When I think about college football, I think about perennial powerhouses like Florida and U.S.C. I don't think about, say, Harvard or Yale. So I was a bit taken aback when I came across this article on the New York Times sports blog, which likens the Ivy League football conference to the N.F.L. According to Princeton Coach Roger Hughes:

If you look at this league, because of the way it’s designed, the way we recruit, we’re more like the N.F.L. than any other conference... The N.F.L. has a salary cap. We have, quote, an education cap. We have very strict guidelines as to who we can recruit and how many we can recruit at different academic levels. And so, much like the N.F.L. they have to decide who to give all the money to, we have to decide who’s going to get those lower academic slots, and there’s only so many of those for each team, which means every team gets good players. The difference between us and the N.F.L. is we can’t go to the waiver wire. Once a kid gets hurt or decides to leave the team, we’re stuck with what we have.

As long as Ivy League squads adhere to the "education cap" and prohibit postseason play, they will continue stand in the shadow of more competitive teams. But thinking about all the additional restrictions Ivy League football coaches must maneuver in order to build their teams makes me respect them a lot more. It will be interesting to see what happens to the caliber of players as Ivy League schools continue to rachet-up their financial aid programs. Will there be an influx of smart and athletically talented individuals in the Ivy League? Or will it simply be business as usual?

This past weekend was Princeton Homecoming, though few people actually made it to the game. Then again, Homecoming is not about football. It's about drinking beer at tailgates and watching the KA and SAE pledges wrestle each other for a ball in a lagoon. Who cares if Yale beat the shit out of Princeton's actual football team?

Watch the homoerotic frat boys wrestle! It's like totally college.

You know it'll be a good e-mail when it starts like this:

YALE DAILY NEWS: PLEASE RESPOND ASAP - DEADLINE TONIGHT

It's like the reporter thinks it's our fault he's on a short schedule, his hastily-pressed caps lock key indicating the vital urgency of the following questions about Yale's attempt to sabotage Harvard's H-bomb-vs.-Y-bomb football smackdown t-shirts:

3.) Would you qualify this as a prank, and how so?
4.) I'm just curious what you mean by the obnoxious sixth grader comment.
5.) Do you expect this issue to intensify to anything else? A prank war perhaps?
6.) How effective was this Yale stunt at achieving what it is doing? And what do
you think it is trying to achieve?

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Despite having pointed out that Dartmouth is the worst team in college basketball, we noted with disapproval the suckers-only 35.5 point line assigned to a recent game at No. 5 Kansas. C'mon, Las Vegas -- that's just mean. That's a punchline, not a point spread. Shame on you.

Um. The Big Green managed to outdo itself, losing by 51. As the AP lede notes,

Teams have been coming into Allen Fieldhouse to play Kansas for more than half a century. Every one of them managed to score more points than helplessly outmanned Dartmouth Tuesday night.

At least no Native Americans were offended, though. That should definitely remain the Dartmouth Athletic Department's No. 1 priority.

Also in embarrassing Ivy sports news: Power-mad Harvard football coach Tim Murphy was re-signed through the 2011 season on Monday -- except he wasn't. According to Harvard Athletic Communications, Murphy was -- anyone else's acid reflux acting up? -- "reappointed." Only in the Ivy League.

We don't know what's worse, the fact that Harvard is trying to use a word that equates Murphy's job (for which he gets paid more than $100,000 a year to coach 10 meaningless games) with that of a dean or department chair, or the fact that the Crimson and Associated Press both took the bait. If he's King Murphy, does that make you his serfs?

Kudos to '79 Princeton grad William C. Powers, now a portfolio manager, who this week donated a whopping $10 million to those kids who are truly in need: Princeton football players.

Now, you can argue that the Tigers don't need the money. They are Ivy League co-champs, and they do play in a beautiful new stadium (to be renamed "Powers Field," naturally). But this team has had just four winning seasons in the last decade. That's almost as bad as the crisis in Darfur.

But before all you readers in the Holy See rush off to start the canonization papers, there's something you should know about Powers. He ... didn't give all he could. No, the bastard held out on us, alloting another $500,000 for the school's financial aid effort.

Son of a bitch. Doesn't he know a half mil could have re-sodded an entire practice field?

More pics from this weekend: Apparently the rumors were true -- when Princeton beats Harvard and Yale in football, they build a humongous bonfire. Even speeches and a marching band, as one grad student tipster complained about, can't make this uncool. More aflamery after the jump.

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We were dreading having to write a sleepy, dead-on-arrival item about The Game: Yale won, Harvard lost, a streak ended, yadda yadda yadda. Thank God, then, that MIT -- The Game's frequent disruptor -- gave us an angle on this yawn-fest. And as usual, that angle is nudity.

Streakers! God bless 'em. Late in the fourth quarter, the letters of his school writ large across his back, one brave MIT stallion wove around policemen, stadium security, and indifferent football players before being brought down near the Yale 40 yard line. His partner, perhaps imitating the Crimson offense, was brought down before he got going, cuffed near the edge of the field. If that guy's smug grin is any sign, he's getting a hero's welcome back home. Maybe he'll even get a new pair of socks.

Ivy League presidents and athletic directors go to great lengths to make sure that Ancient Eight sports are different (read: worse) than the rest of the NCAA -- no scholarships, a ban on football playoffs, no spectators showing up to games.

And so there will be a whole new vocabulary for the elite at The Game. They'll find themselves tossing around words like rehab, community service, probation, suspension, criminal mischief, breach of peace, breaking and entering, assault and criminal damage to property. And they'll wonder about the different approaches at Harvard and at Yale to violence among their student-athletes and the importance of winning The Game.

Hey, remember that book "Football: The Ivy League Origins of an American Obsession"? You know, the one that's currently the 559,294th best selling book on Amazon. You don't? Well, it must have made an impression on the one guy who bought it - filmmaker Erik Greenberg Anjou.

Fresh off his latest success, A Cantor's Tale, the Middlebury grad and former Cantorial music student is turning his attention to an equally gripping topic: Ivy League football. The film is set to be released sometime in 2007.

A documentary on Ivy League football? Someone must have already acquired the rights to watching paint dry and the grass grow.

Spotted at Saturday's Yale-Princeton game in New Haven: Barbara Bush '04, in top form. A stalker tipster writes in with exclusive pics:

Babs, recently back from lounging on the beaches of South Africa, er, I mean, kissing HIV orphans, strolling around the student tailgate in a tunic dress, tights, knee-high boots (dark sunglasses, natch) with on-again boyfriend Jay Blount (Yale '05), chain-smoking at the SigEp tailgate with a red cup in her back pocket and a drink always in her hand, surrounded by drooling Republicans and Thetas.

Maybe we're just not familiar with "tunic dresses," but take a closer look at that back pocket technique. Extraordinary! That's true Bush-caliber commitment to drinking.