Is it time for the Ivy league to offer football scholarships?

It’s been a few years now(2013) since the Patriot League has gone to offering scholarships save Georgetown. Last year the Patriot teams went 7-3 vs Ivy schools(almost 8-2 except Princeton’s 35-31 victory) including scores of 49-28, 63-35 and 55-13 vs PENN, Princeton, Harvard and Yale with Colgate, Fordham and especially Lehigh dominating victories. At some point you would think the coaches and alumni would become frustrated and want to change the playing field. If this trend continues do you think it is time for the Ivy schools to consider giving out football scholarships to draw back top recruits? Now I’m not advocating dropping the AI for admittance standards mind you.

On a side not I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Georgetown(who doesn’t offer scholarships) is the doormat of the Patriot League. Almost unfair playing field for them to try and compete vs other Patriot schools.

I’ll take “Things that are never going to happen” for $1000, Alex.

You’re probably correct but I can’t see them taking a butt whipping every year going forward and doing nothing about it. I could see them getting to the point of not even scheduling games vs Patriot if it continues. Do you see any other way of them trying to level the recruiting playing field?

Even in basketball they have evolved(even though it took forever) to allow an automatic bid for the NCAA tourney which they refused forever. Also the hiring of a top basketball coach has helped tremendously for recruiting.

From PENN coach Al Bagnoli “There’s very few need-based teams left for us to play,” said Penn coach Al Bagnoli in a conference call at Lafayette’s annual media luncheon Tuesday. “We have to decide philosophically how to proceed. I hope this isn’t the last game between Lafayette and Penn but the Ivy League is caught in a no-man’s land.”

I vote NO.

For a very large university (Texas A&M, U.Michigan) it would seem that they can hand out football scholarships without diluting their academic strength. However, I think that the academically strongest universities should focus on academics and not try to be football superpowers. It has long bugged me that Stanford (where I got my master’s) gives scholarships and preference in admissions to football players.

@DadTwoGirls Not sure why they can’t do both. Besides Stanford as you mentioned there is also Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame etc…Now they have all remained academic powerhouses not necessarily football powerhouses. However they have remained top academic schools but greatly increased their national prominence in football.

I’m not sure these colleges are interested in leveling the playing field.

Certainly they could consider allowing post-season play in football. I don’t see that happening anytime soon (although IMO it will happen before athletic scholarships), since obviously that impacts preparation for finals, which is not a consideration for basketball.

Former Penn coach (now at Columbia)

A top football or basketball coach costs money. I’m certainly not suggesting that Tim Murphy or Tommy Amaker aren’t making money hand over fist - they are. But they are certainly not in the Mike Krzyzewski ballpark, nor do I think alumni would want that either.

YES - they absolutely should, subject to the aforementioned academics and admission requirements not being reduced. Handing out scholarships in the Ivy will hardly result in them threatening to be football superpowers. If they can maintain admissions standards and become football superpowers, all the better.

The Ivies don’t offer scholarships in other sports either, and they are very competitive in many - rowing, squash, lacrosse, hockey. Some D1 schools don’t even have football. If the Ivies are happy competing against each other, why not continue as they are?

They need to drop to Div III in football, there they would be competitive. They can keep the other Div I sports that they are already competitive in.

@twoinanddone Because their football players are at risk of getting hurt when they play outside the Ivy league against scholarship players.

Plus you wouldn’t have enough games(7) to only compete against other Ivy schools.

The fact that a great deal of top academic schools are also highly successful in football by handing out scholarships should be a template. Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Michigan, Rice etc…I believe Stanford gives athletic scholarships while also offering top FA that are along the same lines of Ivy schools.

There are two routes to follow. The Stanford route or the UChicago route, tweeners will only get you embarrassed.

They can’t pick and choose divisions. If you are D1, you play D1 for everything, or you play club (and are there Club football teams? I don’t think so). If you drop to D3, it is for everything.

There was an exception for 4 hockey teams to stay D1 in 1970ish. Then there was another rule put in to let D3 schools play one male and one female team up to D1, but the team had to already be playing at that level and there are some rules about scholarships (Hopkins offers them for lax, but other schools can’t offer for hockey, title IX considerations, etc.).

I don’t see the problem. Harvard football plays at a lower level, and they are okay with that. They are never going to be Notre Dame or Stanford, but they play the other Ivies and 4-5 other schools that are at about their level.

  1. I don't think the coaches are ok with that
  2. The 4-5 other schools USED to be at their level...then they started handing out football scholarships and have risen above the Ivy league.
  3. Why exactly would they never be a ND or Stanford? They would have said the same back when the Ivy league dominated college football. In fact the Pac 12 comes extremely close to where they should aspire with Stanford, USC, UCLA, Berkeley, UW as top academic schools who also excel at football and all give football scholarships.

Since Stanford takes all the really good, smart athletes they’re really not any left. :-bd

Canadian school do not offer athletic scholarships. The level of play is mediocre. Students could care less.

The Ivy will not go scholarship. On the money side, there really is no need to. The Patriot is an FCS conference, and permits fully funded schools to provide 60 scholarships split among no more than 85 players. This generally allows the Patriot schools, or at least those who are fully funded, to be at least competitive financially with the Ivy financial aid for the vast, vast majority of recruits. This is one very large reason why the Ivy can be competitive in some non head count sports, where the scholarship dollars even at fully funded schools are diced so thin that the Ivy fincial aid is often as good if not better. Again, this may not apply to the top couple percent of salary earners on the coasts, but it manifestly applies everywhere else. More fundamentally, being non scholarship allows the Ivy schools to think they are better than everyone else, a long and storied tradition in the conference.

As far as records, yes the Patriot was on the positive side this year. Lehigh was really good, and they beat Penn, Princeton and Yale. Fordham also was 2-0, beating both Penn and Yale. The rest of the conference though was not quite so strong. Colgate was 1-1, Bucknell 1-1, Holy Cross 1-1, Lafayette 0-1, Georgetown 1-2. So the overall conference v conference record, in 2016, was Patriot 9 wins, Ivy 6. How is that conference dominance? Plus, these things change year to year. In 2015, Lehigh was 1-2 against the same three teams. That same year Princeton went 3-0 against the Patriot, waxing eventual champ Colgate, but finished 2-5 in the Ivy. Overall, in 2015 the conference records were exactly opposite, 9 Ivy wins to 6 Patriot. Does that mean in 2015 the Ivy was the “dominant” conference?

Over the last couple of decades, the Ivy has dominated the cross league records. Clearly the world of snobby east coast football changed when the Patriot went scholarship, and I think the two leagues are now in rough parity, which is where they should be. But to argue that the Patriot is dominating the Ivy or that the Ivy will change its ways? No. We are not there yet, and I doubt we ever will be.

This is a subject dear to my heart, as I played for a Patriot team before there was a Patriot league and my son is now playing in the Ivy. I am ecstatic that the Patriot went to the scholarship model, and think that one of the worst things the conference did was eliminate scholarship equivalencies in the early 1990s. There was some really bad football played on Patriot fields in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is getting better. But there are some institutional blocks that will keep the Patriot from really achieving dominance over the Ivy. The 85 roster limit is a killer, in my humble opinion, and the conference itself can’t ever be really healthy while you have some schools fully funding 60 schollys and others either not participating or funding at a level well below 60. The Ivys outdraw the Patriot schools pretty much across the board, and play in way cooler venues. That matters. So do the work out facilities, locker rooms, bling etc. The Ivy schools, with their generally obscene wealth, are pretty much all light years ahead of the Patriot schools in those areas. And of course the Ivys generally have an at least slightly better academic rep, and certainly a much broader academic reputation, which gives them a larger pool of potential recruits from which to draw.

As far as dropping divisions, pretty much every Patriot and/or Ivy team would destroy Division 3 schools. It’s just a whole nother thing. Penn is actually playing a Division 2 team this year, Ohio Dominican which is a very strong D2 program. Penn is likely going to be down this year, breaking in a new QB and pretty much a new defense. Plus, that game will be week 1 for Penn and week 4 for Ohio Dominican, (a huge advantage, that by the way kills the Ivy in week one games against the Patriot year over year). Still, I would expect Penn to handle OD pretty easily. Football is a different animal. There are significant differences division to division, because the scholarship numbers are completely different unlike virtually every other sport.

They would have to completely revamp their program in order to compete with top programs like Stanford and ND in recruiting top athletes with high gpa’s.

Plus, the coaching staffs at powerhouse schools make millions a year which is fine considering that those schools get an hour long commercial for twelve weeks a year. Not that the Ivy league needs commercials but the fan base (which translates into recruiting those 4 and 5 star recruits) for these top football schools is nationwide and those dollars go back into their program.

I’m with you, I’ll take Things that never happen for $1000 lol