Catching On

It's August. 

You know what that means? Right, it means that Princeton Athletics returns this month. 

In fact, there are three events on the schedule this month, all three of which are women's soccer games. The first one is three weeks from Friday, when Sean Driscoll's team hosts Colgate at 7:30. 

Three weeks from Friday? Yup.

Once the women's soccer team gets it going, the rest of the fall teams will follow shortly after that. By the end of the following weekend, which is the first weekend in September, Princeton's field hockey, men's soccer, men's cross country, women's cross country, women's volleyball, men's water polo and women's rugby teams will all have played.

With that, another athletic year will be off and running. Can it top last year? Could last year have topped the year before? What will be the big story of 2023-24? Who will emerge from obscure to star? What newcomers will become big names on their teams the quickest?

If you work in college athletics, you always love the start of a new year. TigerBlog certainly does. For all of the years he's done this, he's never gotten to the first events of the year and dreaded them. Actually, it's always been quite the opposite.

Opening day for the 2023 football season is Sept. 16, which is six weeks from Saturday. The Tigers will be at San Diego, before the home opener the following week against Bryant.

As football begins to approach, TigerBlog got to thinking about the Tigers' outlook. This led him to the following numbers:

Teammates A and B: 123 receptions; 1,730 yards; 18 touchdowns
Teammates C and D: 127 receptions; 1,850 yards; 11 touchdowns

Those numbers are fairly even. C/D have a few more yards per reception and a few more catches, but A/B got into the end zone a bit more.

And who are these guys? 

Teammates A/B are Jesper Horsted and Stephen Carlson combined in 2018, when Princeton went 10-0 and then both went to the NFL.

Teammates C/D are Andrei Iosivas and Dylan Classi from last year, when Princeton went 8-2. Iosivas became a sixth-round draft choice of the Cincinnati Bengals. TigerBlog will forever think Classi would be a solid NFL receiver if he ever got the chance.

Back when Princeton went into the 2019 season, the Tigers had those two huge cleats to fill at the receiver position. Classi, Iosivas and Jacob Birmilin had combined for a total of seven receptions. What would happen without Horsted and Carlson? 

The results speak for themselves. All three newcomers had huge Princeton careers, ultimately combining for 393 catches, good for 5,368 yards and 33 touchdowns. That's extraordinary production, and even more extraordinary considering they never had the same starting quarterback for more than one season.

This time around, Princeton returns two players who had double figures in catches a year ago: A.J. Barber (28 receptions) and JoJo Hawkins (19). Helping the situation will be the return of the starting quarterback, Blake Stenstrom, who completed just short of 70 percent of his passes for 2,742 yards and 16 TDs.

If Princeton has proven anything during the Bob Surace era as head coach, it's that the team's depth has enabled the team to move on from might otherwise have been crushing graduation losses.

Speaking of Surace, he enters this season with 73 wins at Princeton, fourth best all time in program history. With two more, he'd tie Dick Colman for third. With three more after that, he'd tie Steve Tosches for second, behind only Bill Roper and his 89 wins. 

Roper, if you're wondering, got his 89th win on opening day of the 1930 season, defeating Amherst 23-0. That would prove to be the only Princeton win that year, as the Tigers went 1-5-1, with four of the five losses by seven points or fewer. Roper did finish his career with a record of 89-28-16.

Those are just a few of the storylines for the coming football season. There are others, and there will be plenty of time to talk about them prior to the first kickoff.

Well, maybe not plenty of time. 

It'll be here before you know it. 

Welcome to August. September is right around the corner.