PU football gains confidence with opening win
By: Justin Feil
It’s only the second game of the season, but the Princeton University football team feels a little better going into Saturday’s 6 p.m. home opener at Princeton Stadium than it did going into its season opener last weekend.
The Tigers answered some doubts about their ability to reload from a 7-3 season with 15 new starters when it scored twice in the second half for a 14-10 comeback win at Lehigh University last Saturday. Princeton hosts another Patriot League power, Lafayette, tonight in the first game to be played on the Tigers’ new FieldTurf surface. The Leopards lost for the first time last week to fall to 2-1.
Princeton has won 16 of its last 17 home games against Lafayette, but it is last week’s win that gives it more confidence than any statistic. The Tigers come into Saturday’s game with something more valuable.
"Just the knowledge we can win from any position in a game," said PU safety Kevin Kelleher. "Being down 10 points on the road against a team that doesn’t lose at home and being able to hold their offense to nothing and put a couple scores on the board right away in the second half, it was a huge confidence builder. Any team that builds that confidence can get on a roll.
"We need to bring the same discipline into this weekend because I think that is one of the reasons offensively and defensively we had success late in that game. We stayed discipline, there was no panic on either side of the ball and we were able to focus and come through. It’s exactly what we have to do in practice this week and Saturday."
Princeton knows it will have quite a challenge on its hands. As excited as it was about getting a win, the Leopards were that disappointed in their showing against Penn last weekend. The loss dropped them out of the Division I-AA Top 25.
"We’re excited to play a great team like Lafayette," said Princeton head coach Roger Hughes. "They’ve become perennial playoff contenders. They won the Patriot League the last two years. I think we’re still trying to figure out what kind of team we are.
"Last week, I think we played well enough to win, but we didn’t play well. We can’t make those first-game mistakes this week against a team of Lafayette’s talent or we’ll be down a lot more than 10 points quickly."
Hughes and the Tiger coaching staff made the point early in the week that Princeton can’t get too happy about the win over Lehigh. Handling success is always a point of emphasis with the seventh-year coach. That point may be even more important with a young team. The youth actually may have been a positive last weekend on the road.
"No one on our team knew what Lehigh was about," Hughes said. "No one had played at Lehigh before. I’m not sure they were intimidated by the mystique of Lehigh simply because our kids just didn’t know anything about it. But last week is last week, and it’s over with. We’re pleased but not happy. We need to clean a lot of things up."
Added Kelleher: "With every game, it’s going to go up and down. We try to stay level-headed and it helps that we’ve been there before. We’re not in our first game anymore. Once the first game is over, you’re into it. From here on out, we’re in it until the end. We’ll try to stay confident and stay focused."
Kelleher was more and more into games as the season went on last year. In his first five games, he made a total of three tackles. In the final five games of the 2005 season, he made 21 tackles, including a career-high eight in the overtime win over Cornell. In Saturday’s win over Lehigh, he tied Tim Strickland for team-high honors with seven tackles. Kelleher wasn’t as surprised by his play after two years in the system.
"Coach (Eric) Jackson does a good job preparing us," said the junior from Ann Arbor, Mich. "I was able to get my feet wet the last five games last year, really get adjusted to playing 50-plus snaps against Yale and Cornell. I think that really does wonders as far as slowing the game down. When you’re young and you’re a safety you can kind of see everything and react to everything. Getting experience last year really helped me learn to read my keys and manage the game.
"It is different. I was primarily just a third-down defensive back towards the beginning of last season. Now the chance to play a full game and be in there in things like third-and-short, second-and-10, it really comes from practice and the coaching. It comes from the experience I got last year."
Kelleher will face a Lafayette offense that Hughes called a six-shooter with eight bullets. Leopard quarterback Brad Mauer passed for a career-high 286 yards last week. Seven of his completions went to Joe Ort. Running back Jonathan Hurt had his six-game scoring streak snapped last week but still had more than 100 all-purpose yards. Princeton will have to take a note from last week when they held Lehigh scoreless in the second half.
"I thought defensively, we played good team defense," Hughes said. "Tim Strickland certainly played as good as advertised. Kevin had seven tackles himself. It was really Kevin’s first true time in the heat. He played spottily in the past but came on and played well. I think we found as a team defense, that’s how we have to play. Everybody has to be in the play.
"On both sides of the ball," he added, "we gained a lot more confidence in our teammates. We learned to trust. If we do our job as a team, we have a chance to win some games."
On the offensive side of the ball, Hughes lauded the play of the offensive line, which improved as last week’s game went on. That enabled quarterback Jeff Terrell to have an effective performance with over 200 yards passing and a touchdown. Brian Shields is part of the receiving corps that will test a Lafayette team that surrenders just 11 points per game.
"I think when we were all out there, we were playing pretty well," said Shields of the receivers. "We just got tired. We were dropping like flies. The last series, we just had to go with two guys. Brian Brigham was cramping. Brendan Circle was out with a hip pointer. I was cramping.
"When we were all out there playing well, we got those two touchdowns. Then we fell off a little bit, I think, because our receivers were out. Just having that threat of the pass is very important to our offense, knowing we have four or five guys who can catch a pass."
Shields, who caught two passes for 29 yards, is also hoping to show the Leopards a more dangerous return game. Hughes pointed out that the Tigers did not have enough big plays from their special teams. Shields is Princeton’s top return man, and returned three kickoffs for 52 yards last week and fielded one punt with no return.
"There was a return last week that looked like the return was there and I kind of bounced to the outside when I should have gone up the middle," Shields said. "Those are the things that Coach Hughes is talking about. It’s much easier to see on film.
"I had a couple (returns last year)," he added. "There’s definitely more on me with Greg Fields and Jay McCareins gone. The way our return goes, we have two returners and then one back returner. I was one of the up returners and you don’t get the ball as much. Now I’m kind of the guy in the back that takes most of it. I’m still in the process of getting the feel of where the returns are."
Shields knows there aren’t that many chances to impress. He wants to make the most out of them on returns, as well as in an offense in which the Tigers spread the ball. Last week, Terrell hit eight different receivers with passes. No one had more than four catches.
"It’s kind of frustrating," Shields said. "We see guys on other teams that are going to get 10 balls thrown to them a game. We know we’re only going to get a couple passes from Jeff. We have to make the most out of them. It’s kind of good and kind of bad."
It’s kind of like the Tigers were last week. There was some good and some bad, but there was a win and that’s something big that they’re taking into their second game of the season Saturday.