PU looks to bounce back against Penn

Tigers host Quakers on Saturday

By: Justin Feil
   The Princeton University football team lost at the hands of then-Ivy League last place Cornell last week.
   The University of Pennsylvania lost in overtime for the second straight week, both times when they failed to score a point in overtime.
   The two teams with plenty of prove square off 1 p.m. Saturday in Princeton Stadium. The No. 23 Tigers, who are 6-1 overall and 3-1 in the Ivies, are hoping to remain in control of their destiny. If they win out their final three games, they can do no worse than a share of the Ivy title. Penn, 4-3 overall and 2-2 in conference, is looking to get back on track, and keep alive its slim hopes of an Ivy crown, which would likely come via an eventual four-way tie for first place. First, both teams have to get over last week.
   "I don’t know if I’d call them wounded teams," said PU head coach Roger Hughes. "I’d call them two teams with a lot of pride and a lot of tradition, two teams that are highly competitive in all facets. It doesn’t matter (the records). It’s Penn-Princeton, if we were both undefeated or both winless this game, I’ve come to learn, means a whole lot more than people on the outside think. A lot of the alums may feel Harvard and Yale may be more important to them, but clearly to our players, this is a traditional bloodbath.
   "I don’t think frankly what happened last week with either team will have a whole lot of influence on what’s going to happen now. These games tend to be highly charged, very emotional, and usually it’s two pretty classy teams going after each other. That’s the kind of game I expect to see."
   For the first time in 10 tries, Princeton emerged victorious against the Quakers last year. The Tigers have to stop another streak now, the Quakers’ five-game winning streak at Princeton Stadium. Penn has never lost there, just as Harvard hadn’t before Princeton’s win over the Crimson at home two weeks ago.
   "We know what we have to do at this point," said PU quarterback Jeff Terrell. "We have to win three games in a row to accomplish our goal. Penn is the game on the schedule for Saturday. Definitely, it’s a big rivalry game, but it’s just the next obstacle for us."
   Terrell and the Tigers took just 24 hours to digest their first loss of the season. It’s been hard for them to figure exactly what went wrong against Cornell.
   "For whatever reason, I felt like it just wasn’t our day," Terrell said. "I don’t think there was anything else. You could say maybe there was an emotional letdown early in the game. We were just coming off what was really an emotional win the previous week, but all week last week we talked about that might be an issue. We said, we’re not going to let that be a distraction. I don’t know exactly what happened. We just didn’t feel like it was our day."
   Added Tiger safety Tim Strickland: "On the defensive side of the ball, we didn’t bring our A game. We didn’t run to the ball as well as we should have. We didn’t tackle as well as we should have. We weren’t in the game mentally like we should have been. We are prepared this week to correct those mistakes. I think you’re going to see a good effort on both sides of the ball."
   This week has been all business, all football as Princeton University is on fall break. The football team has tried to take advantage of the extra time for its preparation.
   "You get to walk through every scenario, every situation," Hughes said. "Unless Penn changes drastically on either side of the ball, we should be pretty well prepared for what we’ll see. The thing you can’t simulate in any practice is game speed. Hopefully by understanding what they’re doing at a higher level, we’ll be able to adjust to the speed change more quickly when the game starts."
   The Tigers are looking to rewind some time to return to the way they did things when they won the first six games of the season. Princeton looked like a different team against Cornell, committing errors they had not before and missing assignments that hadn’t been an issue earlier.
   "If we go back to being the Princeton football team we were the first six games, we’ll be a high-percentage completion offense, run our option effectively outside and then take what we can get with our inside game," said PU offensive line coach Greg Perry. "That’s us. That’s who we are offensively. We need to get back to that, which I’m sure we will. It gives our offense the best chance of scoring points. Our defense has done a wonderful job of controlling other people’s offenses. If we have our personality we had our first six games, I think that’s the key to doing well Saturday."
   As for Princeton’s defensive keys, they center around slowing down a strong ground attack led by Joe Sandberg and forcing their sophomore quarterback, Robert Irvin, to have to make plays.
   "We can’t let Sandberg run for 150-160 yards," Hughes said. "That’s where our defense has traditionally started. We want to make them one-dimensional. We have to do similar things we did with (Clifton) Dawson when we played Harvard. Sandberg is a big-play back. He makes good runs. He makes good decisions."
   Princeton limited Penn to just 84 yards rushing last year, a big key to snapping the nine-game series losing streak. Now the Tigers will try to beat Penn for a second straight year for the first time since the 1991 and 1992 seasons.
   "It’s going back to what we’ve been doing the first six games, just executing and taking it play by play and drive by drive, not trying to win the game with one drive or one play," Terrell said. "Just being patient, having poise and trusting the schemes. For me, not trying to do everything, just doing my part. Throwing to the open receiver."