Wednesday, August 20, 2025

One Month Out

There is a spot on the road that leads to TigerBlog's house where the speed limit dips from 40 to 25. 

There's also one of those electronic signs that flashes your speed at you. This one also comes with a little message for you.

For instance, if you pass the sign at 25 or lower, the messages says "Thank You!!" If you go past at 26-35, it says "Slow Down." If you go faster than 35, then it says "Too Fast." 

This has all led TigerBlog to wonder if there's another message that would come up if he passed the sign at 46 or higher. He'd try it and see, except for the small matter of the curve in the road that would make it not really worth finding out the answer. 

Anyway, Princeton football ...

TigerBlog saw this post on X yesterday:

At that point, Ross Tucker was a Reading boy, a decade away from becoming an All-Ivy League lineman at Princeton and then an NFL offensive lineman for nearly 10 more years. Tucker was on the field blocking for the Dallas Cowboys on the play where Emmitt Smith broke the NFL record for career rushing yards. 

Ross is a big man with a big heart, a big smile and a big personality. If you've been paying attention, you know that he has gone on from his playing days to become one of football's best media figures, for both the NFL and college football. 

And also for his "Tuckspreads" videos, the ones where he showcases for his nearly 300,000 X followers what his press box food options are on his gamedays. 

By the way, while Ross was busy making the Heisman pose as a Pop Warner player, TigerBlog was covering Princeton football during his newspaper days. He remembers the 1991 season for the big season that the very underrated quarterback Chad Roghair had, including when he became the second Princeton QB ever to throw a touchdown pass of at least 90 yards. 

Quick trivia break: That list has now grown to four Princeton quarterbacks with a 90-plus yard TD pass. Can you name the other three? TB will give you until the end for that. 

TB's biggest memory of that year, though, was Princeton's 59-37 win at Brown. In that game, Tiger wide receiver Michael Lerch caught nine passes from Roghair for 370 yards and four touchdowns (one was the 90-yarder).  

You can read those numbers again if you like. No other Princeton player has ever come close to matching that number of receiving yards in a game, with Derek Graham's 278 yards against Yale in 1981 in second and then Jesper Horsted's 246 against Harvard in 2017 third.  

Why is today a good day to talk Princeton Football? 

That's because it's Aug. 20, and opening day is Sept. 20, when San Diego will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Kickoff is at noon.

That's one month away. You can get ticket information HERE.

Bob Surace enters the 2025 season with 81 career wins as Tiger head coach. The record is 89, held by Bill Roper for only the last 95 years. 

Roper coached at Princeton in three different stints, from 1906-08, 1910-11 and then again 1919-30. In all the years since, no other Princeton head coach had reached 80 until Surace. 

The San Diego game will be followed by a short trip to Lafayette and then the Ivy opener against Columbia. By then, the season will be off and running. 

For now, there is exactly one month until it begins. Practice will be starting soon. Summer will be winding down.  

Trivia answer: The first to do so was Doug Butler, whose 95-yard pass to Derek Graham (most of those 95 came after the catch) came against Penn in the classic 28-27 Quaker win in 1983. Since Roghair's toss to Lerch, there has also been another 95-yarder, from John Lovett to Isaiah Barnes in 2016 against Cornell and the one that will never be broken, the 99-yard Matt Verbit-to-Clinton Wu connection in 2003, also against Brown.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)