First Place

October ends tomorrow (candy for everyone). 

Princeton is in first place in Ivy League football. You can't really ask for much more than that.

And so what if it's a first-place tie, and so what if almost every other team is nipping at the Tigers' heels. They're here as November begins, and the goal is always to play huge games in November.

That's become the norm since Bob Surace became Tiger head coach. The 2023 season will be no different.

Princeton took down Cornell 14-3 Saturday at Schoellkopf Field. In this crazy year of Ivy football, all you can hope for is to take care of the opponent right in front of you, without looking ahead to the bigger picture. Besides, as was the case Saturday, there's a pretty good chance that the team you're facing is also right in the Ivy race.

The weekend that just passed began with a five-way tie for first place. Now it's down to two teams in first, Princeton and Harvard, who defeated Dartmouth 17-9 to also get to 3-1. 

Penn's 30-26 Friday night loss to Brown meant both of those teams are now 2-2. So is Dartmouth, after its loss, and Cornell, after its loss. And Yale, the overwhelming preseason favorite, thumped Columbia, moving the Bulldogs to 2-2 as well.

That's craziness, no? 

The funniest thing so far about the 2023 Ivy football season is that just when you're ready to write a team off, back it comes. And just when you're ready to anoint a team as the favorite, back to Earth that team comes. 

Here's another little piece of craziness.

Should Princeton win out, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. So would Harvard. And Yale. And Penn. 

That's half the league that heads into November knowing that all it has to do is win its final three games to get a ring. 

The Princeton-Cornell game Saturday was as big a game as Cornell has had in a long time. The Big Red came in after hammering Brown 36-14 a week earlier, leaving them as part of that five-way 2-1 tie at the top. 

The crowd at Schoellkopf was loud. The game started with a Cornell drive that featured three first downs and reached the Tiger 36. Each play seemed to build Cornell momentum. There had already been two third-down conversions. Would there be a third? Not on this drive. How about a fourth-down conversion? Nope. Not that either. 

Princeton went three and out on its first drive, and then Cornell got one first drive before punting on its next possession. To that point, Cornell had run 19 plays to three for the Tigers.

Ah, but that fourth play. That was something different. 

Princeton had the ball on its 23 after a punt. On the first play, Blake Stenstrom went back to pass. As he did so, TigerBlog, standing on the sideline, turned to Executive Associate AD Anthony Archbald and said "look how open he is." 

The "he" was Tamatoa Falatea, who found himself wide open behind the Cornell defense. He was so shockingly open that Blake Stenstrom probably did a double take before getting him the ball. When he did, Falatea did the rest, wisely cutting back towards the middle of the field as he neared the goal line to open more space against the Cornell defenders.

That TD made it 7-0 Tigers. There Princeton was, four offensive plays into the game, with more than the number of points it would need to win. 

Usually when that happens, the game is a blowout. Actually, with how Princeton's defense was playing, it was essentially a blowout. 

The Tigers — who had six players with between seven and nine tackles but none in double figures — completely stopped the Cornell offense, which had those 36 points a week earlier against Brown. There was no point of the game after that first drive where TB even remotely considered that the Big Red were going to get into the end zone in any way other than one big play, and that never happened.

Princeton got another touchdown late in the first half, when Luke Collela completed a 33-yard play with a nice catch in the middle of the field and then a dive into the end zone to finish, making it 14-3 at the break. That's the way it would stay.

And so you're left with Princeton and Harvard in first, with the five teams on their heels. For Princeton, next up is a Friday night game at Dartmouth, which has not been a fun place to play for the Tigers through the years. 

Of course, Princeton will be bringing its defense on the trip. 

What the Tigers showed on that side of the ball in Ithaca was, once again, extraordinary.