Harvard For Homecoming

The roar you may have heard around 10:30 yesterday morning in all likelihood came from a rest stop on I-95 in Southern Connecticut. 

It probably doesn't even matter where you were at the time. It's likely that the sound traveled to you.  

To set the scene, the Princeton field hockey stopped there yesterday on its way up to Brown (gametime is 2:30 this afternoon on ESPN+). Pretty much immediately, the team gathered around those claw machines, the ones where you have to drop the claw onto the pile of stuffed animals and hope that it clings to one of them long enough to claim the prize.

You know. It's the machine where Woody and Buzz got stuck before Sid won both of them in "Toy Story." It's one of the best scenes: "Who's in charge here?" "The clawwwwwwww. The claw decides who will stay and who will go."

Of course, nobody ever wins one stuffed animal, let alone two action figures who can talk and move and could have easily outsmarted Sid, who was only there because they'd kicked him out of summer camp early that year. And yet, there was Izzy Morgan of the Princeton field hockey team at the controls, with navigator Pru Lindsey's directing from the side. 

And lo and behold, they did it. TigerBlog has no idea how much they actually spent, but they got themselves a stuffed animal. Izzy Morgan, assist to Pru Lindsey. The roar overwhelmed the rest stop. 

Princeton's bus driver on this trip is an amiable young man named Brendan, who showed up wearing a "Princeton Football" hat. Brendan was one of the driver's last week for the football team's trip to Brown, which ended "happily," as Brendan said. 

Yes, a 40-21 road win does end "happily."

Among the happy outcomes of that game was the third-straight Ivy League Rookie of the Week award for Princeton freshman wide receiver Josh Robinson, an emerging star who now has 18 of his 20 receptions on the season in the last three games. 

Remember Monday when TB said he'd check to see if that was a freshman record? It isn't. The Sachson Sports Bureau, in conjunction with the Croxton Sports Bureau, reported in that Matt Costello had 29 receptions as a freshman in 2011. Apparently Costello's 341 receiving yards are also the freshman record. 

Robinson now has 250 receiving yards. He also has a spot on the Jerry Rice Award watchlist for the top freshman in the FCS.

The next challenge for Princeton comes up tomorrow, Homecoming Day, when the Harvard Crimson will be on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Kickoff is at noon. 

This is, again, the second straight week that Princeton head coach Bob Surace faces one of his former offensive coordinators, Harvard head coach Andrew Aurich. James Perry, a former Princeton OC, is the head coach at Brown. 

This weekend begins the five-week sprint home in Ivy football, as each team in the league has played its three non-league games and two league games to date. Moving ahead, there are only league games to be played, until at least one Ivy team advances to the FCS playoffs.  

The Harvard-Princeton game is a matchup of two of the three remaining Ivy unbeatens. Penn, the third, plays Yale tomorrow. The Tigers find themselves at 2-0 in the league with wins over Columbia and Brown, with Cornell, Dartmouth, Yale and Penn to follow Harvard. 

Princeton has answered a lot of questions that may have been out there prior to the season opener. Last weekend's road trip was a big step in the direction of those answers, with a road win against a Brown team who had taken down the No. 10 team in the country two weeks earlier. 

Harvard presents another challenge. The Crimson are 5-0 on the season and ranked 17th in the FCS coaches' poll and 14th in the Stats Perform poll this week. They have one of the top scoring offenses in the country with more than 44 points per game; that's fourth in the FCS to be exact.

Within the league, Harvard leads in areas like total offense, passing efficiency, total defense, time of possession and fewest turnovers. Some of those numbers go hand in hand. 

They're also irrelevant. Princeton should be a confident group, and it is Homecoming Day. Roles have been defined. Leaders have stepped up. 

Princeton hardly turns the ball over, with only two interceptions and seven turnovers on the season. The Tigers also have one of the country's best punters in Brady Clark. The combination of those two factors could lead to a game where Harvard is forced to put together long drives to put up points, which is ideal. 

It should be a good one. Certainly the weather will be cooperating. 

Kickoff at noon.