Optimism high for another Ivy crown
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
On Wednesday night, the 2006 Ivy League champion Princeton University football team held its first preseason practice.
Spring practices brought the first look at the 2007 team, but the start of the preseason brings together the entire squad, as freshmen were unable to practice in the spring.
”Mainly it’s setting the tone for the work ethic we have to have,” said PU head coach Roger Hughes. “A lot of it is getting the freshmen acclimated to the way we run practices and all the things we demand and the level of intensity we want. It’s kind of a wake-up call for the kids that they better get on the bandwagon.”
The Tigers are a popular ticket as they open the preseason. Princeton, which shared the Ivy League championship last year with Yale, comes off a 9-1 season and is picked 25th in the preseason Coaches Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) poll released this week. Yale, which is ranked 24th, is the only other Ivy team in the Top 25.
”We haven’t been saying we’re coming back from a title,” Hughes said. “We’re not saying defend. That sounds too passive. We want to say perpetuate, not defend. We want to maintain the level of commitment and increase the work ethic each year.”
For the first time in a decade, the Tigers return knowing just what it took to win an Ivy title. Last season’s crown was the first since 1995. Princeton proved in 2006 that it had found the winning formula again.
”Finding ways to win close games, that’s where we struggled early in our tenure here,” he said. “Once you’ve learned how to win, winning breeds winning. You’re not fighting yourself. Now you’re just fighting opponents. Now when we get to that point, we expect good things to happen. Having that confidence makes you play at a higher level, regardless of what adversity you’re facing.”
With a championship also comes a bulls-eye for Ivy opponents. The Tigers, though they were picked to finish fourth in the Ivy media poll, is a hunted team this year even as they regard themselves still as a hunter.
”Last year was a great year,” Hughes said. “But last year is over. Part of our challenge as coaching staff is to make sure our kids understand that.”
The Tigers have tried to stay ahead of their Ivy competition. Like every year, they evaluate the tapes of spring practice, assess what worked last season, and project what they can use in 2007 with their returning personnel and incoming freshmen.
”We’re not going to answer a lot of questions until after the Yale scrimmage,” said Hughes of the meeting next Thursday in New Haven, Conn. “The first four days, we’re trying to teach everything. We’re not in pads for four days. Then the fifth, sixth and seventh days we’re trying to get a lot done. We try to learn the schematics now and work on the actual execution after the first five days. I don’t think we’ll be there maybe until after the first couple games.”
Princeton opens the season Sept. 15 when they host Lehigh University 6 p.m. in Princeton Stadium. The Tigers have several holes to fill — most notably at quarterback where they graduated Ivy League Player of the Year Jeff Terrell.
”We’re young in the secondary and young up front in spots,” Hughes also noted. “We have a good group of quarterbacks coming in with Bill Foran, who is the leader of them now. We’re going to see how we adjust to his talents.
”Right now, we have a young secondary, inexperienced quarterback and our kicking game needs to get much better.”
The Tigers won’t be varying greatly from what they have done, but they can’t be predictable. Staying ahead of their opponents takes plenty of study before the chance to execute.
”We look at the spring tapes and we go to different colleges and see what they’re doing and see what we can do to get better,” Hughes said. “We see if we’re doing it the best we can.”
The Tigers staff visited teams like the University of Florida, Tulsa University and the Washington Redskins. With those teams opening training camps and preseason earlier than Princeton, it was a chance to evaluate some similar styled teams.
”We go to where what we do is what matches the school,” Hughes said. “We go to whoever is best at what we’re trying to do, and then we try to use some of our contacts. Gregg Williams is the father of one of our players and we try to utilize that.
”We may vary it year to year. We try to visit one place we’ve been before. We do that because it takes a year or two of running something to figure out how to solve it. For instance, the triple option we run, teams in our league haven’t seen it that much so they’re doing things to catch up. They’re doing things that teams have done to Florida, so we want to see how (Florida has) dealt with it. On defense, we’re a blitzing team, and we want to see how teams have handled that and try to stay one step ahead of them.”
Staying a step ahead is a good plan for the Tigers as they look to win another Ivy crown.