Ivy Kickoff

 If you mention Joe Greene and football to anyone TigerBlog's age, the first word you'll get back is "mean."

If you're too young to remember, Mean Joe Greene was a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and perhaps the best player on the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Steel Curtain" defense that won four Super Bowls in the 1970s. Of course, he's as well known for his completely non-mean persona in the famous Coca-Cola commercial that he was in for the 1980 Super Bowl. 

Sadly, Greene is the only surviving member of that Steel Curtain front four, as Dwight White, L.C. Greenwood and Ernie Holmes have all passed away. If you have to look up any of those four names, then you weren't a 1970s NFL fan, whether you liked the Steelers or not. 

Moving to the present day, if you take away the final "e," you have Joe Green, who is the starting quarterback for the Columbia football team. Green and the Lions will be on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium tomorrow, with a kickoff at 1, in the Ivy opener for both.

Before TB talks about the game, he does want to talk about someone who was long associated with Columbia football and Columbia athletics in general, a person who was decidedly not mean in any way. Bill Steinman was the longtime sports information director at Columbia, and he passed away last week at the age of 76.

TigerBlog knew Bill Steinman very well. He spent many winter nights in Levien Gym watching Princeton-Columbia men's basketball, and he saw Bill at football games, baseball games and Ivy League meetings. He was, as TB said to Columbia Director of Athletics Peter Pilling in an email after Bill's passing, "a wonderful man with a kind heart."

It's so true. He was a kind, gentle soul, and it was always great to see him, and another Bill, the late Bill Shannon on the Associated Press, another Columbia regular who passed away. Steinman was a great old-school sports information director, and his experience in the field dated back to the New York Nets of the old American Basketball Association, after he graduated from Hofstra.

Even though Bill had been in failing health, it was still very sad to hear of his passing. In a perfect world, he would have been getting ready to make the trip to Princeton for the game tomorrow, and TigerBlog would have been happy to see his old friend again. 

As for the game itself, both teams are 2-0 on the young season, and both will learn an awful lot about themselves in this one. If you're looking for one interesting stat heading into things, there is the fact that Columbia is sixth in the FCS in rushing yards per game (271.5) while Princeton is first in the FCS in rushing yards allowed per game (0.5). Columbia has rushed for 543 yards in two games. Princeton has allowed one rushing yard total in two games.

Princeton also comes into the game after back-to-back season-opening shutouts, something it last did in 1933. By contrast, Columbia has scored at least 30 points in consecutive games to start a season for the first time since 1945.

At the same time, the Tiger offensive has also been rolling, putting up 95 points in two games. Cole Smith has looked sharp in his first two career starts, helped by a very deep receiving corps that includes wide receivers Jacob Birmelin, Andrei Iosivas and Dylan Classic, all of whom caught TD passes last week against Stetson, and tight end Carson Bobo.

Princeton has defeated Lehigh and Stetson. Columbia has defeated Marist and Georgetown. None of those four games was closer than 11 points, and the average margin of victory for these two combined has been 32.3 points.

With the start of the Ivy season, the intensity will be ratcheted up considerably.

Of course, early season stats can often be skewed, and they are essentially meaningless heading into this game. TB could go through both teams numbers all day, and they really won't tell you much.

What you do know is that both teams are feeling good after two weeks, and both teams are thinking about being a major factor in the league race come November. To make that happen, getting October off to a good start would be a big help, and only one of them will be able to do so.