HANOVER – The Pessimist walks into the appointed place at the appointed time and cracks up when he sees what The Optimist has in front of him. It is an airline schedule with flight times between Manchester, N.H., and Fargo, N.D.
The Optimist: Just doing a little advance work for the FCS playoffs. Flying has gotten really expensive. The earlier you book, the better the deal.
The Pessimist: It won’t be much of a deal if they won’t refund your money.
The Optimist: I'm not worried about that. The pundit who I believe is most plugged into the FCS world last week had the Ivy League winner playing at North Dakota in the playoffs. That won’t be an easy game, but it should be fun.
The Pessimist: Let me ask you one question. Who did your pundit-in-the-know have playing at North Dakota?
The Optimist: The winner of the Ivy League’s automatic bid.
The Pessimist: And who did he or she have winning the automatic bid?
The Optimist: Harvard, but I think he’s a little too high on the Crimson.
The Pessimist: So now you are disagreeing with your “plugged in” pundit?
The Optimist: I honestly believe Harvard was living on reputation. The Crimson is just not that good.
The Pessimist: So your win last Friday was against a team that’s “not that good?”
The Optimist: It actually doesn’t matter what I think of Harvard. Beating them means we go to the playoffs in their place if we’re tied with them at the end of the season.
The Pessimist: Not necessarily. If they lose one more game and you lose Saturday at Princeton, you and Harvard will each have two Ivy League losses. And if Princeton wins out, the Tigers will have one loss and go to the playoffs.
The Optimist: We’ll eliminate that possibility this week down in New Jersey. Bottom line is the Tigers just aren’t that good.
The Pessimist: That again? Their record is 5-2, which happens to be better than your 4-3.
The Optimist: Let’s be serious. Who have they beaten?
The Pessimist: How about a 22-0 win over No. 21 Albany? I’ll have you know they’ve allowed just 12 touchdowns this fall, the fewest of any team in the Ivy League.
The Optimist: Want to know who was leading the country in scoring defense a week ago at this time? None other than Harvard, which was giving up 9.3 points per game only to see Dartmouth torch them for almost three times that, 24 points. And the Big Green did that without its leading rusher.
The Pessimist: Dartmouth’s first 14 points came off interceptions. Aside from the help they got from the Harvard quarterback, they managed just 10 points. They won’t get that kind of help from Princeton. The Tigers are tied for the Ivy League lead with just five interceptions this year, and they are tied for the national lead with no lost fumbles. They aren’t going to hand you the game the way Harvard did.
The Optimist: I wouldn’t say Harvard handed us the game. I’d say we took it from them with help from five interceptions. And as long as you brought it up, you know who is tied with Princeton for the fewest interceptions in the Ivy League this year? Dartmouth. And we’ve lost just one fumble, so we’re right there with the Tigers when it comes to taking care of the ball.
The Pessimist: Not last week you weren’t. If you toss three interceptions like you did against Harvard last week you’ll be looking up at Princeton in the standings next week.
The Optimist: Keep in mind they needed a miracle last week to beat Cornell. It took a blocked field goal with four minutes left and a touchdown pass with a minute and a half on the clock. I can’t say a 21-20 win over the Big Red is very impressive.
The Pessimist: They won the game, which is all that matters. And speaking of what matters, I wish you good luck when you travel to Cornell in Week Nine.
The Optimist: At 3-4 they are tied for the worst record among Ivy League teams. Only Columbia has allowed more points.
The Pessimist: You do realize over a five-game stretch before last week Cornell averaged 36.2 points per game, right?
The Optimist: They can score points, but the way they coughed up the Princeton game tells me all I need to know about the Big Red.
The Pessimist: Here’s something you know but I’ll remind you anyway. You lost to Yale, and Cornell beat Yale. You lost to Lehigh, and Cornell beat Lehigh.
The Optimist: Let me remind you of a couple of things. First, they beat Yale when Yale’s starting quarterback didn’t play, and that was in Ithaca. As for Lehigh, Cornell also played them at Schoellkopf and very nearly coughed up that game. While I'm at it, I should probably remind you that after their win over Lehigh they coughed a game up to Brown.
The Pessimist: That's a lot of coughing up. But I digress. I seem to recall the last time you had back-to-back marathon bus rides to Princeton and Cornell the Big Red took you down. And thanks for bringing up Brown. I just checked the standings and the team you are closing with after Cornell is 4-3 after beating Penn last week. Two of those losses, by the way, were to top-25 teams by three and four points.
The Optimist: I like the way you avoid mentioning one of those top-25 losses was to Harvard and the other was to a Rhode Island team that might have been ranked when they played but isn’t in the same zip code of that ranking as we speak. We’re not losing to Brown.
The Pessimist: Like you did last year? Hard to believe, but they have a really, really good defense this year.
The Optimist: Let’s go to the videotape. You said Harvard had this great defense and it wasn’t enough for them on Friday night. You said Princeton has a great defense and we’re not going to let them shut us down. Brown’s defense may be better than it was in the past but that won’t be enough to deny us a trip to North Dakota.
The Pessimist: I can’t believe you are that confident. But if I were you, I wouldn’t be booking a ticket to Fargo quite yet.
The Optimist: Why not?
The Pessimist: The campus is in Grand Forks, which is about 75 minutes from Fargo.
The Optimist: So I’ll look into tickets to Grand Forks International.
The Pessimist: I wouldn’t do that anytime soon.
The Optimist: Why not?
The Pessimist: North Dakota lost last week to Youngstown State.
The Optimist: You could have told me that sooner.
The Pessimist: I was having too much fun. See you next week.