The Optimist-The Pessimist After Week Four

 BGA (Oct. 15) – The Optimist arrives at the usual place at the usual time only to find something unusual at his usual seat opposite The Pessimist. It is a bag of SweeTARTS candies.

The Optimist: I haven’t seen these things in years.

The Pessimist: Found them on Amazon and I couldn’t help myself.

The Optimist: Let me guess. Sour at the start and sweet at the finish. Our Yale game in a nutshell, right?

The Pessimist: Actually, it’s your last three games in a candy.

The Optimist: Funny. Look, it would be great to take control earlier in each of those games, but you have to admit, no matter how we did it, we won them all. And the Yale game was awesome. I mean, beating one of the defending Ivy League champions on their home field without our starting quarterback? Now that really is sweet.

The Pessimist: No doubt. The win was big and the comeback was dramatic, but you barely dodged a tart ending. Only a blown field goal near the end and an overthrow on the two-point conversion in OT kept you from losing to a team that was absolutely blown out by a 1-3 Cornell team that hasn’t been able to beat anyone but Yale.

The Optimist: I mentioned this earlier but you seem to forget we completed an historic comeback came with our backup quarterback at the helm.

The Pessimist: An historic, huh? It might be grammatically correct but it always sounds wrong. You did, in fact, win with your backup QB, but the last I checked your quarterback doesn’t play defense and defense was your problem down in New Haven. Or should I say the lack of defense? You gave up 37 points in regulation and 43 overall. That’s not going to win many games.

The Optimist: It won this one.

The Pessimist: Touché.

The Optimist: Now it’s on to Central Connecticut, which only got to .500 last week with a win over lowly Mercyhurst.

The Pessimist: For the record, Central Connecticut is now 3-1 against FCS competition. Two of their losses were money games against FBS team. And for the record, the Blue Devils are loaded with FBS transfers including the starting quarterback from UMass and their leading running back from Virginia Tech.

The Optimist: The QB wasn't very effective at Massachusetts and the running back was a seldom-used defensive back in Blacksburg. But I digress. I hope Central Connecticut got a nice, fat check that made the 66-10 whipping Central Michigan put on them worthwhile. As for losing to UMass? I mean, the Minutemen are FBS in name only. And before I forget, Central Connecticut's one loss to an FCS team? It was to none other than Yale, who we obviously just beat.

The Pessimist: OK, three things. Central Connecticut very nearly beat UMass, losing just 35-31. You beat Fordham, 45-13 and CCSU beat Fordham, 33-3. Do the math. You beat them by 32 and Central Connecticut beat them by 30. As for Yale, you beat the Bulldogs by one point and the Blue Devils lost to Yale by one point. Sounds pretty much like a tossup to me.

The Optimist: Of course it does. To you. The way I see it, this week we’ll clean up what we need to clean up defensively after Yale and then head down to Columbia on a high note. The Lions are 3-1 but seriously, who have they played?

The Pessimist: Do you really want to go there? OK then, let's go there. Columbia's opposition to date is a combined 11-12. Not great. The teams you have beaten are just 6-15. If Columbia's 11-point win over then top-20 Lafayette didn’t get your attention, how about the Lions' 34-17 win over Princeton?

The Optimist: Princeton isn’t Princeton this year, but we’ll get to them in a bit. After Columbia we’ve got Harvard, which I'll admit has won a couple in a row but for me those games are overshadowed by the unfathomable loss at Brown in their Ivy League opener.

The Pessimist: Harvard's two wins since the Brown game aren’t overshadowed for me. In fact, they showed me a lot. The Crimson bounced back from the heartbreaking loss at Brown with a win over No. 16 New Hampshire the next week and then put a 38-20 hurt on the same Cornell team that took apart the Yale team you struggled with.

The Optimist: Harvard is Homecoming and we aren’t going to lose that game. After beating the Crimson we get the aforementioned Princeton Tigers, and they are the lowest-scoring team in the Ivy League this fall by a wide margin. Plus, check this out. Their quarterbacks are completing 41.7 percent of their passes. Seriously, there are Pop Warner teams that complete a higher percentage.

The Pessimist: That’s cold, my friend. I’ll grant you Princeton is struggling but when the Tigers and the Big Green get together records are thrown out. Depending on what happens between now and then, beating you can make their season, and that's a powerful incentive.

The Optimist: After Princeton it’s on to Cornell, which hasn’t been competitive against anyone but Yale.

The Pessimist: They beat the Bulldogs by 24 points. How many did you beat them by? Oh yeah, one.

The Optimist: They had Yale at home. We had them on the road.

The Pessimist: Yeah, and Cornell has you at home, the last of your three long trips in four weeks. I’m sure you remember what happened the last time you played out at Schoellkopf. If not, I’ll remind you. Cornell won, 17-13.

The Optimist: Thanks for the reminder. After Cornell we’ll finish another Ivy League championship season against Brown. We’ve handled Bruno – a nickname I just don't get – six times in a row and nine out of the last 10 meetings. As you may have noticed they haven’t won since Harvard handed gave them a win with the terrible snap that led to the winning touchdown in the final seconds.

The Pessimist: For the record, Brown carried a lead into the fourth quarter of last week’s game at nationally ranked Rhode Island and was within a field goal inside of three minutes. They’ve got a fifth-year senior who is the leading passer in the Ivy League and I don’t think I have to remind you how Yale’s first-year starter shredded you last week for 412 yards and five touchdowns.

The Optimist: I don’t think we resolved anything this week but I’ll leave you with this, given what you brought for me. It sure has been a sweet start to the season for us.

The Pessimist: Just hope it isn’t tart at the end. Which has me thinking. Shouldn’t SweetTARTS be called TartSWEETS since that's how they finish?

The Optimist: I hope that's how our season ends. Enjoy the candy.

The Pessimist: See you next week, same bat time, same bat channel.