Brown football sets sights high in the Ivy League. Here's where they're picked to finish.

The next step for Brown is to reach the top half of the Ivy League’s football standings.

The Bears have steadily improved under coach James Perry. They reached the .500 mark overall last season and closed 3-4 in league play. That matched the program’s combined victory total against conference foes from 2017-22.

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Recent powers such as Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth present the next obstacles. They’ve all been selected inside the top four of the 2024 preseason poll. Brown sits sixth (of eight teams), according to the league’s media members and coaches, trailing the Bulldogs, Crimson, Penn, Princeton and the Big Green.

“This is the deepest roster we’ve had,” Perry said. “A lot of work to do — we know how tough the league is. We know the challenges in front of us.”

Yale received six first-place votes to top the poll, which was released last week. Harvard closed second despite receiving one more first-place vote — perhaps that reflects some uncertainty the Crimson face entering the year. Tim Murphy has left the program’s sideline after an extended run of success, and Andrew Aurich joins Jon Poppe (Columbia) and Dan Swanstrom (Cornell) among new faces.

“These are guys who know the league very, very well,” Perry said.

The Bears enter with a legitimate star on both sides of the ball. Jake Willcox returns at quarterback as a Walter Payton Award nominee . Isaiah Reed leads the defensive backfield as a Buck Buchanan Award nominee.

How will that translate over the next few months? Willcox threw for nearly 3,000 yards last season but lost his top two receivers in Wes Rockett and Graham Walker. New options recruited and developed by Brown’s staff will need to make a jump.

“I think we do a really good job of competing,” Willcox said. “I think competition breeds excellence — it's something coach Perry has instilled in us since the first day I got here. That’s how you become a better team.”

Reed collected five interceptions, eight pass breakups and 50 tackles for a defense that allowed 13.4 fewer points per game last season than it did in 2021. The Bears have been progressively better on that side of the ball but still have room for improvement. Brown has a handful of replacements to make entering training camp.

“We’re going against great competition every day in practice,” Reed said. “It makes games a lot easier. We’ve built a culture.”

The Bears will open Sept. 21 at Georgetown before three straight headline matchups. They will host Harvard in the league opener on Sept. 28 before consecutive in-state battles to begin October. Brown will welcome Bryant before visiting the University of Rhode Island in the latest chapter of the Governor’s Cup.

“We’ll have seven fifth-years,” Perry said. “We have 25 seniors. It's a really deep and veteran group of guys who have worked hard to get Brown football in a place where it can compete.”

bkoch@providencejournal.com

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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Brown football sets sights high in the Ivy League. Here's where they're picked to finish.