Yale loss a shock to Tigers

PU football disappoints big following

By: Justin Feil
   There were lines to get into the Princeton University football game Saturday, long lines of cars to leave it.
   Current Princeton students joined the alums in Princeton Stadium en masse, a rarity in recent years. It wasn’t the crisp, fall day that brought them. It was the Tigers football team, playing to keep destiny in their hands for the first time in a decade.
   Most of the season-high 18,265 fans left shaking their heads in disbelief, just as the Tigers were, as Yale rallied for two touchdowns in the final 1:14 for a 21-14 win. It was their fourth straight over the Tigers, to end those Ivy League title hopes for all intents and purposes.
   Brown defeated Dartmouth on Saturday to remain the only Ivy team with one loss, and the Bears face Ivy winless Columbia this Saturday in the season finale while Princeton will travel to Dartmouth.
   "What we’re playing for is pride," said Princeton head coach Roger Hughes, noting the Brown-Columbia mismatch on paper. "What we’re playing for is sending the seniors out with a 7-3 record, which is a vast improvement. When you’re in athletics, every contest you look to win and play the best you can. This team has demonstrated great character and the seniors have demonstrated great leadership and I expect us to bounce back from this and play well."
   The Tigers defense did its job Saturday. It held Ivy-leading passer Jeff Mroz almost 60 yards under his 258.6 yards per game passing average and limited the third-leading team offense nearly 130 yards under its 389 yards per game average. But they couldn’t overcome the short fields forced by seven Princeton turnovers on their final nine possessions of the game.
   Jeff Terrell had thrown six interceptions in his first seven games as a starter this year. He threw five — several of them tipped — against the Bulldogs. Princeton also suffered two fumbles, as Rob Toresco fumbled inside his own red zone, but the Princeton defense held Yale scoreless, actually driving the Bulldogs back 16 yards before intercepting Mroz for the second time in the game.
   The sixth turnover for the Tigers allowed Yale to take its only lead of the game. Terrell found Brian Shields over the middle as the Tigers tried to move from their own 20, but a hit by Yale’s Brendan Sponheimer sent the ball flying up in the air. Bobby Abare, a Bulldog freshman, cradled the ball out of the air and took it to the 1-yard line.
   Three plays later, Mroz scored on a quarterback sneak up the middle to make it 21-14 with 47 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
   "My first thought was let them score and we’d have some time to get it back," Hughes said. "Then, when we held them on first down, I thought, well we had a great goal-line stand before, their field goal kicker clearly had had some issues and we had been good at blocking extra points and field goals. I guess if we let them score we’d have a little extra time, but that’s the game-winner. We got it next possession and turned it over again so I don’t know if it would have made a difference."
   Just 27 seconds earlier, the Bulldogs tied it when Mroz found Todd Feiereisen for a 10-yard touchdown pass on fourth down to complete a 36-yard scoring drive.
   By that point, Princeton had gone more than 35 minutes without a score of its own. Princeton came into the game 6-0 in games it scored first, 0-2 in games it didn’t. That statistic was washed away when it surrendered the 14-0 lead it worked so hard to build.
   The Tigers, like Yale, scored their first touchdown on a fourth-down conversion. They were faced with 4th-and-12 on Yale’s 28. Terrell had great protection and found a wide-open Derek Davis in the right side of the end zone for the touchdown for a 7-0 lead with 1:20 left in the first quarter. Davis had five catches for 78 yards.
   Princeton’s second score came when Terrell found a wide-open Brian Brigham down the middle for a 32-yard touchdown on a third-and-long with 6:22 to go before the half. The Tigers couldn’t add a third score before the half when Terrell’s first interception ended their drive.
   "At the time, I was trying to put them away frankly," Hughes said. "I thought if we got to 21, we could have had the game well in hand, and we had the ball first in the second half. I think that turn of events really changed the momentum.
   "We did things today that we hadn’t done all year," he added. "Those are the types of things (that hurt), and I told the team ahead of time, turnover ratio is going to be crucial and clearly it was."
   Now, the Tigers try to bounce back and look for a 7-3 season, a record that would be the best in Hughes’ six seasons. Princeton will play at Dartmouth in a test as much of its resolve as anything.
   "We’ve established a culture of great work ethic and team camaraderie and team chemistry," Hughes said. "We want to maintain that. If we maintain that, it’s a great springboard to next week.
   "We’ll find out (if it exists). If the culture is true, and the culture is in fact what I think it is, it shouldn’t (end). They’ll be disappointed. It will bite and sting a little bit on Monday. Hopefully by Tuesday they put it away and start looking forward to next game. When you’re trying to build a program, these are the types of things you try to overcome."
   Princeton has succeeded in building a winner this year, even if it isn’t the winner of the one thing it has wanted all along, an Ivy title. The Tigers were disappointed to miss their chance. So too were thousands of witnesses, even if it wasn’t the show they were hoping to see.
   "The neat thing was the excitement around Princeton football, not only on campus but with alums around the country," Hughes said. "I think that says a lot for what this team has accomplished. And we’re not done. We have one game to finish up before we look back and say what a season it was."