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.