PU football looks to avoid trap

No. 15 Tigers return to road at Cornell

By: Justin Feil
   The Princeton University football team faces the classic trap this week.
   It’s not just midterms that could take away from the Tigers’ focus. The Tigers, coming off an historic win over similarly unbeaten Harvard that has helped them climb to No. 15 in the national rankings, take their perfect 6-0 record on the road to Ithaca, N.Y., to take on a struggling Cornell squad 1 p.m. Saturday.
   The Big Red comes off a three-touchdown loss to Brown that dropped them to 2-4 overall, 0-3 in the Ivy League. Princeton, which is 3-0 in conference, looks to remain in at least a first-place tie with Yale, which hosts Ivy winless Columbia.
   "We haven’t had great success there the past few years," said Tigers head coach Roger Hughes. "They’ve done a great job with their special teams and they play great defense. I think they’re an offense that if they get a little rhythm going, they’re very dangerous. Our kids have to remain focused and we have to finish everything we do up there. We’re very concerned. They’re certainly much better than their record indicates. We’ll certainly have our hands full.
   "They certainly play much, much better at home," he added. "They play hard all the time and take it to a new level in front of their fans. We have to make sure we remain focused and make sure we play our game and don’t get caught up in what they do."
   For all the numbers that show that Saturday could be a big Princeton win, there are more numbers that would suggest it will be much tougher than expected. The Tigers needed overtime to beat Cornell at Princeton Stadium last year when they were in the midst of a second-place Ivy finish. In their last trip to Ithaca, in 2004, Princeton lost when it’s point after was blocked. In 2002, Princeton needed overtime on the road to win at Ithaca.
   "It always seems to be something," said PU defensive lineman Mike Meehan. "You can’t prepare that way. You can’t assume that the game is going to be decided on, I hate to call it a fluke, but something small. You have to prepare like it’s any other game."
   But knowing the recent history of the series, in which only one of the last six games has been decided by more than three points in regulation, is helpful in keeping the focus squarely on beating the Big Red. Cornell has played some of its best football at home, including a resounding 38-14 win over Colgate, a team that the Tigers needed overtime to beat. But when Cornell has struggled out of the gate, they have had trouble winning games. It makes a good start for the Tigers, who have been one of the best finishing teams in the Ivy League, that much more important.
   "Just looking at their record and our record, they’re a very dangerous team to us because of that," Meehan said. "They’re a team that knocked off big-time Harvard last year right after our game. They’re known for being a sleeper. In that regard, you’d like to be able to put them down right away. If they’re 0-3 in the league, you try to get them to think 0-4 before they can start thinking, maybe we have a shot."
   Meehan will be part of a Tigers defense that faces another unique challenge. One week after pushing Harvard’s Clifton Dawson into second place in the Ivy rushing standings, they’ll face a Cornell team that has three of the league’s 10 top rushing individuals. They Big Red rank second in the conference in rushing offense.
   "It’s a lot different just because Harvard has an all-world guy like Clifton Dawson," Meehan said, explaining of Harvard’s attack, "They run a lot of power, they ran a lot of iso, anything to get Clifton Dawson the ball basically. Cornell, they seem very impartial about who runs the ball. They run a lot of option, quarterback reading zone blocking schemes. They kind of thrive on someone being out of place. They test team’s discipline whereas Harvard just runs it down your throat and tests your ability to stop that."
   Added PU defensive coordinator Steve Verbit: "They present a major problem just from a discipline standpoint. They do a lot of things very similar to us. They prey on the lack of discipline of a particular defense. It creates opportunities to make big plays."
   The Princeton offense, too, tests teams’ discipline. The Tigers, however, are in the middle of Ivy’s rushing attacks, but consider it a key to their success at Ithaca.
   "A lot will be determined by how we handle their two inside people and how we handle their movement up front," Hughes said. "Coach (Jim) Knowles talked about his team being young. We start two freshmen on the offensive line. It takes them a little time to get used to the speed of the game. You try to simulate it in practice but you can’t. Our run game is based on how well we can handle the two inside guys, how well we adjust to their game speed."
   Cornell’s offense will have to account for the Princeton defensive line with Meehan and a host of others rotating in and out. The Tigers have been able to come up with key plays, whether it’s pressure, on Jake Marshall’s tipped pass that Kevin Kelleher came down with last Saturday to end Harvard’s chances.
   "On the defensive line, we’re in a five-man rotation where we consider all five guys starters," Verbit said. "We’ve got Mike and Jake, who are seniors. We’ve got sophomores Tom Methvin, Peter Buchignani and Matt Koch. They’ve all consistently gotten better, week in and week out. As we do, they all consider themselves starters. We try to keep them fresh, so they’re as good in the fourth quarter as they are in the first. That’s the way they’ve played. They’ve been pretty disciplined and handle responsibility. They play hard each and every week."
   They expect no less of an effort this week on the road at Cornell. The game will not be played on paper, and the Tigers have been sure to protect against it, as best they can.
   "The best way to do it is to just go about normal business and not make it any different," Meehan said. "We haven’t changed our routine since Game One at all. We’ve treated each week as the most important game of the year because it’s the one we’re playing this week. There’s no real way to protect against it except use your normal routine."
   And so far for the Tigers football team, the normal routine has included a win to polish off each and every week. This week, that routine gets a test of its own at a quiet giant slayer in Cornell.