Kicking Off At Brown

TigerBlog received messages with two more names to add to his "best of post-Princeton" list:

Cosmo Iacavazzi and Matt Striebel.

Iacavazzi, of course, is one of the all-time greatest Princeton football players who went on to play for the Jets when they were still in the old American Football League. 

As for Striebel, TB mentioned him in the story but didn't include him on the list, though Striebel very much belongs on it after having one of the greatest professional and international lacrosse careers any player has ever had. Striebel also has to be one of the very, very, very few college athletes to have scored goals in the NCAA tournament in two different sports (lacrosse, soccer).

Are there any more names out there? Just let TB know.

Meanwhile, the current iteration of Iacavazzi's team is about to start its sprint to the finish line with the first of six straight Ivy League games. That run starts tomorrow, when the Tigers kick off at Brown at noon.

There are two league games and four non-league games this weekend, with Penn at Columbia the other Ivy matchup. By late afternoon tomorrow, each league team will have played two league games.

The only guarantees are that there will be at least one team that is 2-0 and definitely one team that will be 0-2. Depending on the results, there could be another 2-0 team and another 0-2 team, or there could be six 1-1 teams.

Harvard, already 2-0, hosts Howard tomorrow. Columbia and Penn both lost their Ivy openers, so the loser of that game tomorrow will be 0-2. 

Yale, Dartmouth and Cornell are all 1-1, and they'll be joined by the winner of Penn-Columbia. Should Princeton win tomorrow, then it would also be 2-0 and Brown would be 0-2. If Brown wins, then that sets up the six-way tie at 1-1, behind Harvard, who is at Princeton a week from tomorrow. 

Clearly, there is a lot on the line with every Ivy game. For Princeton, the most immediate challenge will be taking on one of the best offenses in the FCS. At the same time, the most immediate challenge for Brown will be taking on one of the best defenses in the FCS.

Brown averages 444.8 yards per game of offense, which is the 10th-best in the FCS. Princeton allows 211.8 yards per game, which is No. 1 in the FCS.

Looking a little deeper, Brown gets 346.2 through the air, which is the best in the country. That's just about 80 percent of its offense that comes in the passing game. 

Princeton's pass defense is just a hair behind its run defense. The Tigers are No. 1 in the FCS, allowing 66.2 yards per game on the ground, while they are also sixth in the FCS in pass defense, at 145.5.

Added all up, and Brown averages 33 points per game, while Princeton allows 11.8. Brown has scored at 29, 31, 42 and 30 points in its four games; Princeton has allowed 12, 16, 10 and 12 in its four games.

As for the "hidden yards," Brown has committed fewer penalties per game than any other FCS team. The Bears also have only lost one fumble, but that's a function of how little they run the ball. 

The Tigers have won the last six games in the series, including a 35-19 win a year ago in Princeton. The Tigers have averaged an impressive 48 points per game against Brown during the six-game winning streak. 

The best pregame news for Princeton could be the weather. The rain was listed as probable all week in Providence, before being downgraded to questionable. Right now, it looks like it'll be 65 and clear at kickoff, which means that the Tigers will not have to deal with rain and wind for the first time since the game in San Diego to start the year. 

Princeton is 2-2 for the first time since 2014. For each of the last four years, Princeton went into this week with a 4-0 record. 

The key number is 1-0, though. As TB said, the Ivy race will be shuffled each week, and no results can be taken for granted. 

So now the sprint to the finish begins. 

Kickoff in Providence is at noon.