Fun with Stats: Ivy League Football Breakdown

Here are some fascinating tidbits from the Ivy football stats, (they have now been corrected to give full credit for all tackles):

1) Drew Quinn is leading the Ivies in tackles. He's a full seven tackles ahead of the No. 2 tacklers, a tie between the Lions' Alex Gross and Princeton's Steven Cody. No. 4 is Columbia's Andy Shalbrack. So all four of the Ivy's top four leading tacklers will be on the field at Wien Stadium for Homecoming on Saturday.

2) Quinn is also tied for the league lead in fumbles forced with two.

3) After what seems like decades of being dead last in the league in rushing, the Lions are third in rushing offense. BUT, they are a full 42 yards per game behind the No. 2 squad, Princeton. AND Yale, with the great Mike McLeod is actually LAST in the league at this point in rushing!

4) Columbia is in a familiar seventh place spot in rush defense, BUT the Lions are a big 174 yards per game BETTER than the last place team, Dartmouth.

5) The Lions were No. 1 in pass defense last season, but are currently in dead last. Both of those stats are misleading.

6) Columbia is last in time of possession, a stat that is not misleading as the Lions have really suffered from that so far.

7) The Lions are tied with Cornell for the best turnover ratio in the Ivies, at +3.

8) The Ivy League's leading rusher, Jordan Culbreath is a Princeton Tiger. He will bring his 5.3 yards per carry average to Wien Stadium Saturday. Because Columbia is truly running the ball by committee so far, no Lion rusher is in the Ivy top 10 despite the fact that the team is third in rushing overall.

9) Shane Kelly leads the Ivies in TD passes with four. Only one of them has gone to Austin Knowlin. I'm guessing that will change and the league should be afraid.

10) Kelly leads the league in the mysterious statistic known as "pass efficiency." It's really an odd stat that doesn't quite tell you as much as you'd like. But I'll take it.

11) Jon Rocholl is a surprising sixth in the league in punting, but he has the longest punt of the season at 59 yards, and he's been playing like an MVP with two big saves on punt snaps above his head.