Tigons And Ligers

Wait, tigons and ligers are real things?

Turns out they are. A tigon is a hybrid big cat whose father is a tiger and whose mother is a lion. A liger is the opposite.

Tigons and ligers apparently tend to be a bit smaller than your average lions and tigers, weighing in at somewhere from 350 pounds up to 1,000 pounds. 

At least that's what it says on Wikipedia. 

Imagine those extended family get-togethers? Actually, they don't have too many get-togethers, since Tigers and Lions don't share any habitat in the wild. 

They do, however, in Ivy League sports.

The subject for today is not hybrids but instead pure-bred Lions and Tigers, as in Columbia and Princeton. The two meet this evening at 7 on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium in the Ivy League football opener for both.

Princeton has won 13 Ivy League championships all time. Columbia has won one, back in 1961. While Columbia topped Penn 37-6 in its final Ivy game that year, the end of the 1961 season was a pretty excruciating one for Princeton.

That was actually a two-tie for the championship, with Columbia and Harvard both at 6-1. Columbia defeated Harvard 26-14 in Cambridge that year, and the only thing that stood between the Lions and a perfect Ivy record and outright title was its Ivy opener, a 30-20 loss to Princeton.

It would have been a three-way tie for the championship, but Princeton was defeated 24-6 by Dartmouth on the final day of the season. Princeton also lost to Harvard, 9-7, also in Cambridge. If it was any consolation for Princeton, and it probably wasn't, its 1961 team had as many key players injured and unable to go by the end of the year as any other Tiger team has ever had.

Meanwhile, here in the present, there have been two Ivy games played so far this season, and if they have shown anything, it's that the 2023 race figures to be crazy.

Yale, the preseason favorite and defending champion, fell to Cornell, who has won three Ivy titles, the most recent in 1990. Harvard defeated Brown, but it was a 34-31 game. 

Who is the favorite now? It doesn't matter.

Princeton and Columbia are both 1-1 after two non-league games. The Tigers defeated San Diego 23-12 two weeks ago in California and then lost 16-13 in overtime to Bryant at home. 

Columbia opened with a 24-3 loss to Lafayette and then came back to take down Georgetown last week 30-0. 

Statistics through two weeks of football games don't really tell you a whole lot ... or do they? Princeton ranks second in the FCS in fewest rushing yards allowed per game and total yards allowed and is third in the FCS in sacks per game. 

Yes, it's been two games. On the other hand, Princeton's linebacking corps might be its best this century, or even long before this century, with Liam Johnson, Ozzie Nicholas, Will Perez and Nicholas Sanker as tackling machines. 

Columbia is also off to a strong defensive start under interim head coach Mark Fabish, who you probably remember from his playing days as a Penn wide receiver/kick returner. Columbia has defended the pass better than the run through two weeks, allowing 137 yards per game, while Princeton has gone for 163 per game for two games.

Princeton has been led on the ground by John Volker, who is second in the Ivy League with 240 yards. He averages 7.1 yards per carry, and he has had long runs of 49 against San Diego and 51 against Bryant. 

The other Ivy League game this weekend is tomorrow's game between Penn and Dartmouth. 

Princeton finishes its non-league schedule next week at home against Lafayette. After that it'll be six Ivy games in six weeks.

They're all big. And they're all unpredictable. 

At some point, the Ivy race will start to sort itself out. Will there be a 7-0 team? Will 5-2 get a share of the championship? 

These answers are a few weeks away. 

For tonight, it's Tigers and Lions on Powers Field.

Pure-breds, as it were.