Four For Iosivas

TigerBlog was rooting for Washington last night in the College Football Playoff championship game. 

It was a family thing. Both BrotherBlog and the Official Brother-In-Law Of TigerBlog (OBILOTB, for short) are professors at U-Dub, as they like to call it out there. 

They're also big Washington fans who have watched games in the president's box at Husky Stadium, a perk of OBILOTB's work as a Faculty Athletic Rep.

For the game last night, there were watch parties at several locations, including in the basketball arena. The two did not attend either, though. TigerBlog gets it. If you want to actually watch a game, then a watch party is not a good place to do it.

 Plus, you know, it probably didn't turn out to be the best party ever with the way things turned out.

While the subject for the day is football, the NFL regular-season is now over and the playoffs are about to begin. Can the Eagles turn it around? Are the Lions finally going to reward Princeton Ford Family Director of Athletics John Mack for all of his years of being a loyal fan? Will Joe Flacco magically take the Browns the distance?

Here is a question for you: If you had to choose, would you take a team to win the Super Bowl this year who has never won one before (Bills, Browns, Lions, Texans), one that has but hasn't won one this century (Cowboys, Dolphins, 49ers) or one that has won this century (Eagles, Packers, Buccaneers, Ravens, Dolphins, Chiefs, Rams)? That's a tough one.

Oh, and as TB types those words, he is reminded of what the Cowboys' Duane Thomas once said: "If it's the biggest game ever, why do they play it again next year?"

One team that isn't in the postseason is the Cincinnati Bengals, who might have been a preseason Super Bowl contender until Joe Burrow was hurt in the preseason. Even when he came back, he wasn't quite the same quarterback he was when he took the team to the Super Bowl two years ago and the AFC title game last year, and then he was shut down after 10 games due to injury.

Even without Burrow, the Bengals went 9-8, which in the loaded AFC North put the team in last place. That same record, on the other hand, won a division for Tampa Bay and got Green Bay a wild card.

With a healthy Burrow, the Bengals will vault back into Super Bowl contention next season. They may have to do so without wide receiver Tee Higgins, who is likely to leave in free agency, and a player who is ready to step up for additional playing time would be Princeton's own Andrei Iosivas.

A sixth-round pick last spring, Iosivas just finished his rookie season with 15 catches for 116 yards and four touchdowns. That's four TDs, including two that came Sunday in a win over the Browns.

All of this brings TB to Dutch Hendrian. After Iosivas' second touchdown Sunday, TB saw this post on X:

Andrei Iosivas is the first @PrincetonFTBL player with 2 TD in a game since... Dutch Hendrian in 1924. pic.twitter.com/ScwDrvlJvx

— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 7, 2024

TB likes to think he knows a thing or two about Princeton Athletic history, and he'd never heard of Dutch Hendrian. As he spent much of yesterday morning researching him, TB found no evidence that Hendrian ever played at Princeton. 

He did learn that Hendrian played at Pitt before transferring to Princeton and that Hendrian never won a letter, which in those days was given to players who played against either Harvard or Yale (TB didn't know that either) or in at least half of the games. 

What Hendrian did letter in was ... boxing. Apparently he was pretty good at it. 

Hendrian did go on to play for three years in the earliest days of the National Football League, including spending five games in 1923 (while still a Princeton undergrad) as the player-coach for the Akron Pros. That must have kept him busy. 

In all, Hendrian played for the Pros, the Canton Bulldogs, the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants. He finished his career with six touchdowns, four rushing and two receiving, while also serving as a placekicker, bringing his career total to 50 points.

Hendrian also went on to a career in acting, appearing mostly in small parts in football movies like "Knute Rockne All-American" and gangster movies like "The Public Enemy."

Iosivas will enter his second NFL season two TDs away from tying Hendrian. He'll also need to appear in 162 movies when he's finished his playing career.