PU football improves to 5-0
By: Justin Feil
It was good to be a Tiger on Friday.
The Detroit Tigers took a 3-0 lead in the American League Championship Series, and the Princeton Tigers football team stayed perfect at the halfway point to its season with a 17-3 win over Brown before 10,136 fans at Princeton Stadium. The win enabled the No. 22 ranked Tigers to improve to 5-0 overall, 2-0 in the Ivy League while the defending champion Bears fell to 1-4 overall, 0-2 in the Ivies.
It was the second night game in three weeks for the Tigers and first since 1991 for the Bears. Friday night or Saturday, the Tigers have made Princeton Stadium an unpleasant place for Brown. The Bears are the only Ivy League team to have never won at Princeton Stadium and Brown hasn’t won in Princeton since 1996.
That streak stayed intact thanks to another dominating defensive performance and some timely third-quarter scores that gave the Tigers control. It was the lowest point total for Brown since they were shut out by Yale in their 1996 season opener.
"To shut Brown down to three points, their offense always scores points," said Princeton head coach Roger Hughes whose team is 5-0 for the first time since the Tigers last Ivy title in 1995. "Phil Estes (Brown coach) does a great job with their offense. To get the pressure we did and make things happen on both sides of the ball like we did, the neat thing is these kids never panicked."
Brown entered the game with the third-best total offense in the league with 380 yards per game, but was held to 157 total yards. The Bears’ air attack, tops in the Ivies at 289 yards per game, netted just 116 yards.
"Clearly a team that’s balanced is tougher to defend," Hughes said. "We were able to shut down the run game early and then kind of tee off and go after DiGiacomo. If your quarterback isn’t playing well in a pass offense, you’ve got problems."
Princeton caused three turnovers, two on interceptions of Brown’s Joe DiGiacomo. The Bears quarterback entered the game ranked fourth in Division I-AA with 272 yards passing per game, but was limited to just 71 yards. Princeton didn’t make anything easy, totaling seven sacks, including three by Tom Methvin.
"League game, we’re 4-0, this is a big league game, all league games are big for us, and we came out with some excitement," said Methvin, who also made the stop to win the Colgate game in overtime last week. "We came to play tonight. It’s a team win, team defense. A lot of times when I’m getting through, it’s because we have blitzes on, we have backers putting pressure on. I really attribute it to a team win."
Against Colgate, the Tigers shut down a run-based offense. Against Brown, it was the passing game that was stopped after the Bears were limited to 41 yards rushing.
"We don’t want to see teams to see us vulnerable either way," Methvin said. "We’re a team that handle the run or the pass. When we scout teams, we play accordingly."
Rob Toresco, who was a pretty good player on Friday nights up the road at Hunterdon Central High, gave the Tigers the go-ahead score on a leaping catch over the middle with 2:11 left in the third quarter. The third-down conversion ended a seven-play drive that began after Brown’s punt sailed just 22 yards to give Princeton the ball at the Bears 43. Toresco’s score, followed by Connor Louden’s extra point, gave the Tigers a 10-3 lead and Brown would draw no closer.
"They were still obviously in the game," Methvin said. "That’s crucial to get ahead. Once our offense came out ahead, we know they’re going to go on the pass. Then it’s time to strap it on and go. That’s really the time you need to turn it on and get to the quarterback."
Brown returned the ensuing kick for a 91-yard touchdown, but the return was called back to the Brown 28 due to a holding penalty. Methvin and Doori Song tackled DiGiacomo for an 8-yard loss and three plays later, the Bears were punting back to Princeton.
On the Tigers’ second play, Jeff Terrell hit Brendan Circle for a 40-yard touchdown pass. Circle caught the pass at the Brown 28, but spun away from the ankle tackle of Jose Yearwood and was untouched the rest of the way for a 17-3 lead with 6 seconds left in the third quarter. Terrell finished 17 for 27 for 185 yards and the two touchdowns and also led the Tigers with 57 yards rushing.
"We came in at halftime and said, we’re just going to do Princeton does on offense," Hughes said. "And Jeff did a great job. We had a good opening drive even though we didn’t score against very bad field position. We started moving the ball, the kids started settling down and good things started to happen."
The Princeton defense came up with another turnover as Brown back-up quarterback Matt Nuzzo, in for DiGiacomo, scrambled downfield. The pursuit caught up and Mike Meehan knocked the ball out and the Tigers’ Tom Hurley recovered.
"They played tremendously well tonight," Hughes said of his defense. "Whatever this team does, doesn’t surprise me. I think we surprised people in the first three games, but now, whatever they achieve and whatever they do, they never cease to amaze me."
Princeton turned it right back to Brown when Will Thanheiser attempted an end around pass that was intercepted by the Bears’ Matt Mullanex at his own 36. It could have given the Bears momentum to cut the game to a one-score deficit.
"That’s my fault," Hughes said. "I was trying to put the nail in the coffin."
Aided by two 15-yard penalties on the Tigers, Brown drove to the Princeton 14. On fourth down-and-7, linebacker Luke Steckel intercepted Joe DiGiacomo’s intended pass for Paul Raymond at the goal line. Princeton took control and ate up 9:40 of the clock before Louden’s 36-yard field goal was blocked.
"It was huge," Hughes said of Steckel’s first career interception. "Psychologically for them, they’d just gotten a turnover and gotten the penalty to keep the drive going. So they went down the field and they were almost ready to score and Steck’ comes up with a big interception to hold them out. The other thing it did was motivate our offense and we took a lot of time off the clock running the football."
Neither team had much success moving the ball in the first half. Princeton got on the board first with a 28-yard field goal by Louden. On the seven-play, 47-yard drive, Terrell found Brendan Circle for an 11-yard pick-up and a late hit penalty moved the ball inside the red zone. Three plays netted just eight yards from there, however, and Louden converted his sixth field goal of the season for a 3-0 lead.
Brown tied the game with its first drive of the second quarter. The drive begun at the Princeton 42 after the Tigers had to punt from their own 6-yard line. The Princeton defense allowed Brown just 14 yards of real estate and Steve Morgan’s 45-yard field goal had just enough distance for a 3-3 tie with 13:47 left before half.
Neither team could mount much more offensively in the first half. The Tigers held Brown to three first downs and 68 total yards of offense in the first half. Princeton’s J.J. Artis ended Brown’s final drive of the first quarter with a diving interception at the Tigers 22-yard line.
Tim Strickland nearly accounted for another Princeton interception but he lost a jump ball between Lonnie Hill and Bobby Sewall. Hill was credited with the catch. The Tigers halted the drive with, what else, a sack by Peter Buchignani.
"A lot people questioned how young we were initially," Methvin said. "But now we’ve seen a lot of our guys shine, we’re really happy with this defense we have. The key is everybody has been in their place. Everybody’s been doing their jobs. It shows out here in these games."
Princeton will try to do it again next week when they host preseason Ivy favorite Harvard on Saturday at Princeton Stadium. The Tigers ended a nine-year losing streak to the Crimson last year, and Saturday stopped the defending Ivy champion Bears.