ESPN College GameDay 2014: Week 13 Schedule, Location, Predictions and More
Football may not be the first thing that comes to mind when Harvard and Yale are brought up, but the two Ivy League schools know what they are doing on the gridiron.
In fact, the Crimson are a perfect 9-0, while the Bulldogs are 8-1. Saturday marks the 131st version of “The Game,” and the Ivy League title is on the line. ESPN’s traveling pregame show responded accordingly and will air College GameDay on Harvard’s campus before the rivalry showdown:
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It is the second time during the 2014 season that College GameDay has been to an FCS game, with the first coming in Fargo, North Dakota, for the North Dakota State and Incarnate Word Academy meeting.
Here is a look at the essential information for the show before looking at a preview and prediction of Saturday’s game.
ESPN College GameDay: Week 11 Info
Date: Saturday, Nov. 22
Time (ET): 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Watch: ESPN
Live Stream: WatchESPN
In case you were not fired up enough for this high-stakes rivalry clash, Harvard University shared a hype video:
If Harvard wins, it is the outright Ivy League champion, while a Yale victory would earn the Bulldogs a share of the title and open up an opportunity for Dartmouth to claim a portion of the championship as well with a win over Princeton.
This may be a rivalry, but Harvard has dominated as of late. In fact, the Crimson have seven straight victories against Yale and have won 12 of the last 13.
What’s more, only Ohio State and Boise State boast a higher winning percentage since 2001 than Harvard, so this whole winning thing is not a new phenomenon in Cambridge.
Something will have to give on Saturday because Harvard has the Ivy League’s best scoring defense at 11 points allowed per game, and Yale features the conference’s best scoring offense at 43 points a contest.
Harvard’s scoring defense is actually top in the entire FCS, second against the run (82.6 yards per game), second in first downs allowed (148) and ninth in yards allowed per game (292.8). It will have to slow down Tyler Varga, who leads the Ivy League with 1,296 rushing yards.
Varga turned some heads across the college football landscape when he gashed Army’s defense in a 49-43 Week 2 upset win for 185 rushing yards and an astounding five touchdowns.
Yale coach Tony Reno believed that the Army game from earlier in the season will help his squad in this upcoming marquee showdown, via Paul Doyle of the Hartford Courant: "It was a pretty big environment. I think the big stage, we've already handled that. That was really nice to have that."
While Varga will put up some numbers based on talent alone, the difference in the game will be when Harvard has the ball.
That strength vs. strength matchup will cancel each other out when the Bulldogs offense goes up against the Crimson’s stingy defense, but the middle-of-the-pack Yale defense that allows 29.8 points a game will not be able to slow down running back Paul Stanton Jr. and the Harvard offense.
That will be a serious problem because of how difficult it is to score on the Crimson’s top-ranked defense.
Harvard’s offense is averaging 32.9 points a game, largely because of Stanton Jr. He tallied four touchdowns in last year’s 34-7 win against Yale and is fresh off a career-high 235 rushing yards and three touchdowns against Penn in a 34-24 victory.
Stanton Jr. is red hot entering this rivalry showdown, and he has the Ivy League’s best defense to back him up on the other end. Harvard will make it an unprecedented eight consecutive wins over Yale.
Prediction: Harvard 41, Yale 23
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