Football in the Ivy League hasn’t been good since penicillin was discovered. But each year, against all odds, a handful of alumni from our esteemed, testosterone-deficient sports conference manage to sneak their way into the NFL.

2011 is no different, and six Ivy grads will be lacing up their cleats, donning their helmets and doing their best not to batter their boy-genius brains into oblivion this fall. Those players are:

• Brown’s Zak DeOssie (linebacker, Giants)
• Cornell’s Kevin Boothe (guard, Giants)
• Cornell’s Bryan Walters (wide receiver, Chargers)
• Harvard’s Matt Birk (center, Ravens)
• Harvard’s Desmond Bryant (defensive tackle, Raiders)
• Harvard’s Ryan Fitzpatrick (quarterback, Bills) [pictured right]

Brown’s David Howard, defensive tackle, was the lone Ivy Leaguer picked in this year’s draft, by the Tennessee Titans. He was later signed the Seattle Seahawks, and played in the team’s final pre-season game. Unfortunately, he was released late last week.

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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?