Game Week

The biggest non-story in sports right now is the referee situation in the NFL.

Basically, the regular NFL refs are either striking or locked out. TigerBlog isn't sure and doesn't care.

NFL refs make about $140,000/year for what is a part time job. They apparently want $180,000, and benefits.

On the one hand, the refs are contemptible greedhounds because they make $140,000 for a part time job. On the other hand, the owners are contemptible greedhounds because it's a billion dollar industry, so why bicker over a few hundred thousand dollars here and there.

Because the two can't reach an agreement, the season has started with replacement officials, which was supposed to signal the end of the world as we know it. Mistakes were going to destroy the games. Nobody was going to know the rules. Chaos was to ensue.

What has actually happened is that the replacement refs have been subjected to scrutiny for every false start, every spot of the ball. And you know what?

The games didn't look any different than any other games in any other year. Mostly, the officials were invisible, except when the coaches yelled. And they didn't decide the outcome of any games.

The replacement refs have been subjected to gratuitous shots from TV people, who disparagingly talk about their real jobs in a mocking tone, as with the ref in the Giants-Cowboys game who is also a middle school geography teacher. Guess what? The guy did a great job.

And the labor situation has enabled the NFL to do something that it had never done before, and that was allow a woman to officiate an NFL game, as Shannon Eastin was part of the crew for the Vikings-Rams game.

Week 1 of the NFL season ends tonight, and by then, basically every football team everywhere will have played at least one game. Except for the Ivy League, of course, which famously begins later than everyone every year.

If you're an Ivy football fan, you can't help but wonder why it is that the league only plays 10 games and why it is that the league champ doesn't go to the NCAA playoffs.

TB understands. For now, at least, it is, how they say, what it is.

Princeton opens the season this Saturday at Lehigh before its home opener Friday night, Sept. 21, against Georgetown.

After that, it's seven Ivy games in eight weeks.

There are 10 games in 10 weeks, with no off weeks to rest up from the inevitable injuries. It runs from this weekend through the Saturday before Thanksgiving, one game into the next.

Princeton, as everyone knows, enters the 2012 season off of back-to-back 1-9 years, minus Chuck Dibilio, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year who rushed for a 1,000 yards last year before suffering an off-season stroke.

So where is Princeton heading into 2012? The great thing about Ivy football is that nobody knows.

For reference, TB refers you to the following records:

0-9.
1-9.
1-9.

Those were the records for Penn football in 1979, 1980 and 1981.

Penn won the Ivy title each year from 1982-86.

Will Princeton win the Ivy title this year? TB isn't going to predict that.

What's he's saying is that there's precedent for big turnarounds in Ivy League football. It all has to do with momentum, staying healthy, getting big performances from young players who are on their way up - and getting some luck.

If there's a program that's owed luck, it's Princeton football, both on the field and, with what happened to Dibilio, off the field as well.

The opener isn't easy, coming against one of the top teams in the FCS. The league, as always, will be a challenge each week.

For the Tigers, the chance to turn the page from 2010 and 2011 is a great opportunity.

In a few days, the 2012 Princeton football season kicks off.

It'll be over before you know it.