HANOVER – Neither The Optimist nor The Pessimist is in any hurry to begin their tête-à-tête on a fine Tuesday morning. Their server sneaks a peek and smiles as the two men she’s seen get on each other’s nerves eat in relative peace and quiet until the guy who is always smiling starts up with the guy who wears the perpetual frown.
The Optimist: We are on our way, and I’ve got to say there’s no better way to start the season than beating a very good Penn team.
The Pessimist: Slow down there, big fella. You started the season with a couple of losses.
The Optimist: That was the preseason. What I mean is there is no better way to start the real season, the Ivy League season, than beating a very good Penn team.
The Pessimist: I think now that the Ivies can go to the FCS championships and there are playoff implications, the nonconference games are anything but preseason. But I digress. You do know that Penn graduated its starting quarterback, maybe the best one-two receiving punch it ever had, and one of the top return specialists in the country, right? They are 1-2 this fall, started a freshman quarterback against you, and despite that, they might have been one first down at the end from beating you on your own field.
The Optimist: Which they didn’t. We beat them. Full stop. Now take us out of the equation, and they are 1-1 with a dominating win over Bucknell and a decent showing against the now No. 5 Lehigh team that beat us.
The Pessimist: They were picked fourth in the Ivy League, and you beat them by just four points.
The Optimist: True, but keep in mind we got to their 35 or better three times. If we score a touchdown on just one of those drives, it’s 21-10. If we kick a field goal on another, it’s 24-10 and we aren’t having this discussion.
The Pessimist: But you didn’t score on any of those drives, and you won’t win this week if you squander opportunities like that against Yale, the preseason Ivy League favorite.
The Optimist: Give me a break with the favorite stuff. Most people who vote in those polls just check the team’s record from the previous year and see they have a returning quarterback. What they overlooked with Yale is they graduated one of the best running backs in school history, their outstanding receiver, and two All-Ivy linemen. You may have noticed that Yale lost to a Cornell team that your precious preseason poll picked to finish fifth in the league. Oh, and that Yale was tied with lowly Merrimack in the fourth quarter last week.
The Pessimist: I agree the Ivy League poll might have turned out a little differently if they hadn’t disenfranchised that BGA guy, who I seem to recall had the Bulldogs pretty high up there. As for losing to Cornell, Yale’s hotshot quarterback didn’t play against the Big Red and instead they had a first-time starter. And by the way, once the Bulldogs hit their stride last week they buried Merrimack, 41-24, with a 17-0 fourth quarter.
The Optimist: Whatever. We’re in Yale’s heads. The last two years they thought they had us beaten and both times we came from behind to deal them absolutely crushing losses.
The Pessimist: Trust me, they remember. Here are two other things for you to remember. First, that loss to Cornell has the Bulldogs’ backs against the wall. They know they cannot afford an 0-2 start in the league and expect to win a share of the title.
The Optimist: It happened both in 2023 and 2024.
The Pessimist: True, but only four times total since 1956. They will be playing with their hair on fire, which is not going to help you in a game that looks like a matchup problem for you, which is the second thing you need to remember.
The Optimist: Do tell.
The Pessimist: Do tell? Nobody talks like that in 2026. But since you asked, opposing quarterbacks have had field days against you in your first three games, completing 74.5 percent of their passes. And that’s with first-time starters at Lehigh and Penn. Yale quarterback Dante Reno tossed five touchdown passes in the Bulldogs’ opener, missed the Cornell game, and then came out and threw four TDs last week. He’s going to be a handful.
The Optimist: Yeah, but . . .
The Pessimist: Sorry for interrupting, but I’ve got more. The Penn quarterback completed 52.9 percent of his throws in his first game and 48.6 in the second, but he torched you for 69.2. The Lehigh kid completed his season-high 76.9 percent against you, and the Monmouth kid his season-high 78.6 percent.
The Optimist: After we take care of Yale, we’ve got Merrimack, which is 2-4 after losing last week to your precious Bulldogs.
The Pessimist: Look past them at your own peril. You did that a couple of years ago and needed a field goal at the end to eke out a win.
The Optimist: Then we make it four in a row with a win at Columbia. The Lions are 2-1 but in my book they could just as easily be 1-2 or 0-3. Their two wins were in overtime, and games like that are a flip of the coin. Columbia got lucky with the flip.
The Pessimist: I can make the case your game against Penn last week was a coin flip. But hey, win or lose against Columbia, you don’t think you are going to knock off undefeated Harvard seven days after that, do you?
The Optimist: We absolutely will not.
The Pessimist: This is a trick, right?
The Optimist: No trick. Here’s why we won’t beat Harvard seven days after Columbia: The game was moved up one day to Friday night for TV purposes. We are going to beat them six days after we beat the Lions.
The Pessimist: Good luck with that. There’s a reason why they’ve beaten you four years in a row. By the way, with the Crimson having winnable games against Cornell, Holy Cross, and Princeton before they play you, I’m predicting they will be 7-0 when they come to Hanover.
The Optimist: I don’t know about Holy Cross, but do I need to remind you Cornell already beat Yale, and Princeton is off to a 2-1 start? The way I see it, those will be pretty stern tests for the Crimson.
The Pessimist: Thanks for making my case.
The Optimist: I’m not sure what you are saying.
The Pessimist: What I’m saying is if you believe Princeton and Cornell will provide stern tests for Harvard, by definition they are going to be quite the challenge for you as well. While I’m at it, don’t forget, you’ve got both Princeton and Cornell on the road.
The Optimist: It’s not ideal scheduling, I’ll grant you that. But it’s been that way every year since they jerry-rigged the schedule so we don’t have to travel all the way to Princeton in finals week anymore.
The Pessimist: To be clear, you only have exam week travel every other year. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but in odd-numbered years, you get Princeton and Cornell at home in consecutive weeks. That’s as much of an advantage as having your two longest trips back-to-back this year is a disadvantage.
The Optimist: I’m going to make a note of what you just said and feed it back to you a year from now.
The Pessimist: We can only hope you can, given that we’ve both joined the “I don’t buy green bananas anymore” club. It does seem kind of unfair that you have those two long back-to-back trips in years when you have three home Ivy games and four league contests on the road. I wonder if someone was asleep at the switch when they worked out that schedule.
The Optimist: That’s all above my pay grade. I’m just glad that after all the time on the bus in Weeks 8 and 9, we get to finish at home against Brown. The Bears are off to a 1–2 start this year and don’t look as if they are going to present much of a challenge.
The Pessimist: Let’s see. They lost to undefeated Harvard by four points when they had the ball and a chance to win at the end before throwing an interception. And they lost just 13–10 last week to a Rhode Island team that was ranked seventh in the country coming into the season.
The Optimist: Playing a Rhode Island team that is 3–2 doesn’t impress me. I mean, seriously, when was the last time they actually beat a good team instead of just playing one tough?
The Pessimist: They beat you in 2025.
The Optimist: Did you just walk me into some kind of reverse humble brag? That’s good on you. With that, I think we’re done here.
The Pessimist: Same bat time, same bat channel next week.