Perfect Opener

The Princeton football team played a perfect game in its opener at San Diego Saturday afternoon.

Perfect? Well, it depends on your definition of a perfect opening football game.

Here's TigerBlog's: 1) win, 2) don't be perfect. And that was Princeton Saturday.

TigerBlog always says that a 10-week Ivy football season flies by, and that is true. In a blink it'll be late in the Ivy League season.

Having said that, it's also a grind. And keep in mind, it might go fast to the observer from the outside, but it also goes from now, when the weather in Princeton is better than the weather in San Diego, to the week before Thanksgiving, when the weather in San Diego most certainly will be better than the weather in Princeton.

You don't want to peak now. You want to build toward the biggest games of the year, especially when you start the season with two non-league games.

To that end, Princeton's 23-12 win over San Diego was, to TigerBlog, perfect. There was a win, and there was room for improvement.

Bob Surace is now in his 12th season as the Tiger head coach. He was winless in his first five season openers. He has now won seven straight. 

Also, not that Surace would want to be the first part of the story after a game, but he now has 74 wins as Tiger head coach, just one away from Dick Colman for third and four away from Steve Tosches for second. Bill Roper's 89 are the Princeton record.

The game at San Diego was a mix of familiar names and newcomers. It's like any college football season.

Blake Stenstrom started his second straight opener at quarterback, making him the first player to do so for Surace since Chad Kanoff in 2016 and 2017. Stenstrom, who has been great in his career, was pretty good against San Diego, completing 23 of 38 for 240 yards and two first half touchdowns, to Tamatoa Falatea and Luke Colella. 

The two receivers had combined for 15 receiving yards in their careers prior to the game Saturday. Getting on the same page with new receivers isn't easy, especially when you're so used to throwing to players like Andrei Iosivas (now in the NFL) and Dylan Classi (who TB still maintains should be). 

It takes some time to build rapport between quarterback and receivers, and it's not something that can just be done in practice. It has to happen with game experience, and that's exactly what Princeton got Saturday.

Somewhat extraordinarily, Princeton had 11 players with at least one catch. Princeton had 13 players with at least one reception — for all of the 2022 season. 

On the ground, John Volker had a career-high 82 yards, 58 of which came on three consecutive plays to start the third quarter for the Tigers, when he went five, 51 and two yards to get into the end zone.  Defensively, Princeton had some real standouts, like Will Perez, who had a huge 14-yard sack in third quarter, Ozzie Nicholas, who was everywhere and sophomore Bakari Edwards, who had two tackles for loss, including a safety to ice it in the fourth quarter in his first serious varsity time.

Brady Clark averaged 40.2 yards on eight punts, including two that dropped inside the 20 and three that traveled at least 50 yards. That's good and bad — the numbers are great, the number is not. 

In fact, Princeton's last six drives ended in Clark punts, which isn't how you want it to be, especially when three of your first seven drives end in touchdowns. These are the kinds of things that need to be worked on, and these are the things that enable coaches to get their players' attention.

Still, it had to be a great experience all around, with the trip to San Diego, the game and what figured to be a happy flight home. Princeton didn't get in until very late Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning), and now there's the need to get ready for the home opener Saturday at 3 against Bryant. 

Surace seems to agree with TB's thinking.  He tweeted this after the game: "Great effort! Love the teamwork! A lot to clean up but excited for the team win."

Between now and Saturday is another week of practice. It's a chance to fix some of the issues from the San Diego game. That's called "improving on perfection."