has had to contend with for many years.

Here's the essence of a letter written by the Dartmouth Dean of Admissions, on letterhead, to the president of a school that was trying to get rid of its football program.

The Dartmouth dean applauded the effort to get rid of the program and said:

"football and other sports in which the same phenomenon is apparent" is "antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours" and "represent a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes."

This dean was the head of Dartmouth admissions for about 18 years. The class of 2012 (this year's frosh) are the first class not to be admitted by the dean who wrote that letter (in 2000).

Some attribute the decline of Dartmouth football to this dean. A year or so after Dartmouth's undefeated season in 1996, the admissions office told the football coach that it was increasing academic standards for the football team (apparently higher than the Ivy league's Academic Index standard which applies to all schools) and warned that it would be harder to get its recruits admitted. Later, the admissions office tried to claim it had not said or done that, but someone in the admissions office had left a voice mail on the subject and the voice mail had been heard by some in the athletic dept and football office.

Dartmouth had a good season in 1997, and then started it's huge decline. I think Dartmouth won 5 games one year, but otherwise has not won more than 3 years. This year Dartmouth probably won't win a game.

Starting in the late 90's, the percentage of recruits being admitted dropped significantly. In some years, not much more than half of its (important) early decision recruits were admitted. The percentage of impact players (especially those with lower Academic Index scores) declined.

Eventually the head coach, Lyons, who at one time may have had the best coaching record among active Ivy coaches, was fired. Coach Buddy Teevens has seemed to do better with the admissions office, but the loss of a strong link to the incredible tradition of the and the consecutive losing seasons has seemed to make it difficult to turn around the program.

[bulldog10jw]

This is what Dartmouth has had to contend with for many years.

Here's the essence of a letter written by the Dartmouth Dean of Admissions, on letterhead, to the president of a school that was trying to get rid of its football program.

The Dartmouth dean applauded the effort to get rid of the program and said:

"football and other sports in which the same phenomenon is apparent" is "antithetical to the academic mission of colleges such as ours" and "represent a sacrifice to the academic quality and diversity of entering first-year classes."

This dean was the head of Dartmouth admissions for about 18 years. The class of 2012 (this year's frosh) are the first class not to be admitted by the dean who wrote that letter (in 2000).

Some attribute the decline of Dartmouth football to this dean. A year or so after Dartmouth's undefeated season in 1996, the admissions office told the football coach that it was increasing academic standards for the football team (apparently higher than the Ivy league's Academic Index standard which applies to all schools) and warned that it would be harder to get its recruits admitted. Later, the admissions office tried to claim it had not said or done that, but someone in the admissions office had left a voice mail on the subject and the voice mail had been heard by some in the athletic dept and football office.

Dartmouth had a good season in 1997, and then started it's huge decline. I think Dartmouth won 5 games one year, but otherwise has not won more than 3 years. This year Dartmouth probably won't win a game.

Starting in the late 90's, the percentage of recruits being admitted dropped significantly. In some years, not much more than half of its (important) early decision recruits were admitted. The percentage of impact players (especially those with lower Academic Index scores) declined.

Eventually the head coach, Lyons, who at one time may have had the best coaching record among active Ivy coaches, was fired. Coach Buddy Teevens has seemed to do better with the admissions office, but the loss of a strong link to the incredible tradition of the and the consecutive losing seasons has seemed to make it difficult to turn around the program.


Yale was never the same after Bart Giamatti's infamous "de-emphasis" speech in the late 70's. Yale was good until 1981, but it's been (mostly) famine since then. Not Columbia famine, but still bad.

[Syntax Error]

Page 54 of the 2005 I-AA Preview Magazine:

PRESIDENTIAL PLAYOFF PROBLEM
BY MICHAEL R. JAMES, CONTRIBUTOR

In 2004, nine showed off their skills in the battle for I-AA's ultimate prize. For the two years prior to that, the number was the same.

Each season since 2002, nine of the GPI's top-10 teams have advanced to the I-AA playoffs, while one has stayed home. And you can't blame this situation on the selection committee. The missing pieces of the postseason puzzle over the past three years have been the Ivy champions-Penn in 2002 and 2003, and Harvard in 2004.

The fate of those three powerhouses, which have gone a combined 29-1 over the past three seasons, was decided 51 years ago, when the eight presidents of the Ivy institutions decided to ban postseason play for football as part of the founding charter of the league.

Along with the postseason ban, the presidents also barred freshmen from participating in varsity sports and ended spring practice for football. In 1991, the Council of Ivy Group Presidents ended the prohibitions on those last two items. But the postseason ban wasn't lifted.

The original intention of the rule changes for the league's football programs was to keep the Ivies from falling victim to the perceived malady that was big-time college athletics. Despite not having claimed a national title in nearly 30 years or a Rose Bowl in two decades, the Ivies still remained in the realm of major college football, having produced the top pick in the 1949 NFL Draft (Chuck Bednarik, Penn) and the 1951 Heisman Trophy winner (Dick Kazmaier, Princeton).

The circumstances have changed considerably over the past 50 years. In 1981, half of the Ivy League failed to qualify for I-A status, so all eight squads decided to drop to I-AA. The change of Division I subclassification voided the Ivy presidents' fears of being trapped in the big time college football arms race. But the ban wasn't lifted.

Instead, the presidents invented new arguments against postseason participation. The I-AA playoffs took place too close to the exam periods of several Ivy institutions, they said. For the finals to become an issue, however, the Ivy representative would have to come from one of the six institutions with pre-Christmas exams and would have to make the NCAA semis. These are the same restrictions facing women's volleyball, but those squads, like the rest of the Ivy athletic teams, are not barred from postseason competition.

Another idea the presidents float out there is that they don't want the football players missing any more classes, and that the extension of the season would make this inevitable. The problems with that argument are twofold. Due to Ivy restrictions on travel in terms of scheduling, members of the football teams miss far less school than members of the other major sports teams-basketball, baseball and hockey. In addition, venues like Franklin Field, Harvard Stadium and the Yale Bowl would be enticing sites for the NCAA selection committee, meaning that the Ivy teams would be very likely to play some of their playoff games at home, which would cut down travel concerns even further.

The tradition of the Ivy League, embodied by Harvard and Yale's season-ending showdown known as The Game, serves as another defense against lifting the postseason ban. The logic is that The Game could lose some of its luster if one of the teams had a chance to continue its season beyond the weekend that is the pinnacle of the Ivy football season. But if one or both teams were still alive for the Ivy title and postseason birth, it's much easier to see that scenario adding to the meaning of The Game, rather than detracting from it.

The primary fear for the presidents, however, is that the drive for league championships can be controlled, whereas giving the eight Ivy squads a sniff of the national title could trigger the very arms race that had been abated five decades earlier.

This view fails to recognize the achievements of the Ivy institutions that have played within the rules and have remained highly competitive on a national scale. In 1986, Penn climbed as high as sixth in the polls and knocked off Division I-A Navy during its 10-0 season. The Quakers' 24-game winning streak from 1992 to 1995 and Dartmouth's 10-0 campaign in 1996 weren't the result of any relaxation of standards. The recent success of Harvard and Penn, which have combined to lose just six games to other conference and non-conference opponents over the past four years, came while the league's presidents decided to cut back on the number of recruits and coaches a school can have.

As the presidents pile on more and more restrictions, the resourceful Ivy coaches have found ways to absorb and overcome the setbacks. The eight member institutions have to recruit against the academic I-A's like Duke and Stanford, as well as the neighboring Patriot League-all of whom offer more perks than the Ivies. Nevertheless, the league has ranked fifth among all I-AA conferences over the past three seasons, and its champion has had the ability, if not the permission, to compete for the national title.

At many of the meetings of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, the topic of participation in the I-AA playoffs has been broached and immediately met with stern opposition. It would take six of the eight members to overturn the ban, yet over the past decade, just one-former Brown president Gordon Geehas spoken up in favor of the provision.

Gee pointed out that the ban, placed solely on football and no other Ivy sports, was discriminatory and should be dropped immediately. His proposal, however, was defeated without a vote.

Five decades ago, the Ivy presidents took the national stage away from their football teams. They brought the sport back into a venue they could control by making the highest goal the league championship, not the NCAA title. Over that 50-year span, however, intercollegiate football has changed, Ivy football has changed, and even academic standards have changed.

But the presidents haven't, and they probably never will.

[art vandelay]

Four Ivy teams (at the time) qualified for I-A, four did not. Bitterness does not enter into the playoff discussion.

The H-Y-P folks want their rivalry games to be the definining moments of the season, not a first round loss at UNH.

there mite be something to that

[bulldog10jw]

there mite be something to that

I don't see why Princeton would care. Yale is their big game, yet they play Dartmouth last.

[bulldog10jw]

Four Ivy teams (at the time) qualified for I-A, four did not. Bitterness does not enter into the playoff discussion.

The H-Y-P folks want their rivalry games to be the definining moments of the season, not a first round loss at UNH.


I don't see why Princeton would care. Yale is their big game, yet they play Dartmouth last.

[brownbear]

I like that we don't have a conference tournament. The only reason every conference holds one is for the ESPN money that they get from it. By having a tournament, you could end up with a "cinderella" team that wins the tournament, but they were a horrible team otherwise, so they get a 16 seed in the NCAA tournament and get slaughtered in the first round. Look at the MEAC and SWAC over the last several years and you'll see this. Instead, the Ivies want to send the team that won the conference by actually WINNING games, not just 3 of them at the very end.

Now for the FCS playoffs, I think it's very wrong that we do not participate. I think part of it has to do with administrations not caring about football, so they don't even think about it being a problem.

[bonarae]

The Ivies should play, and should be deserving to participate in the playoffs. But the Presidents wouldn't allow us to do that. Note the comments of the previous posters, even history doesn't dictate what Ivy football should do. (1934? Can you imagine that?!)

IMO the Gridiron Classic, just like the SWAC and MEAC do during and after the season, is the only solution at this point for a playoff-like game in Ivy football. But it is more of a non-feasible solution.