Tigers share crown with Yale after topping Dartmouth
By: Justin Feil
After 10 seasons looking up, the Princeton University football team has reached the top.
With Saturday’s 27-17 win over Dartmouth at Princeton Stadium, the Tigers secured their first Ivy League championship since 1995. Princeton, 9-1 overall, 6-1 in Ivy play, will share the title with Yale, a 34-13 winner at Harvard on Saturday. Dartmouth fell to 2-8 overall, 2-5 in the Ivies.
"I think two words describe this whole season and that’s divine inspiration," said Princeton head coach Roger Hughes. "There are things that happened this season that clearly came from someone other than our team. Without that help, this season would not be possible.
"I’m so proud of our players. Everyone had us written off at the start of the season, picking us sixth in the league, and these kids just found a way to come together chemistry-wise probably as good as any team I’ve been around."
Picked to finish sixth in the Ivy League preseason media poll, Princeton relied on what it has all year for Saturday’s win – a strong fourth quarter. After Dartmouth tied the game on its final possession of the third quarter, it was the Tigers who dominated fourth-quarter play.
"Somehow I knew we were going to have to work for this one just like we had to work for every one this year," said PU quarterback and co-captain Jeff Terrell, who finished 29 for 46 for 257 yards and a touchdown and also ran for 30 yards. "They weren’t going to lay down for us. We did get up early. They’re a good team. They’re going to fight back. We were able to keep our confidence, keep our poise and finish the game."
The Tigers took the lead for good, 20-17, on a 25-yard field goal from Matt Lichtenstein – the first of his career – two minutes into the fourth quarter. It was Lichtenstein’s first career attempt in place of Conner Louden, whose 26-yard attempt in the third quarter was blocked by Dartmouth’s Cullen Gilchrist.
"I thought Matt had earned his opportunity through his hard work in practice to get an opportunity to kick," Hughes said. "To his credit, he came through and hit it."
The Tigers stopped the Big Green’s next possession when Princeton safety Kevin Kelleher stepped in front of Brett Lowe to intercept a deep pass from Mike Fritz. The Tigers ended Dartmouth’s next possession when Brig Walker sacked Fritz and stripped the ball. The Big Green recovered the fumble, but were forced to punt back to Princeton with 6:35 left to play.
"We’ve done it all year, come back," said Tiger fullback Rob Toresco, who added the insurance touchdown on the next possession. "Harvard and Penn, and we’ve been able to finish it out."
The Tigers didn’t give the ball back to Dartmouth until after Toresco had scored on a 3-yard option run to the right side with 1:03 left in the game for the final 10-point cushion. Toresco’s run capped a 12-play, 67-yard drive that ate up 5:32 of game clock and left no doubt that Princeton would seal an Ivy title and far exceed anyone predictions.
"I felt we were going to have a pretty good defense if our linebackers would come on," Hughes said. "I thought our front would be one of the better in the league and I thought our secondary had a chance to be the best in the league. I thought we had a great punter and that gives us a chance. I thought we had good enough skill on offense to be pretty good at some point if we could get our line to come along. Did I dream we’d be 9-1? No. But I felt like if we could just hang in there, if our defense could hold us in there the first few weeks, and our offense kind of gelled together and got some chemistry, maybe we could do some things. They’ve exceeded all my expectations as well."
The tie between two teams is the first since 1999 when Yale and Brown shared the Ivy crown. The championship is Princeton’s ninth in the 50 years of Ivy football. It caps the careers of the 18 seniors who own the distinction of being the first class to improve by at least two wins every year in their careers.
The Princeton seniors are: Rob Anderson, J.J. Artis, Brett Barrie, Brian Brigham, Joe Dolan, Chris Gueits, Cleo Kirkland, Joe Kovba, Chris Lee, Jake Marshall, Colin McDonough, Mike Meehan, Brian Shields, co-captain Luke Steckel, Tim Strickland, Terrell, Kyle Vellutato and Brig Walker. They were a part of the team that came up one game short of an Ivy crown last year after allowing a Yale comeback. They helped put that nightmare out of their heads with Saturday’s win over Dartmouth.
"The championship means everything because these kids deserve it," Hughes said. "To come back from the devastating loss that we had to Yale last year when we were so close, and to still put out the same kind of effort. That was my main concern coming from last year. They worked so hard and still came up short. Would they put that same kind of effort in? When you talk about what Jeff and Luke do for this team, that’s exactly what they did. They wouldn’t let them no do that. The senior class did a great job."
The Big Green did not back down even after Princeton jumped to a 14-0 lead in the first half. They tied the game, 17-17, with 1:24 left in the third quarter on an 11-play drive aided by a pass interference and a Fritz to Mark Brogna 19-yard completion. Princeton didn’t make it easy as they stopped the Big Green’s first three attempts from inside the 3-yard line before Fritz scored on second effort. The score was the last of the game for the Big Green as the fourth quarter belonged to Princeton.
"It seems to be a characteristic of this team, the defining characteristic," Hughes said. "That’s how we win. That’s how we roll, as the kids say. This is what we do. We come back in the fourth quarter and take over a game. And that’s something we struggled for the first couple years here and that had a huge effect on the record we had at this point."
Princeton jumped to a 7-0 lead on its first possession of the game, a methodical, textbook 11-play, 68-yard drive that took 5:01off the clock. Terrell finished the drive off with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Munde. It was the sophomore H-back’s first career touchdown catch and came just five minutes into the game.
In the midst of the Tigers’ second possession, Terrell set a new school record for consecutive completions with his 16. The streak started at the end of the 34-31 win over Yale the week before. Terrell connected on his final eight passes against the Bulldogs, then hit on his first eight against Dartmouth before a deflected pass was intercepted. Princeton got the ball right back when Walker forced a fumble and Doori Song recovered.
The Tigers built their lead to 14-0 with 10:46 left in the second quarter with another double-digit drive. In 10 plays, they covered 60 yards. On the drive, Terrell hit Brigham for a 26-yard completion, then kept the drive alive with a third-down pass to Brigham at the goal line. On the next play, Terrell pitched the ball to Toresco, who scored easily on the option run to the right corner.
The teams exchanged field goals, with Dartmouth’s Andrew Kempler connecting on a 21-yarder after Tim Strickland was able to reach up and bat away a third-and-goal pass intended for 6-foot-5 Ryan Fuselier, who came into the game leading the Ivies in receptions per game.
Princeton came right back with a 13-play drive, kept alive once with a 7-yard completion from Terrell to Brigham and a second time with a fourth-down completion to Toresco in the face of a unblocked blitzer. The Tigers, though, had to settle for a 29-yard field goal from Louden.
It was Dartmouth that gained momentum going into halftime with an 81-yard drive that took barely a minute. It was Princeton that actually called time out before a third-and-12 play, but Fritz found Brian Evans down the middle of the field. Evans was closely defended by Strickland, who also had his hands on the ball, but it was the Dartmouth receiver who was awarded possession on a 45-yard catch. Two plays later, Fuselier went up over Strickland in the front left corner for a 14-yard touchdown catch to make it 17-10 with 34 seconds left before halftime.
"I thought we let them hang in the game with a couple secondary breakdowns," Hughes said. "I thought we had the game under control at one point and credit Dartmouth, a team that comes in here and is struggling to find success, and believe me, we’ve been on that other end, and Coach (Buddy) Teevins to have them playing as hard as he did and believing, is a credit to their staff and players."
It is the Princeton team and staff that believed that Saturday a championship would finally come back to Old Nassau.
"This team was about chemistry," Hughes said. "It was about team. I’m speechless frankly. You work so hard to get to this point, you come close and you don’t get it. You wonder if it’s ever going to happen. These student-athletes made it happen."
Added Terrell: "No one gave us a shot. I think it makes it all the more sweet."