Optimist-Pessimist After Week Two
HANOVER (Oct. 1 BGA) – The two fellows arrive at the usual place at the usual time and as they march to their usual table their server can't help but notice they are both smiling. That, you need to understand, is unusual.
They’ve been meeting this way each week of the football season for almost two decades and most of the time one is grinning and the other is sulking. Not this week.
The Optimist: The good guys are 2-0 heading into the Ivy League season and you can’t ask for more than that.
The Pessimist: I can.
The Optimist: Of course you can, but I’m telling you two wins over scholarship programs is exactly where you want to be.
The Pessimist: That’s two scholarship programs with a combined record of, let me add up their win total. Oh yeah, they’re 1-9.
The Optimist: What you conveniently left out is that three of our opponents’ nine losses came against FBS teams. The others have come against FCS opponents with a combined 15-9 record. Neither Fordham nor Merrimack has lost to an FCS team below .500. I’m pretty sure you’ll see those were two pretty good wins for us before the season is over.
The Pessimist: All wins are good wins my friend, although I’m not as confident as you that defeating Fordham is going to be terribly impressive when all is said and done. You might have noticed Monmouth slapped 63 points on ‘em last week. Add it up and they’ve been outscored 209-75 already this fall. I do, however, think the Merrimack win will look good on the resumé at season’s end.
The Optimist: You surprise me.
The Pessimist: Well, Merrimack surprised me. They were every bit as athletic as we were told. Their running back may prove to be the best we’ll see all year and I think they’ve discovered a quarterback. To be perfectly honest, I’m still not entirely sure how you won that game managing just one touchdown, but bully for you.
The Optimist: Think about this. We won a road game over a pretty good team on a day when we made it to the end zone just one time. Our talented stable of running backs had a hard time getting traction and our QB was under 50 percent throwing the ball. And still we won.
The Pessimist: Better keep that field goal kicker healthy! If I recall correctly, last fall you needed that kid to boot three field goals, including the game winner in overtime, to sneak past a Penn team that limped home with a 3-4 Ivy League record. This Penn team is looking a lot better than that one.
The Optimist: Seriously? They come in with a 1-1 record and the win was by just 10 points over struggling 1-4 Colgate last week. Nothing terribly impressive with that.
The Pessimist: You do realize that in their opener at Delaware the Blue Hens needed a 75-yard drive and 13-yard touchdown run with 1:44 left to escape with a come-from-behind game against the visiting Quakers, right?
The Optimist: Delaware may be 4-0 but the last time I checked they weren’t even in the FCS top-25 so why should we be impressed that Penn game them a fight?
The Pessimist: The Blue Hens aren’t eligible for the polls because they are transitioning to the FBS. But by just about any metric they are one of the best FCS teams in the nation this year. They have wins this young season by scores of 49-0, 48-17 and 42-13. But they needed a TD at the end to escape Penn. You are in for a test this week, my friend.
The Optimist: After we take care of the Quakers we’ve got Yale and you saw what happened to them last weekend. Cornell crushed them, 47-23. I mean, Cornell! And if the Boodogs don’t get a touchdown with 12 seconds remaining in their opener they’d be 0-2 right now.
The Pessimist: Boodogs. I like that. What you conveniently did not mention is who they beat in their opener, so I will. It was FCS powerhouse Holy Cross, and that ought to tell you something.
The Optimist: Your FCS powerhouse Holy Cross is 1-4 this fall. Now after Yale all we have to do to get to 5-0 is beat Central Connecticut, one of those overmatched Northeast Conference schools.
The Pessimist: For your information, Central Connecticut gave up fewer points trouncing Fordham than you did, allowing just a field goal in a 33-3 win. And oh by the way, the Blue Devils didn’t look particularly overmatched in their last game, a 35-31 loss to Massachusetts. That's FBS Massachusetts.
The Optimist: Barely FBS I'd say. Then we’ve got Columbia and Harvard back-to-back and I’m not sure which of those games will be more challenging.
The Pessimist: No that's a sentence that may never have been uttered before.
The Optimist: I was ready to believe in Columbia after they popped Patriot League favorite Lafayette in their opener but then they reverted to form last week by losing at Georgetown. As for the Cantabs, they should be almost as embarrassed about beating woeful Stetson as they should be about losing to Brown last week and how it happened.
The Pessimist: People all around the Ivy League were either cheering or laughing after Harvard coughed up two 18-point leads and then gave up the go-ahead touchdown after they botching an insurance field goal with 28 seconds left. That was a devastating way for the Crimson to lose, but discount them at your peril. Remember, they were my pick to win the Ivy League and they are Harvard, after all.
The Optimist: Then it’s Princeton, Cornell and Brown. The Tigers have been very good for a while now, but after losing their opener to Lehigh they switched quarterbacks and the new-and-improved guy went 5-for-19 for 80 yards last week.
The Pessimist: You fail to mention Princeton actually won the game and it wasn’t particularly close – 30-13.
The Optimist: My bad. They beat a 2-3 Howard team whose two wins came against Mercyhurst and Morehouse and I can’t even tell you what division they are in. As you said, a win is a win but I don’t think beating Howard has anyone shaking in their shoes. Once we take care of the Tigers we finish with traditional also-rans, Cornell and Brown. They both had nice wins last week but they are a little like Columbia. They show occasional flashes and then revert to the mean.
The Pessimist: While I’m not sure you are using “revert to the mean” quite right I know what you are trying to say. Either way, I don’t expect that to happen. Those teams have two of the best quarterbacks in the Ivy League and a top quarterback is one of the keys to success in this conference. In any conference, actually. Speaking of which, you’ll be seeing maybe the best in the Ivy League this weekend when Penn comes to town.
The Optimist: I seem to recall Brown had the best QB in the Ivies in years and the two times he faced us he never sniffed a win. A great quarterback doesn’t guarantee anything.
The Pessimist: You better hope that’s holds true this weekend.
The Optimist: As Dan Rowan would always tell Dick Martin at the end of Laugh-In, Say Good Night.
The Pessimist: Good night and I’ll see you next week.
