Balancing Act

 As TigerBlog watched Princeton take on Cornell Friday night, he found himself wondering what the answer to this question is:

Who is the best player on the team?

Is it Jeremiah Tyler, the linebacker who scored a touchdown in the game? Maybe. Is it Collin Eaddy, the running back who is moving up the Princeton career rushing lists? Is it one of the wide receivers? Is it someone else on D? James Johnson? Sam Wright? Trevor Forbes? Punter Will Powers?

It says a lot about this team that it is now 7-0 after the 34-16 win in rainy Ithaca Friday that the answer to TB's question is not clear cut. This is a team in every sense of the word, and it is not a team who needs to rely on one player to be dominant game after game after game.

It's a winning formula.

Princeton raced out to a 21-0 lead by the early second quarter Friday night. Though the home team was able to move the ball consistently (and actually outgain the Tigers for the night), Cornell never seriously threatened after that.

As it became clear that Princeton was going to win, the historian in TigerBlog began to wonder the last time Princeton started out three straight seasons at 7-0. When he looked it up, he found out that it was 1901, 1902 and 1903. That's a long time ago.

There's no doubt who the best player on those teams was. His name was John DeWitt, a guard/kicker (there aren't many of those left) who is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He was also a silver medalist at the 1904 Summer Olympics in the hammer throw.

The current Tigers have reached 7-0 with their depth and balance. Maybe the best part of this team is that it hasn't had to have its offense or its defense be dominant to win on any give weekend. Sometimes it's been the offense. Sometimes it's been the defense. When one has dominated, it's been so dominant that it has carried the team through that game.

Go back to the game Friday night. You get extra credit if you correctly predicted before the game that the first three Tiger TDs would come from Niko Vangarelli, Tyler and Carson Bobo. 

But that's the point. It didn't need to be Eaddy. It didn't need to be Jacob Birmelin. It didn't need to be Cole Smith.

One of the good things about playing Friday night is that you can watch the other Ivy games Saturday afternoon. That's what TigerBlog did, with three windows open on his computer to flip back and forth around the other Ivy football games on ESPN+.

The two games that figured to most directly impact that Ivy League race were the Dartmouth-Harvard and Columbia-Yale games. With Princeton now at 4-0 in the league, that left those four playing what weren't mathematically elimination games but were big games nonetheless, as all four of them came into the weekend at 2-1. 

Both games were close.

The first to end was Dartmouth's 20-17 win over Harvard. The Big Green took the lead on a late field goal and then withstood a 53-yard field goal attempt on the final play that went a little wide. The most unsung play you will ever see is the job that Dartmouth holder Dylan Cadwallader did to pull in a snap that was going wide and get it down perfectly.

Meanwhile, Yale was able to hold off Columbia 37-30. As a result, you now have these standings: Princeton 4-0, Dartmouth 3-1, Yale 3-1, Harvard 2-2, Columbia 2-2.

Another way of putting that is that it's Princeton 4-0, followed by its next two opponents at 3-1 each. That stretch begins with another Friday night game on the road on ESPNU, this time at Dartmouth.

The last two Princeton-Dartmouth games matched unbeaten teams. This time Dartmouth isn't unbeaten, but it's no less of a huge match-up for the Ivy standings. 

Getting to 7-0 is an accomplishment by itself. Doing it three years in a row is even more impressive.

The whole point of Ivy League football is to play big games in November, which arrives today. Princeton has once again put itself in position to do just that.