Thoughts From Saturday

TigerBlog saw so many college football games Saturday he can't even keep track anymore.

That's part of the problem that a school like Princeton faces in getting people to its games, by the way. There is no shortage of games to watch on TV.

That's not today's point though.

At one point, TigerBlog had Princeton-Colgate and Yale-Dartmouth on videostream and about 10 games on his TV.

Later on, he watched the end of Baylor-TCU, which ended up 61-58 Baylor in regulation. The game turned on two plays, both of which were about as identical as plays can get, though with vastly different results.

The first was a fourth-down play for TCU just across the Baylor side of the 50. TCU threw for it, incomplete. There might have been a little contact on the play, but no flag.

It was the right call to go for it, by the way. With that way that game was going, whoever had the ball the last was going to win, and that meant keeping the ball away from Baylor.

When the Bears got the ball back, they were faced with a third-and-long. They threw for it, incomplete, with a little contact on that play as well.

This time, a flag was thrown. Pass interference. Then game-winning chip shot field goal.

Then there was Penn State-Michigan.

Michigan was up 16-13. Penn State ball, fourth and about 40 or so, near its goal line.

Penn State wisely took a safety, which meant a free kick, or in this case, an onsides kick. It was the Nittany Lions' only chance to get the ball back, other than hoping to convert on the fourth down.

And so that's what Penn State did. The center snapped the ball into the stands for the safety, 18-13 Wolverines.

Then onsides kick. Recovered by Penn State. Here comes the chance for the great finish.

But wait. No. Flag for offsides.

Doesn't matter that every replay showed there was no offsides.

TigerBlog doesn't understand why officials want to spend 59 quietly going about their jobs and then spend the last minute making awful calls that directly decide games. The two passes between Baylor and TCU were basically identical, and TB says no interference on either. So why one flag and not the other?

And the Penn State game? If you throw the flag for offsides, it better be really clear. So why throw that flag?

Could it be because the games were at Baylor and Michigan?

As for Princeton-Colgate, the Raiders came back from an early hole to defeat the Tigers 31-30. Up in Hamilton there would be no blaming this on the officials.

Nor, TigerBlog will say, could this be blamed on the decision to go two after the first touchdown, after Dre' Nelson ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown for the second time in four games. The two-point try failed, making it 6-0 instead of 7-0 if the Tigers had kicked or 8-0 if it had been successful.

It's easy to say that Princeton lost by one, and that one point was the one from the failed conversion. That's a bit oversimplistic.

First of all, that assumes that every single thing that happened in the game from that point forward still would have happened in the exact same way had Princeton kicked. It wouldn't.

Even if it did for most of the game, the end game would have been different. In a tie game, Colgate wouldn't have played to run out the clock. It would have played to score. Maybe it would have. Maybe it wouldn't.

More importantly, it's a mentality thing.

Princeton's success last year was built on the idea of attacking. Fast and physical. Keep going at all times.

It's that kind of attitude that defines a team. If it backfires every now and then, so be it.

So where is Princeton now?

Unbeaten in the Ivy League, albeit at 1-0. There are six weeks left, with only Ivy games on the schedule. It begins Saturday when Brown comes to Powers Field at Princeton Stadium at 3:30.

After that? Harvard. At Cornell. Penn. At Yale. Dartmouth.

Right now, Dartmouth might be the best team of them all. The Big Green looked good against Yale in winning that one.

Dartmouth and Harvard are 2-0. Princeton is 1-0. Everyone else has a loss. Penn hosts Columbia this weekend, while the other four are outside the league.

Then it's all league games.

If TB had his way, there'd be a week off for the entire league after this weekend, Week 5. But no, they will keep playing straight through, a sprint to the finish line.

Maybe it hasn't been the dominant first four weeks Princeton might have hoped for in the preseason, when it was the league favorite. Whatever, that doesn't matter.

Now it's about the remaining six league games.

Is Princeton still the favorite? Maybe not.

Does Princeton have as good a chance as anyone?

Yes.