Glory Days

TigerBlog walked into the Princeton football locker room, or more accurately team area, after Saturday's very entertaining 31-28 win over Monmouth and was greeted by very loud music.

The song? "Glory Days." Was the playing of Bruce Springsteen at a stadium that's about five miles from the Stone Pony in Asbury Park some sort of statement about New Jersey? Or was it coincidence?

Either way, the Princeton-Monmouth football game was a great one, and something that is great for the state of New Jersey. Neither the Tigers nor Hawks have another in-state opponent on the schedule, and given that they both came into the game ranked in the FCS, yes, this was a great New Jersey event.

The teams were separated by one spot in the FCS poll, with Princeton at No. 24 and Monmouth at No. 25. On the field, they weren't separated by very much at all. In the end, the game-winner came with 10 seconds to go on a 35-yard field goal by freshman Jeffrey Sexton, or else it would have been overtime between the two.

Sexton's kick came into a fierce wind. TB checked his phone just as the Tigers were lining up, and it said that it was 21 miles per hour. It seemed like more.

The game seemed lost and then won and then who knows what after a crazy second half. Whoever was going to win was going to have come from behind in the second half, and as it turned out, that would be Princeton.

This game had everything. Big plays. Bad plays. Huge momentum shifts. Very brave play calls. Redemption. What it didn't have was anything at stake for either team as far as conference play went, but hey, this was still a great game to watch. 

The Tigers trailed 14-3 when Sexton drilled a 46-yarder with the wind at his back on the final play of the first half to make it 14-6 at the break. With Monmouth set to get the ball to start the third quarter, it seemed pretty obvious where this was going. Get a stop, and the momentum was Princeton's. Let Monmouth score, and coming back might be tough.

So what happened? Monmouth took the ball and went on a 16-play march that took half the third quarter and ended up with a touchdown. Just like that, it was 21-6, and Princeton seemed to be in trouble. From there, though, the defense allowed Monmouth just 56 more yards, 28 of which came on the last play of the day, a seven-lateral attempt to pull a miracle. Monmouth would have three possessions between that 16-play march and the time Sexton's field goal was good, and those three drives combined featured 15 plays for 28 yards.

In the meantime, Princeton punted on the next possession after that third quarter touchdown. The next three drives went like this: TD, TD, TD, with 176 yards of offense mixed in. It took 11 minutes of game time, but suddenly it was 28-21 Princeton.

Those three touchdowns all came from Collin Eaddy, who is basically a touchdown machine near the goal line the way John Lovett was. Eaddy now has 24 career rushing touchdowns, tied for seventh all-time at Princeton.

Those touchdown drives featured the remarkable skillsets of Princeton's top three wide receivers, all of whom were extraordinary on the day. From the game story:

There was Dylan Classi. First he caught a two-point conversion to make it 21-14 in the third quarter. Then he accounted for 51 of the 67 yards on the next drive, with a 17-yard completion to Birmelin to get things started and then catches of nine and then 25 more to the Hawk one to set up Eaddy again, tying it at 21-21. Classi finished with five catches for 64 yards, the last of which was an 18-yard grab on a fourth-and-six that set up the Tigers at the Monmouth 21 in the final minute.
 
There was Andrei Iosivas, who caught four passes for 76 yards, including a 30-yard acrobatic reception near the sideline that set Princeton up for first-and-goal at the six before Eaddy's third touchdown and an earlier 38-yard catch and run that at first was called a TD before review placed it at the one, where Eaddy punched it in, prior to Classi's two-point catch that made it 21-4.
 
And there was Jacob Birmelin, who caught nine for 109 yards, including a 22-yard catch on the game-winning drive. It was his third 100-yard receiving day of his career.

All three were amazing. 

Princeton's defense forced a punt on the drive after the Tigers took the lead. Here's where the redemption part comes in. Cole Smith, while trying to run out the clock, instead threw an interception that Monmouth returned for a touchdown to tie it with 2:53 left. Instead of kneeldowns after one more first down, now Smith had to dust himself off and get right back to it. 

And that's exactly what he did. He calmly led the Tigers down the field, completing 4 of 7 for 48 yards to get the Tigers into Sexton's range. He also converted two fourth downs, including one that not too many coaches would have dared to try. 

TB will get back to this later in the week. For now, just think about the situation. Tie game. Fourth and 1. Your own 34. Two minutes to go. You going for it? 

Bob Surace did. And he was rewarded. 

As for Smith, he earlier in the half had taken a bad sack when the Tigers were in field goal range instead of throwing the ball away. Of course that was on one of the TD drives, and Smith bailed the Tigers out on that one by converting a third-and-22 on that amazing catch by Iosivas.

This time, it was on a third-and-10 at the Monmouth 21. A sack would have been disastrous, and Smith seemed to show the moment he realized that, putting his head down and picking up three yards up the middle. The next play was the game-winner.

What did the game mean? Nothing in terms of the league, which now has a gauntlet of six games in six weeks, beginning Saturday at Brown.

In terms of being a bit more ready for that stretch? It meant a lot. Once again, just like it did last week against Columbia, Princeton was at its very best when the game was the tightest.

That's a trait that teams that want to play for championships need to have.