Football drops Ivy opener, loses Culbreath for season
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
The Princeton University football team suffered two major losses Saturday, but it’s hard to determine which is the bigger.
The Tigers were handed a 38-0 loss by Columbia in both team’s Ivy League opener, the largest loss by Princeton in the 125-year history of the series. The Lions were 32-7 winners in 1945, and their last win at Princeton came on a Hail Mary pass in 2003.
”I was really disappointed,” said PU head coach Roger Hughes after his team fell to 1-2 overall, 0-1 in Ivy play. “I felt we had one of the best weeks of practice we’ve had and really felt that that would carry over as we learned how to win a game last week, but clearly it didn’t.”
After the game, Hughes announced that Jordan Culbreath, last year’s Ivy leading rusher with 1,206 yards and 11 total touchdowns, is likely out for the season. He did not suit up for Saturday’s game. He played the first half at Lehigh last week before leaving with an ankle injury. Princeton also faced the Lions without starting fullback Matt Zimmerman due to the flu.
”Jordan is in the hospital at Robert Wood Johnson,” Hughes said Saturday. “He has been diagnosed with anemia. We’re trying to find out what the issue is. He’s undergoing tests right now, but it appears at this point, he will not be available for the rest of the season.”
Culbreath had one fumble in 313 career touches. Princeton fumbled twice in the first half – both times inside their own 20. The Lions turned them into a 9-0 halftime lead, then extended it to 17-0 early into the second half on an interception return for a touchdown.
”Last week, we saw when we didn’t turn it over and our defense created turnovers, that was the difference in the game,” Hughes said. “I would argue that certainly the momentum of the game, that was the story of the game as well.”
Princeton moved between the 30-yard lines, but only threatened seriously once. Tommy Wornham rushed for 99 yards, but was just 11-for-36 for 135 yards. He was hurt by several dropped balls , but also misfired on several of his passes.
”I think we were our own problems,” Hughes said. “We just didn’t execute like we should have. They didn’t do anything differently than we thought they would have. It’s just a matter of execution. When it’s third down, you have to make the throw, you have to make the catch, you have to block, you have to do those things to make plays with the football and we didn’t do that.”
The Tigers never had a drive reach the red zone, and their only touchdown was called back by a penalty. It was too much to counteract the three major turnovers.
”The thing is we’re not scoring points offensively,” Hughes said. “You can overcome it if you can score points. Right now, we’ve got to get more points. That makes our margin for error very small.”
Princeton has a short turnaround this week. Unbeaten Colgate visits Princeton Stadium 7 p.m. Thursday. The game will be televised by ESPNU.
”In some respects, while I don’t like to lose with the score the way it was, maybe it’s easier for a team to bounce back from this loss,” Hughes said. “It’s easier to turn the page and say we just had a bad game rather than lose on a last-second Hail Mary. We have Colgate coming in here in five days.
”I told the team, you at least get a chance to erase a bad memory. We have a lot of work to do between now and then to make sure we play better.”