Congrats, Congrats And Good Luck

TigerBlog will get to tonight's Princeton-Dartmouth football game in a minute.

First, there are congratulations to be offered.

He starts with Chris Young and Will Venable, two Princeton baseball/basketball alums who between them played 22 years in the Major Leagues. While they were never teammates at Princeton or on the field in the Majors, they have now won a World Series together.

Young, the GM, and Venable, the associate manager, became champions Wednesday night when the Texas Rangers closed out the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games. The deciding game came after Arizona's Zac Gallen took a no-hitter into the seventh, only to lose that, the shutout and the game essentially in three batters. 

Venable almost surely is on his way to becoming the manager who takes over for Bruce Bochy when he retires from the Rangers, unless he gets another job first. And Young? He has brought the first World Series championship to his hometown franchise, as he grew up in Highland Park, about 25 miles from where the Rangers play.

Beyond that, he is now part of a wildly exclusive club. There are only three people to have won the World Series as a player and general manager: Stan Musial (who won the Series with the Cardinals in 1942 and 1944 and then again in 1946 World Series after being in the Navy in 1945 and then was the Cardinals GM for their 1967 title), Johnny Murphy (who won seven World Series with the Yankees and then was the GM of the 1969 Miracle Mets) and now Chris Young. How amazing is that? 

As you recall, Young was a member of the Kansas City Royals' 2015 World Series championship team and was the winning pitcher in Game 1 that year, against the Mets.

As for the other congratulations, that goes out to Yariv Amir, TB's former colleague in the Princeton Office of Athletic Communications. In fact, he was the baseball contact when Young and Venable played at Princeton.

Yariv has been the interim athletic director at Colgate, his alma mater, for nearly a year now. He finally had the "interim" label dropped yesterday, when he officially became the Colgate AD. That's what happens when you're given an interim chance. Make the most of it, and good things will happen. That's how it worked for Yariv, and TB is thrilled for him.

And now that brings TB to the football game. Will there be congratulations for the Tigers tonight? 

Kickoff in Hanover will be at 7 pm (ESPNU), and gametime temp will be 45 degrees. What's at stake? In the world of Ivy League football in 2023, the same thing that's at stake every week — a lot.

Princeton and Harvard are 3-1. Dartmouth, Penn, Yale, Cornell and Brown are all 2-2. There are three weeks left.

The task tonight for the Tigers is to win in a place where they haven't done so since 2009, when Kenny Gunter ran for 173 yards and two touchdowns in a 23-11 victory. Forget history, though. There are way more contemporary issues to deal with tonight.

Statistically, Dartmouth and Princeton rank 1-3 in the league in rushing defense, allowing 183 rushing yards per game between them. Princeton is second in the FCS in rushing defense, allowing 78.4 per game, trailing only Montana. 

When it comes to scoring defense, the teams allow a combined 32 points per game. There are 24 FCS teams who average that many by themselves.

Dartmouth's Nick Howard is another bruising quarterback, and he in fact leads the league in rushing touchdowns with seven. Princeton linebackers Ozzie Nicholas and Liam Johnson, by the way, combined for 17 tackles last year against the Big Green.

With two such bruising teams, and with the first really cold weather game of the year, this doesn't figure to be an offensive explosion. Both teams are equipped to play that kind of game. 

Finally, there is the emotional issue that Dartmouth is dealing with this season, after the death of its beloved head coach Buddy Teevens. He and Princeton head coach Bob Surace were very close, and Surace clearly is speaking from the heart when he talks about his former rival.

During the week, Surace talked about how odd it will be to walk out onto the field and not see Teevens there, not have the usual pregame chat with him. Odd, and sad, he said. 

When the game starts, those emotions will shift to the background, as Princeton and Dartmouth will both playing as if their seasons depend on this game. 

In 2023, that's true of every Ivy football game.