By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
As the Princeton University football teams opens practice to prepare for its Sept. 17 opener against Lafayette, the Tigers are hoping to build on last year’s 5-5 season.
“We’re excited to start and kick off training camp,” Princeton coach Bob Surace said during the Ivy League coaches conference call earlier this month. “I think our strength is probably our depth on our defensive front seven. It’s probably the deepest it has been since I have been here.
“Several players have had multi successful years for us — Kurt Holuba, Rohan Hylton, Lucas Harris, who is one of the leading tacklers in the league per game last year. Henry Schlossberg was an All-Ivy candidate last year. Birk Olson had a good year at linebacker.”
Princeton began pre-season practice this week and has a veteran roster that also has some new faces that should contribute. The Tigers were picked in the pre-season Ivy League poll to finish fifth in the league, but could surprise people along the way.
“Our offensive skill guys we have returning have experience,” Surace said. “At quarterback we have Chad Kanoff and Jon Lovett, who was a first team All-Ivy player who plays all over the field for us. Joe Rhatigan was a second team All-Ivy running back and behind him Charlie Volker had a great spring and is one of the fastest guys we have ever had. Cody Smith played 450 snaps as a freshman. Scott Carpenter is a returning All-Ivy honorable mention tight end. Isaiah Barnes had an outstanding spring. Behind them we have good young players who will push them.”
The Tigers will have 22 practices before hosting Lafayette and will spend the time working to return to the upper echelon of the Ivy League.
“The two areas we’re going to have to work on in training camp are our secondary depth, which is going to have to work itself out, and the same thing with offensive line depth,” Surace said. “We are a fast offense. We run the highest plays per game in the league and we like to pay nine or 10 offensive linemen a game. We need to develop some guys to get to that point.”
The secondary returns Dorian Williams, who will be a senior leader of the group.
“Dorian will following in the footsteps of some of the other top guys we have had,” Surace said. “Last year we had Matt Arends and you can see Dorian blossoming as a leader and football ball player. We have a lot of leaders on the football field.
“They have been awesome all season organizing things when we as coaches are not allowed to do that. It allows us as coaches to do the other things we need to do.”
Princeton opens at home against Lafayette on Sept. 17 at 5 p.m. The Ivy League opener is at Columbia on Oct. 1.
