Tigers football hopes to break another nine-year losing streak
By: Justin Feil
Justin Stull has played in his share of big games, but he knows this Saturday’s noon kickoff at Penn has some new implications in the Princeton-Penn rivalry.
"This is probably the biggest just because (it’s) late in the season, both teams have Ivy League title hopes that are realistic," said the Princeton University senior linebacker. "Harvard was a big game. And this year, we’ve been fortunate enough to find ways to win in the big games. It’s really a tribute to our coaches and the leadership of this team also."
Stull is part of the leadership core of the Tigers. He’s a senior who has been starting for three years. He’s also a co-captain this year, one who helped Princeton to defeat Harvard for the first time in nine years this season. Princeton has not beaten Penn since 1995, the year of the Tigers’ last Ivy championship, either.
The win over Harvard, followed by the overtime win against Cornell has Princeton at 5-2 overall, 3-1 in Ivy play, again in position to challenge the Quakers, who lost for the first time in Ivy play last week to force a four-way tie for first place. With co-leaders Brown and Yale facing off in New Haven, the Ivy race will have just two leaders after Saturday. The Tigers can keep themselves in control of their destiny with their first win against Penn, a 16-15 winner in last year’s matchup, in 10 tries.
"Every year, it’s a big game," Stull said. "This year is even bigger, like I said before, because of the Ivy League title hopes of both teams. It definitely helps when a team is closer to you in location. The more often you’re going to run into people that have ties to one school here or there. It’s a great rivalry. They’re going to play with a bunch of intensity. Like Coach said, they want to intimidate you. You have to step up and play hard against a team like that, otherwise you’re not going to come out and play well."
Philadelphia has a longstanding boxing tradition, and it sounds as though the Tigers are ready to try their hand in the ring with the Quakers. Penn brings a defense that had been leading the nation in rushing defense before losing to Brown last week, and is still the Ivy leader in team defense.
"They’re very physical," said Tigers head coach Roger Hughes. "They run a straight (five-man defensive line front) and they shift and stem their linemen a lot, which causes concern because they do it late in the cadence. They have good athletes and they have very tough, physical kids. The other thing you notice about Penn when you watch tape is you don’t see a lot of missed tackles and you don’t see a lot of yards after tackle.
"They want to intimidate you. They want to physically pound you into the ground and hurt you. I think that’s been the trademark since Al (Bagnoli) has been the coach there and they’ve done a great job of it. How do you go against it? You have to be sound. Like last year, we tried to make sure we had our people on their people and make sure we punch them as hard as they punch us."
It almost worked last year. The Tigers ran all over a Quaker defense that was then ranked No. 2 in the Ivy League. And Princeton came a missed field goal away from topping Penn. The one-point loss was typical last season of how close the Tigers were.
This season, the close games have gone Princeton’s way more often than not. Princeton has four wins by three points or less and one three-point loss. A win in a close on Saturday will go another step toward validating that the Tigers have turned the corner and put them two steps from an Ivy crown.
"Things have been pretty intense all season," Stull said. "I don’t think much has changed just because we’re winning now. That was the game plan from the beginning, to win every game. We approach it one-week at a time. Game plan is always the same, as far as intensity of practice and focus in meetings and things like that."
Stull adds that the fall break for Princeton University has helped the players direct their focus on the Quakers. But all season, the Tigers have been working to ensure their players are ready at any point in games for the game-changing moment. That doesn’t change with a break in the academic work.
"The biggest change we’ve made is our in-season conditioning," said PU strength coach Jason Galluci. "You think of conditioning as being a more physical component to the game. But we’re actually using it to train the mental component as well. What we’re trying to do is mid-practice, put our guys through some conditioning so that they now have to line up and not just execute physically but mentally as well so that they stay sharp, so we don’t have a breakdown or lapse because they’re fatigued.
"There are five or six plays a game that are going to change the course of a game, that are going to change the outcome. Our goal behind (mid-practice conditioning) is to try to make sure we’re sharp mentally when we start to fatigue physically so we don’t have a lapse. Or if that team we’re playing has a lapse, we’re ready to take advantage of it."
Princeton will be looking for every advantage it can find at Franklin Field, a home to the Quakers that has been quite friendly. Penn has lost just once in the Ivy League at home in the last decade. A Homecoming crowd will be there to root on the Quakers, who plan to honor their 1985 Ivy championship team.
"They’ve had very good teams," Hughes said. "There has been maybe with their tradition, a mystique there. That’s what I told the team. We’re not playing the mystique of Penn. We’re playing this year’s Penn team. We’re not playing the ghosts. We’re not playing the 1985 championship team. We’re playing the 2000 champions. We’re playing this year’s Penn team. We need to make sure we focus on what we need to do and not get caught up in all those things.
"There’s going to be a lot of distractions down there with all their celebrations. And, I think obviously that’s to their advantage to do that. Going and winning on the road at Harvard where I think there’s a similar mystique of the place, weird things happen in Harvard Stadium, and wee told the guys that and they found a way to fight through it. Hopefully we can take that experience and use it to keep ourselves in the right mental state and not let any of those things affect our play."
Getting off on the right foot figures to help the Tigers. They’re 5-0 in games they’ve scored first, 0-2 in games opponents have gotten on the board first. Saturday’s start could play a huge role in which was the game goes.
"If you watch how Penn has won games, they jump on people quick," Hughes said. "Their first- and second-quarter point totals are ridiculous.
"What we’re going to have to do is, in the games we haven’t played well, we’ve got off to slow starts. We need to start fast. And we need to make sure we maintain that kind of intensity as the game goes on."
It shouldn’t be hard to stay excited with so much riding on Saturday’s showdown. It’s the biggest game in the career of Justin Stull and his Tigers teammates because of one thing. The Ivy title hopes, as he said, they’re realistic this season with three games to go.

