PU football team to host Columbia in Ivy opener Saturday
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Any improvements that the Princeton University football team may have made between the first and second games were masked by six turnovers in a 34-9 loss to Bucknell on Saturday.
The Tigers slipped to 0-2 with their second straight loss to a more seasoned Patriot League opponent, but will open Ivy League play when they host Columbia 6 p.m. Saturday at Princeton Stadium.
”You have to get this bad taste out,” said PU head coach Bob Surace. “You hope you have a gem tomorrow. You can get back to work and start playing better. They know the deal.
”In the NFL, I played rookies all the time. I am not afraid to play young guys so if you don’t start playing better, I will make the changes. It is the reality of the situation. We need those guys to play better and start making plays. I hope they will. They have worked hard in practice, but it has to translate into games.”
Princeton had a good drive to start the game, though instead of a touchdown, they again had to settle for a field goal, though Patrick Jacob’s 43-yarder matched his career high for a good start. From there some fine plays by Bucknell set the Tigers deeper into a hole that they only dug deeper with miscues.
”For some reason,” Surace said, “whether it was the interceptions or the fumbles, guys are trying to do too much.
”When you haven’t gotten over the hump, sometimes that happens. I have got to get us over the hump. It is my fault. I’ve got to get through to them. You can’t score two touchdowns at once. When you are down two touchdowns, you come back and you score one.”
Bucknell got on the scoreboard with a safety, then took the lead for good when PU quarterback Tommy Wornham missed a shotgun snap deep in Princeton’s territory and Bucknell recovered at the 9-yard line. They scored a touchdown, then got another before the half when Bucknell’s Josh Eden intercepted Wornham’s pass and returned it for a 17-3 halftime lead.
”I really thought when we came out after halftime, we were moving the ball, we were taking it just like we said one play at a time,” Surace said. “And then two series in a row, we move it down the field and have a turnover. A little steam got let out of us.”
Wornham finished 15-for-33 for 174 yards. He completed a 12-yard pass to Brian Mills for the Tigers’ lone touchdown, which came in the fourth quarter. Wornham was also sacked twice and finished with three interceptions.
”I just think he was trying to put something where it wasn’t and trying to do too much,” Surace said. “We’ll get that corrected. It is a fixable thing and we have to get that fixed because we’re going to have a long season if I can’t get that fixed. You can’t go 6-0 on turnovers. You can’t go 2-0 on turnovers. When it was 6-0, we were lucky it was just 34-9. Our defense played real well.
”He is veteran enough, he is resilient enough, he is tough enough,” he added. “I’m counting on him to come back and play well. I have to do a better job of coaching and getting him ready.”
Akil Sharp led the Tigers on the ground with 36 yards on four carries. Mills rushed seven times for 29 yards as he got more action than the first game. Chuck Dibilio ran seven times for 20 yards. Matt Costello made five catches for 70 yards.
”When I see a guy like Matt Costello making sideline catches and returning punts, some of those young guys like Dibilio last week, they are just used to winning,” Surace said. “I’ve got to snap these guys out of it, or play more guys who are used to winning because that is not good enough.”
The defense did not cause any Bucknell turnovers, but otherwise looked solid when faced with several short field situations due to Princeton turnovers. Bucknell, though, had the ball for more than 38 minutes of the game.
”I thought we played hard,” said PU linebacker Steve Cody. “We need to cause turnovers, that is the bottom line. Their defense outperformed us in terms of turnovers.
”I thought our effort was there. The other thing is at the end, we’ve got to make a stop there. I thought we did a pretty good job of stopping the run until the start of the fourth quarter and at the end, they started running the ball too much on us. We’ve got to fix that. We have to play a full 60 minutes. We’ve got to get more turnovers. That’s the bottom line.”
The Tigers will have their chance against another 0-2 team. Columbia lost its second straight game, 44-21, to Albany. The Lions fumbled five times and lost two of them, and they threw two interceptions. Whichever team can get the turnover bug out figures to have the best chance Saturday.
”We’ve got to cut down on mistakes,” Surace said. “We have to get through to them that we can’t force the ball. We can’t turn it over. We can’t put it on the ground. If there is a bad snap, we have to recover it.”