A Penn Athletics press release earlier today announced that the football game this year at Princeton will be moved to Friday November 7th from Saturday the 8th. (Actually I just read the Princeton Athletics release and it’s more detailed). The reason for the change? So it can be aired live on ESPNU. The meeting will be the 100th between the schools.

The Quakers’ previous game is Saturday the 1st home against Brown, so the short week should not be that big of a deal. Princeton, meanwhile, will be disadvantaged more by the short week. They play at Cornell on the 1st.

But The Tigers are used to playing under the lights on a national TV audience on Friday night. They beat Brown 17-3 two years ago and Cornell 34-31 last year, both Friday ESPNU games.

This would be the first non-Saturday game the Quakers have played since Thursday October 10 at Villanova in 2002.

What are your thoughts about the change? Post in the comments below.

Welcome aboard, Mansfield University of Mansfield, Pa., a town with a population around 3,000 and falling and an average income 14 grand below the state norm.

The Mountaineers are becoming the sixth member of the Collegiate Sprint Football League, the only conference of its kind in the nation, and you can read about it by clicking here.

With Penn’s first spring practice less than a month away, it’s time to start keeping an eye on the gridiron. First item of business: Robert Irvin’s balky shoulder.

Quakers coach Al Bagnoli said that Irvin will be on the field in a limited capacity throughout the spring.

“We’re not going to have him throw very much,” Bagnoli said. “But he is going to be in the huddle, he is going to be able to hand off, he’s going to be able to do some footwork stuff. I doubt he’ll be cleared to throw all out.”

The junior quarterback, who may end up taking a ninth semester, had surgery last March, then tried to come back for the 2007 season. It remains unclear to his coaches if he never fully recovered from that operation or if he took a hit in one of the first two games, but he was shut down after the loss to Villanova and went under the knife again in October.

“He’s in much better physical shape, including arm strength, at this time of the year than he was last year,” Bagnoli said. “One of the better things we’ve done is that once we saw the real state of his shoulder, we really shut him down very early. … So now he’s had from September virtually until [the coming] August [for] what should be a 3-to-6-month recovery time.

“Long-term, the prognosis should be outstanding. Short-term, we’ve got to be careful, because we don’t want a setback.”

Not too long ago, Cornell offensive lineman Kevin Boothe had his work cut out for him: stop Zac DeOssie, Brown’s standout linebacker. Now, the two Ivy Leaguers are together again on the field. But this time, they’re on the same sideline, playing for something a little bit bigger than an Ancient Eight title.

For the Giants, DeOssie, a rookie, has contributed to the revival of the special teams unit, which had struggled immensely in the past several seasons. He has served as a reliable longsnapper for the Big Blue — a position that Giant fans have an even greater appreciation for because of the Trey Junkin debacle. DeOssie frequently makes open-field tackles on kickoffs, as well.

In his second season, Boothe hasn’t been quite as significant, but he did see game action in the last meeting between this year’s Super Bowl teams. And Penn’s very own Jim Finn, whom the Giants placed on injured reserve at the beginning of the season, will be on hand to represent the Quakers next Sunday in Glendale, Arizona.

It’s about time these Ivy Leaguers got to play in the postseason.

It’s been a while since the DP beat this particular dead horse, but both the Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated do a good job of picking up the slack today. Props to them for showing all the hypocrisy surrounding the Ivy-football-playoffs debate.

Lots of good Big 5 stuff from the Inquirer today, too: Frank Fitzpatrick waxes nostalgic on the Palestra of yesteryear, Joe Juliano recaps another St. Joe’s-Gonzaga squeaker, and Mike Jensen does the same for Temple’s win last night while Mike Kern offers a sidebar.

Live updates of the game after the jump.
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In-game updates from the Harvard game can be found after the jump.

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You can see highlights of Saturday’s game here.

In-game updates of Penn’s 7-0 win over Princeton can be found after the jump.

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If you haven’t noticed, and if you’re reading this post you have, the blog has changed its look a bit. Most of the items in the right rail are still there, just in a slightly different order. We’ve added archives by month, as well as tags that will show what’s popping up most frequently on The Buzz.

Send any comments along to scurria@sas.upenn.edu.

In today’s football news, the Boston Globe does a fine profile of Harvard linebacker Peter Ajayi, which is almost enough for me to excuse them for snubbing Saturday’s Penn-Princeton game from their Friday preview rundown. The Brown Daily Herald briefly previews Yale’s tester against the Bears.

Today’s DP carries previews of the Princeton game and the weekend in the Ivy League along with our regular opp spot.