Talking Kazmaier With Ken

Ken is 81. His sweater turns 40 next year.

At least that's what he said. Bought it in 1974. In New Orleans. For $10.

It certainly looked comfortable. It was rust colored, sort of a burnt orange. Maybe it was brighter when he got it all those years ago.

Ken's not an orange guy.

He's more red and blue, red as in Cornell, where he went as an undergrad, and Columbia, where he went to law school.

Knowing he was talking to someone a little more familiar with orange and black, Ken asked how Princeton football had done this weekend. TigerBlog said that they had beaten Brown 39-17 after being down 17-0.

Then Ken took the conversation in a direction that TB hadn't anticipated.

"I think the best player I ever saw," he said slowly, "was Dick Kazmaier. He could do it all. Run. Pass. Even punt."

Ken was two years behind Kazmaier, which means he was a sophomore at Cornell the year that Kazmaier was a senior at Princeton. That would have been the 1951 football season, when Kazmaier won the Heisman Trophy.

Perhaps Kazmaier's best game at Princeton was that season against Cornell at Palmer Stadium.

TB knows the game well. He's read and written about it for years. Both teams were undefeated coming into the game, and it was supposed to be a huge test for the Tigers, who hadn't lost a game since 1949.

Instead, Kazmaier put on a clinic against the Big Red, completing 15 of 17 passes for 236 yards and three touchdowns and carrying 18 times for 124 yards and two more touchdowns. Add it up and it was 360 yards and four touchdowns for Kazmaier and a 53-15 win for Princeton.

TB's take on the game has always been what he's read about it.

Ken? He had a different take. 

He wasn't at the game at Princeton, but and his friends did take the train to Ann Arbor to see Cornell-Michigan a year later, another game in which Cornell lost big. He did point out that Cornell beat Michigan at Schoellkopf Field in 1951 of course.

As for the 1951 Princeton-Cornell game, Ken listened to it on the radio. Back then, he said, they'd also show the games in the student center during the week, and this time, even though everyone in Ithaca knew Princeton had won big, there was a huge crowd to see the replay.

By the end, he said, they were clapping for Kazmaier, because he was that good.

Ken knew way more about Kazmaier than just that game. He knew he was from Ohio. Knew he was small. Knew he turned down a chance to play for the Chicago Bears to go to Harvard, for business school.

He knew Kazmaier was famous for being a true gentlemen, and he wasn't surprised when TB told him that in all the times he'd talked to Kazmaier, he never once said anything about himself, only about his teammates, his teams, his coaches, his opponents.

Ken's two alma maters lost Saturday.

TB's employer won, though it didn't start out looking so great for the Tigers, who fell behind 17-0 after a fumbled punt led to a field goal and then touchdowns on a 71-yard run and a blocked punt return.

So what did Princeton do?

Rip off 39 straight points, that's what. And operate at peak efficiency for the final three quarters. Especially in the third quarter.

Princeton trailed 17-6 at the break, but it was a big six, as the Tigers put together a good drive just before halftime. And then the third quarter was a thing of orange and black beauty.

Princeton outscored Brown 19-0 and rolled up 239 yards of offensive in the quarter. That would be on 26 plays of offense, by the way, so that's an average of 9.2 yards per play.

Every play, it seemed, worked exactly as it was supposed to, exactly how it was drawn up. It was surgical.

Princeton added two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter, making it a 33-0 second half.

And this was against a good team.

Quinn Epperly tacked on three more touchdowns, giving him 20 in five games (11 rushing, nine passing) and leaving him one TD pass away from joining Ron Landeck as the only players in school history to reach double figures in rushing and passing touchdowns in the same season.

But this was a total team effort, and by the time it was over, Brown had simply been overwhelmed.

So where does that leave the Tigers?

On a bus to Harvard this weekend for a huge game with the Crimson.

Harvard, Penn and Princeton are all 2-0 in the Ivy League. Yale and Dartmouth are both 1-1. Ken's two alma maters plus Brown are all 0-2.

There are nothing but Ivy League games remaining for all eight teams. Princeton has put itself in position to play some huge ones heading down the stretch.

A year ago, Princeton shocked Harvard 39-34 after being down 34-10 with 12 minutes left. The Tigers will not be sneaking up on the Crimson this time around.

This time it'll be the Ivy League's top two offenses. Between them they average 81 points per game, and Brown, the third-place offensive team, is more than seven points behind second-place Harvard.

In terms of offense, they average 965 yards per game as well. Of those 965 yards, Princeton accounts for 537, which is only 98 more yards per game than the school record for total offense per game, set in 1983.

Lost in the offensive explosion that has been the first half of Princeton's season is the fact that the Tigers rank first in the league in scoring defense and yards allowed.

The goal is to win the championship. To do so, you have to first put yourself in position to play for the championship.

Princeton has done that through five exciting weeks.

The big games between the three remaining unbeatens begin this weekend in Cambridge and continue in Week 8 (Princeton-Penn) and Week 9 (Harvard-Penn). Yale and Dartmouth will still be heard from as well in the championship race.

There are some big moments in Ivy League football coming up during the second half of the season.

Princeton will be right in the thick of it.