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It could be an offensive year in Ivy LeagueNCAA Football Betting Lines08/10/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - To new Princeton head football coach Bob Surace, the golden words that James Perry used this past winter in describing his philosophy while he interviewed for the position of offensive coordinator were "fast and physical." Surace and Cornell's Kent Austin, who also is debuting as an Ivy League coach, might want to strap on their seatbelts. This could be a season for the offenses in the Ivy League. The three teams that finished 1-2-3 in scoring within Ivy League play last season were ranked in that order today in the league's preseason media poll, with Harvard first, defending champion Penn second and Brown third. Each has key returning offensive players, but the offensive talent is vast across the league. In the reverse of a year ago, six of the league's eight teams return their top quarterback. Also, the top five rushers are back this season. Meanwhile, 14 players made an expanded All-Ivy first-team defense last year, and only Harvard safety Colin Zych and Yale cornerback Adam Money are back this season. Surace returns to Princeton 21 years after being the senior center on an Ivy League championship squad. The 42-year-old spent two seasons as the head coach at Western Connecticut State and was an offensive assistant with the Cincinnati Bengals. Austin, 47, never played or coached in the Ivy League, spending 15 seasons in the CFL and the last two as offensive coordinator at Ole Miss. Their offensive backgrounds fit in well with what could be an intriguing race. Their coaching brethren were happy to fill them in on the rest of what to expect out of the Ivy League's style of play. "It's almost an awakening that there's some great coaches here that do a lot," Brown's Phil Estes said. "Sometimes you get at big-time schools and you can basically be very basic in your offense and defense and be able to win. I think in the Ivy League you have coaches that really do their homework. They need to be prepared for each and every week for something different and something new and some kind of new wrinkle that's gonna go in. These guys know it, though. "It used to be you could look at the schedule and kind of pinpoint different games that you think might be a 'W'. I don't think you can do that in the Ivy League. From top to bottom, it's going to be a tough game each and every game." "People seem to be going wholesale to spreading you out and trying to make you cover the whole field," Columbia's Norries Wilson said. "The issue I see with that is you spend so much time trying to figure out ways to spread people out and sometimes you forget those guys on defense get paid to coach as well. So someone tinkers with something and you spend a lot of time doing it. But the spread-out game kind of makes it a little bit like basketball on the turf there." Added Harvard's Tim Murphy, "I think it's going to very versatile, very multiple, a lot of different things. To some extent, I think that's consistent with most leagues. "They're going to see a lot of different things." The league's returning quarterbacks are led by Brown senior Kyle Newhall- Caballero, the first-team selection last season. Also back are Harvard's Collier Winters, Penn's Keiffer Garton, Yale's Patrick Witt, Princeton's Tommy Wornham and Dartmouth's Conner Kempe. Columbia will turn to sophomore Sean Brackett, while Austin has three candidates at Cornell, junior Adam Currie, sophomore Chris Amrhein and freshman Jeff Mathews. Among running backs, Dartmouth workhorse Nick Schwieger could repeat as the Ivy rushing champion, though last year's No. 2 rusher, Brown's Zach Tronti, will be in the mix. Harvard's Gino Gordon and Treavor Scales, who were third and fourth, respectively, and Penn's Lyle Marsh, who was fifth, also are back this season. Besides Zych and Money, some of the top defensive players trying to slow the offenses are Princeton linebacker Steven Cody and Brown cornerback A.J. Cruz. IVY LEAGUE PRESEASON POLL (Media) 1. Harvard (10 first-place votes), 128 points 2. Penn (6), 124 3. Brown, 95 4. Yale (1), 83 5. Columbia, 61 6. Princeton, 55 7. Dartmouth, 39 8. Cornell, 27
<< It could be an offense year in Ivy League
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - To new Princeton head football coach Bob Surace, the golden words that James Perry used this past winter in describing his philosophy while he interviewed for the position of offensive coordinator were "fast
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL BETTINGNCAA Football Betting : USC's reward: Top spot in Top 25NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking. No. 1 always seems to fit USC. Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent. Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory. Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3. "We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team." Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time. "Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team." The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points. "I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won." Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State. "There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?" USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll. "It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter." While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls. As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule. But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference. Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com. The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road. The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second. The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia. No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday. Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee. Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina. Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson. The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996. South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20. The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24. Get free Sports Betting lines RSS feeds from top rated online sportsbook MySportsbook.com |
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