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Subject: 4-way shared title still possible Author: voy vey [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 16:00:33 11/12/25 Wed This week, if: Penn beats Harvard Princeton beats Yale Then.... Next week, if: Yale beats Harvard Penn beats Princeton whoever wins this week's Dartmouth/Cornell game also wins their week 10 game Harvard, Yale, Penn and (Dartmouth/Cornell winner) all finish 5-2. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: Son of Eli (For extra credit.) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:30:55 11/12/25 Wed But who would get the AQ?

[> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: voy vey (head exploding) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 17:09:30 11/12/25 Wed Good question! Complete speculation, but I assume the tiebreaker would be head-to-head among the tied teams. But that's just a guess. And if so, I think that regardless of whether it's Cornell or Dartmouth in the mix, Yale might get the AQ. If it's H, Y, Penn, Cornell -- Yale would have go 3-0 vs. those three to make this tie happen. They get the bid. If it's H, Y, Penn, Dartmouth -- Yale and Penn would be 2-1 while Harvard and Dartmouth are 1-2. Assumption here is that it then reverts to head-to-head, and Yale beat Penn. Either way, it's something like a 1 in 350 chance that the 4-way tie happens. I'll try to run some title probabilities before this weekend's games.

[> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: Son of Eli [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 18:55:57 11/12/25 Wed I agree. Yale would be 2-1 along with Penn and Harvard. Cornell/Dartmouth would be 1-2 against the other three. Yale would have beaten both Harvard and Penn so Yale would get the tiebreaker for the AQ. Assuming I’m correct on how the tiebreakers work.

[> Subject: This nearly happened Author: Ivy Inquisitior (2022) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 19:18:52 11/12/25 Wed Remember that fun topsy-turvy season three ago? Had Harvard beaten Yale, their would have been a four way championship tie. Yale barley won that game and was crowned as the long league champion.

[> Subject: ain't happening Author: holtsledge [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 20:15:52 11/12/25 Wed Pipe dream Harvard wins out bc they are the best team. I'm just worried about Cornell this weekend they have had our number last few yes., Craig is great but Remember Sauce has another year left for Dartmouth and will be the best QB in the league if he already isn't BTW I saw thr elusive and long silent Foehi the other day in Vero but we stil aren't on speaking terms

[> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: voy vey [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 20:53:39 11/12/25 Wed I averaged the win probabilities for each remaining game from Massey and Sagarin and based on those, here are the likelihoods for each possible combination of league champs: Harvard 72.29% Harvard, Yale 24.16% Yale 2.52% Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Yale 0.36% Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale 0.30% Harvard, Penn, Yale 0.19% Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Yale 0.10% Cornell, Harvard, Yale 0.08% Observations: * Princeton, Columbia and Brown are already eliminated. * The only scenario in which Harvard does not get at least a share of the title is if Yale is the sole champion (and that's a 1-in-40 longshot). 97.5% chance they get at least a share. * Probability that Yale gets at least share of the title: 27.7% (about 1-in-3.6) * Probability that Dartmouth gets a share of the title: 0.66% (about 1-in-150) * Probability that Penn gets a share of the title: roughly the same as Dartmouth * Probability that Cornell gets a share of the title: 0.18% (about 1-in-555) * As for the playoff AQ, obviously if H or Y win an outright title, they get the bid. With a shared title, since we don't know the exact tiebreaker process (has it ever been stated?), the following is just a guess, but I believe Yale would win the tiebreakers in perhaps every possible shared scenario. The one possible exception is very interesting: if there's three-way tie between H, Y and Dartmouth, things could get crazy. They'd all be 1-1 against each other. The NESN announcers for last week's Yale-Brown game speculated that the next tiebreaker is record vs. the next highest team in the standings. For H/Y/D to tie for the title, there'd also have to be a 3-way tie for the next highest spot -- Penn, Cornell and Princeton would all have to finish 4-3. And guess what? The three title claimants would all be 1-1 against those three. Next up? Brown. All three beat Brown. Last up, 0-7 Columbia, who all three have beaten. Then what? Point differential? Crazy stuff!

[> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: voy vey [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 21:00:33 11/12/25 Wed One typo in the last line. Should have been: The three title claimants would all be 2-1 against those three. (Not 1-1)

[> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: Hotspur [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 06:58:10 11/13/25 Thu Could pull name out of a hat, as was done once or twice for lacrosse AQ, IIRC.

[> [> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: sparman [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 07:24:13 11/13/25 Thu I don't think that has ever actually been done. Amazingly the formal rules called for a coin flip as a final tiebreaker at one time, but I don't think it ever came to that either.

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: Hotspur [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 16:26:43 11/13/25 Thu In 2003 there was a three-way tie for the lacrosse championship. Ivy League got two NCAA slots and Princeton got one on a tiebreaker. Tiebreakers could not separate Dartmouth and Cornell so a coin flip gave the slot to Big Green.

[> [> [> [> [> Subject: Good catch Author: sparman [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:44:21 11/14/25 Fri Surprisingly little mention of this in google searches.

[> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Good catch Author: Hotspur [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:07:54 11/14/25 Fri Couldn't find it either, but had a recollection. Did find a reference to it in a posting on the Cornell hockey forum.

[> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: John Harvard (Tie-Breaker) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:36:06 11/13/25 Thu How can the league not have established the tie breaker process as lately there have only been co-champions? Of course, if head to head is determinative, no tie breaker process is needed unless at least 3 teams tie. Regardless, it will be a mess if there is a 3 way tie with insinuations and suspicion if a process is disclosed/determined after the fact. Remember, Aurich has been following the traditional practice of not running up scores all season. If we get to where point differential matters, things might change.

[> [> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: DeepBlue [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:21:10 11/13/25 Thu They have: https://ivyleague.com/sports/2025/9/15/general-untitled-sportfile.aspx

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: sparman [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 10:27:18 11/13/25 Thu The chance of there still being a tie after applying the various ranking metrics is as close to nonexistent as we will ever see. But it likely dictates running up scores as much as possible.

[> Subject: Running Up The Score Author: An Observer [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:03:44 11/13/25 Thu Since the tie-breaker procedure quickly devolves to using the statistical ranking services, there can never realistically be a tie that survives this step. Direct point differential in Ivy scores will play no role. Having said that. . . . No doubt the ranking services indirectly reward running up the score, though perhaps with diminishing marginal returns to really piling on. I would hope that most of the better ranking services would build into their models a diminishing return on point differential, as that is analytically accurate. Beating an opponent by 28 is not four times as meaningful as winning by 7.

[> [> Subject: Re: Running Up The Score Author: voy vey [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 11:29:39 11/13/25 Thu ESPN only publishes SOR and FPI for FBS, so for those of us not "on the inside," those two rankings are a black box. KPI currently has Harvard #3, Dartmouth #5, Yale #7, and Penn #13 in FCS. Some serious Ivy love, there. Of course, as holtsledge aptly pointed out, most of this discussion is academic, as by far the most-likely outcome is Harvard beats Penn and Yale, removing all doubt about what happens next.

[> [> [> Subject: Re: Running Up The Score Author: John Harvard (Tie-Breaker) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 12:25:17 11/13/25 Thu If Harvard beats Penn, there will be no possibility of any tie breaker other than head to head with Yale.

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Running Up The Score Author: bulldog10jw [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 12:57:00 11/13/25 Thu If Harvard beats Penn and Princeton beats Yale all this speculation is moot.

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: Running Up The Score Author: John Harvard (Fun!) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 15:07:43 11/13/25 Thu In any previous year, the excitement at this point in the season would be on The Game and, for this week, the likelihood that Harvard and Yale would be playing only for whether Yale could join Harvard as co-Champion. Given the new post-season implications, as a Harvard fan, despite the rivalry and the question of whether Harvard would win the League title outright or not, the spector of a National Tournament, adding to that a possible top seed/bye, a possible home playoff game, and the potential for two bids in the league offers a lot more.

[> Subject: Re: 4-way shared title still possible Author: West Coast Crimson (Oy Vey) [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 17:21:29 11/14/25 Fri Why do you sick f*cks do this every year? "Always with the scenarios"