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.  

Orange And Black Day(s)

So yesterday was the 279th anniversary of the day that Princeton University was officially chartered. 

Of course back then it was The College of New Jersey, and its campus was in Elizabeth. After one year, the school moved to nearby Newark, before relocating to its current home in 1756. 

To celebrate the anniversary each year, the University has its "Orange and Black" day, for which everyone on campus is invited to wear the school colors. For TigerBlog, "Orange and Black" day comes up about 365 days a year. 

Anyway, happy birthday to Princeton University. TigerBlog can't help but wonder what the original founders of the college would think if they could see it today. 

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The Princeton-Bryant men's soccer game Tuesday night certainly had a big-time feel to it, a postseason feel. And why wouldn't it? 

You had two of the best teams in the country. It also happened to be the first meeting ever between them, so you also had unfamiliarity. 

It was a tight, physical game that ended in a 0-0 tie. Had this been in a month or six weeks or so, then the game would have continued until a winner was decided in overtime or penalty kicks. In late October, it made for some great regular-season drama. 

The outcome didn't hurt either team. The updated Division I RPI has Princeton still at No. 1, while Bryant went from No. 3 to No. 2.

Princeton can't look ahead to late November and possibly early December, of course, not when there are big hurdles to clear between now and then. The Tigers are at Yale Saturday at 6, and the first order of business would be to formally clinch a spot in the Ivy League tournament. 

The regular season ends with three straight league games on three straight Saturdays, with a home game against Dartmouth next weekend followed by a game at Penn. The Tigers are 4-0-0 in the Ivy, three points ahead of 3-1-0 Cornell and at least four ahead of everyone else. 

The regular season champ will host the Ivy tournament. 

*

Don't look now, but the women's soccer team is surging at just the right time. The Tigers have won three straight after a 2-5-3 start and have outscored those three opponents by a combined 9-1, most recently 5-1 over Lehigh as the nightcap of the Tuesday doubleheader. 

Princeton currently is one point out of first place, with nine points to the 10 that both Harvard and Columbia have. Princeton hosts Columbia Saturday at 1, with a trip to Brown a week from Saturday in the regular season finale. 

The Ivy tournament could still be on Myslik Field at Princeton Stadium — or it could also happen without Princeton. Brown and Dartmouth are one point behind the Tigers with eight each. 

*

The Ivy League tennis championships begin tomorrow and run through Sunday, with the men at Penn and the women at Harvard. 

This past week, you might have noticed the ITA Regionals for the men at the new Meadows tennis complex. Princeton's Paul Inchauspe and Fnu Nidunjianzan earned spots in the NCAA singles tournament, which for the second straight year will be held in the fall (Nov. 18-23 in Florida).

*

The field hockey team has three regular season games to go, as well as at least the Ivy League tournament and quite likely the NCAA tournament. 

Princeton is at Brown tomorrow at 2:30 and then home against Penn State Sunday at noon. After that, there will be a home game against Columbia next Saturday at noon.

The Ivy League tournament will be the second weekend in November, almost surely at Harvard (who would clinch that host role with a win tomorrow against Columbia). At the same time, Princeton, winner of six straight, is currently the No. 2 team in the RPI, followed by Harvard, who is the only remaining unbeaten team in Division I.  

Tiger goalie Olivia Caponiti was the NFHCA Division I Defensive Player of the Week after making 12 saves and allowing three goals in three wins. 

*

For the on-ice hockey version, the Princeton women are in Week 2 of the regular season, with a road trip to Brown and Yale. There is a home men's exhibition game Saturday at 7 against Simon Fraser. 

The women's volleyball team has one match this weekend, at home against Penn tomorrow at 7. The top four teams in the Ivy standings have a two-game edge of the next four, with Cornell at 6-1 and Princeton, Brown and Yale all at 5-2. 

The top four reach the Ivy League tournament. 

For the complete schedule, click HERE. 

Turning 80,000

Congratulations to Princeton's own Anna McNatt!!!

The junior was named the Ivy League's cross country Athlete of the Week after finishing second in a field of 250 at the Princeton Fall Classic. Next up will be the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at Van Cortlandt Park a week from Friday, which is also Halloween. 

If you've never been to Heps cross country at Van Cortlandt, you definitely need to go. It's a great experience all around, with some great racing mixed in. 

That's for next week though. 

For today, there is another reason to congratulate Anna McNatt. The story of her Ivy League honor was the 80,000th posted to GoPrincetonTigers.com in its history, a figure that was called to TigerBlog's attention by his colleague Warren Croxton.  

Anna McNatt wasn't even born yet when the first one was posted, back in the late summer of 1998. TigerBlog remembers the evolution from back then, from no webpage to a non-commercial webpage to the one that you've come to rely on all of these years. 

There was a time, hard as it may seem to you young ones out there, where there was no internet, let alone college athletic websites. Wanted to find out the score of the Princeton-Bryant men's soccer game? The best way was to call the venerable Tiger Sportsline. 

Oh, those were the days. It was a torturous experience to update it and make it as user-friendly as possibly. Did you ever call it? 

"Thank you for calling the Tiger Sportsline. Press 1 for scores only, 2 for upcoming schedules, 3 for highlights of men's sports and 4 for highlights of women's sports." 

Then the first try at a webpage came along. This was called the Tiger Web Locker Room, complete with an animated Tiger at a locker. 

That page was a subset of princeton.edu. It also came with no content management system, so everything the Office of Athletic Communications posted — or at least tried to post — required HTML coding. And how was it done? Copy and paste obviously. 

Seriously. You'd have to copy the last story and then change the particulars to match the story you wanted to add. Today it seems quaint. Back then? It was challenging every time.  

There was a lot of human error, much of it courtesy of TigerBlog. 

Then, after a long back-and-forth, the University agreed to allow Athletics to have a .com website with ads on it. TB believes the convincing final piece of those negotiations was something along the lines of "everyone else is doing it."

And so goprincetontigers.com was born. 

And now it has 80,000 entries. That's a ton of athlete bios, stories, tickets sold, schedules, record sections and everything else.  

Everything about communicating with Princeton fans changed the day that the first story went up. The ability for alums outside of the general area to follow their teams went from reliance on a quarterly newsletter or something like that to pretty much an endless stream of information. 

TigerBlog has mentioned this many times before, but the amount of alumni giving to the Friends' Groups went way up once the webpage came along. Of course, the ability to give became easier as technology advanced, but the impact of the information on the webpage shouldn't be overlooked. 

There have been many different designs, along with a few different web providers. It hasn't always been easy to balance having so many teams and so many events. 

Through it all though has been a non-stop flow of Princeton Athletics information. And an audience that has continued to click on these offerings. 

Warren first called the milestone number to TB's attention yesterday afternoon. By Warren's calculations, Princeton has averaged eight different posts per day for the entirety of the webpage's existence. That sounds about right. 

 What's next? That's hard to say. 

These days, social media engagement is on a whole different level from the webpage numbers, but there will always be a need for much of what goprincetontigers.com brings to you. 

And for that, TB says thank you for your support. 

Eighty-thousand. That's a lot of mileage on the GPT odometer.  

A Top Five Matchup On Myslik Field

Congratulations to Julia Johnson on her first collegiate goal and her first Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week honor. 

While she's a freshman at Princeton, she is hardly a stranger to the campus. Her father? Former Princeton head men's basketball coach Sydney Johnson, who was the 1997 Ivy League Player of the Year and a huge part of those great Tiger teams of the late 1990s. 

Sydney Johnson — now the head coach of the WNBA's Washington Mystics — was a five-time Ivy Rookie of the Week in the 1993-94 season. After that, he was the league Player of the Week once as a junior and once as a senior.

If you watched him play, you recall that Johnson was a player who impacted every part of the game all over the court but didn't necessarily put up the kind of individual numbers that would get him the weekly award. 

He did once make 11 straight three-pointers over two games in one weekend once. He also guarded a player once who came into the game with 999 career points — and ended the game with 999 career points. 

Have there been other parent/child Ivy Players of the Week at Princeton? There have been similar first-team All-Ivy selections. Player of the Week? That's harder to track.

Julia Johnson's next game will be tonight at 8, when Lehigh is at Princeton for the back end of a doubleheader. The Princeton women have been playing catch-up all season in the Ivy League race and now appear to be at their best at the right time. 

The Tigers are all the way up to third in the league with nine points, one behind Harvard and Columbia with two Ivy games to go. The league tournament will be held in three weeks, and Princeton could still host it or miss it all together or anything in between. 

The opening game of tonight's matches the Princeton men and Bryant, with kickoff at 5:30. The teams have never before met, and they've picked the right year to do so.

What seemed at the time it was scheduled to be a solid non-league game late in the regular season has taken on a whole new meaning now that it's here. 

Princeton is the No. 1 team in the current RPI. Bryant in the No. 3 team. That's in all of Division I.

TigerBlog texted Princeton head coach Jim Barlow the other day to ask him if he had a sense that this game would have this kind of backdrop. His answer was what TB said, that the Bulldogs usually have a strong RPI and that it figured to be a good matchup. 

It's better than that, actually.  

Between them, the teams are a combined 23-1-2. They've combined to outscore their opponents 54-9. Both teams have a player who has outscored the opponents all by himself and another who has equaled the opponents. 

You won't want to miss this one.  

The Bulldogs have a very international flavor, led by eight players from Spain and three more from Portugal. There are also others from England, Northern Ireland, Israel and Belgium. 

Bryant's share of that 23-1-2 record would be 13 wins, no losses and one tie. That draw came back on Aug. 21, an opening day 1-1 tie with LIU. Since then? Thirteen up, thirteen down — including wins over Dartmouth and Brown. 

Ruben Resendes is the Bryant head coach, in his third year with the program. Prior to that, he led Franklin Pierce to the NCAA Division II national championship. While Resendes was doing that in 2022, Bryant was going 3-10-1.

In his first year at Bryant, Resendes took his team to a 16-2-2 record and its first-ever berth in the NCAA tournament, with a first-round win over Yale. Last year his Bulldogs lost 2-1 to Vermont on a goal with four minutes left in the America East tournament final. How did Vermont do after that? It won the NCAA championship. 

The game tonight figures to be a fascinating one to watch. Perhaps this will be the first of two meetings between these teams?

It'll be a special late October evening on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium. Kickoff is at 5:30. Admission for both games is free. 

A Big Team Win

The Princeton football team had itself quite a day at Brown this past Saturday with a 40-21 win. 

It's the kind of game you love, where you 1) get a big league win on the road and 2) you have no idea who the player of the game was, because there were so many choices. 

This was a team win, to be sure. And a balanced one at that. 

Consider that the Tigers rushed for 195 yards as a team and threw for 217 yards as a team. When was the last time Princeton had those numbers? And when was the last time Princeton had those numbers in an Ivy League game? 

For that matter, can you name the quarterbacks on those two occasions? 

In the meantime, TigerBlog offers a little background on the game from Saturday. Brown came in at 3-1 with in-state wins over nationally ranked Rhode Island and also Bryant, though 0-1 in the Ivy League after an opening loss to Harvard. 

Princeton came in 2-2 but 1-0 in the Ivy League, after it defeated Columbia 17-10 two weeks ago. It was clearly a big game for both teams, especially in this Year 1 of having Ivy League participation in the FCS playoffs. 

Okay, and now back to TB's piece of trivia. 

The last time Princeton had at least 195 rushing yards and 217 passing yards in a game? That was in 2021 against Stetson, when Cole Smith was the quarterback. 

The last time Princeton did so in an Ivy game? That was in 2019 at Brown, when Kevin Davidson was the quarterback.  

Meanwhile, back in 2025, who was the player of the game Saturday? 

Was it running back Ethan Clark, who carried 17 times for 120 yards and a touchdown? That's better than seven yards a carry.

Was it quarterback Kai Colon, who threw for 212 yards and a touchdown, completing 19 of 29 passes? Forget player of the game. Who was the Kai of the game? Was it Kai Colon or Kai Honda, who had 100 yards of offense, with 67 and a TD on 10 carries and then three catches for 33 more yards?

Defensively, there were nine Princeton players with between five and seven tackles, while three had interceptions. There were Tigers everywhere. 

And then there is freshman wide receiver Josh Robinson, who made a big case for his third straight Ivy Rookie of the Week award. Robinson had eight catches for 91 yards and a touchdown, which means that he has now gone from one catch to one catch to four catches to six catches to eight catches in his first five college games. 

Beyond that, he has 224 of his 250 receiving yards in the last three weeks. The touchdown Saturday was the first of his career. It won't be the last. 

He also now has 20 receptions on the season. Is that already the Princeton freshman record? TB will have to look that one up. Where is the Elias Sports Bureau when you need it? 

And how do they have access to so many obscure stats and records in no time?  

TigerBlog did reach out to the Sachson Sports Bureau, an unofficial statistical outlet. The "Sachson" in question is Craig Sachson, TB's longtime friend and former colleague who spent the better part of two decades with the football program. TB will let you know what he learns.  

Anyway, Robinson is quickly entering the "must-watch" realm, which is even better than being the player of the game. When he's on the field, you are immediately drawn to him to see what he's going to do next. And this is only Week 5 of his career. 

The win puts Princeton at 2-0 in the league and the season's midpoint, with five Ivy games in the next five weeks ahead. The first of those comes up Saturday at home, when 2-0 Harvard will be at Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.  

The Tigers and Crimson are two of the three teams in the league who are at 2-0, along with Penn, who defeated Columbia 35-21 Saturday to stay unbeaten. Yale and Dartmouth are both 1-1. 

Princeton-Harvard games are always fun. It's especially the case when they are both unbeaten in the league as October starts to wind down, as will be the case Saturday. 

Kickoff at noon. Circle it now.  

What Game?

TigerBlog was walking around outside of Dartmouth's Memorial Stadium last Saturday, prior to the Big Green's football game against Yale. 

Or was it against Yale?

TB was there for Princeton-Dartmouth field hockey, and he was dressed as you might expect — in orange and black. He walked over to the football stadium to say hello to his longtime friend and colleague Justin Lafleur, who oversees Dartmouth's athletic communications efforts.

As he made the short walk, he went past lots of pregame tailgaters. And why not? It was a perfect fall afternoon. There was even a group of 70-something men who were playing a modified version of musical chairs and asked TB to take a video of them. 

The game went better when TB informed them that there were six of them and six chairs, which defeats the basic premise of what they were trying to accomplish.  

Several of the tailgaters he saw made reference to his Princeton gear, with some good natured "Go Tigers!!" and one or two "Boos" mixed in. 

At one point, he walked past some Yalies who were enjoying their burgers and beverages when one said "Princeton? What are you doing here?" TB responded that he was there for the game, which drew the response of "what game?" 

To that, TB said "Princeton-Dartmouth football starts soon. What are you guys doing here?"

He said it with such conviction that for a moment, the Yalies thought that they were at the wrong game. 

If you're looking for Princeton Football this weekend, the right place to set up your tailgate is in Providence, where the Tigers will take on Brown tomorrow. Kickoff is at noon. 

The Ivy League football regular season reaches its midpoint this weekend, after which all eight teams will have played two league games and three non-league games and have five league games in five weeks to go. Also, TB has to write "regular season," since there will be at least one Ivy team in the postseason this year. 

This weekend's other league matchup has Penn at Columbia. 

There are three unbeaten teams in the standings, with Harvard at 2-0 and Princeton and Penn at 1-0 each. Cornell is 0-2, and Brown and Columbia are hoping to join Yale and Dartmouth at 1-1 after this weekend.  

Of course, this game is the first of two straight between Tiger head coach Bob Surace and a former offensive coordinator of his. This week it'll be James Perry of Brown; next week it'll be Andrew Aurich of Harvard. 

The league race affords no time for sentimentality, of course. Each win is big, and each week changes the shape of what comes next.

Princeton and Brown have put up similar offensive numbers, with the Bears' averaging 1.5 more points per game (27.5-26.0) while the Tigers gain 2.2 more yards per game (338-335.8). Brown does a little more on the ground, and Princeton has a slight edge through the air. 

Is there a stat that jumps off the page that sums this up? How about rushing yards allowed per game.

Does this suggest teams that have similar numbers: Brown and Princeton both allow 131.3 rushing yards per game. 

One difference is that Brown went 3-0 in its non-league games, while Princeton went 1-2. The Bears would gladly trade two of those wins (even the win over No. 10 Rhode Island) to be 1-0 in its Ivy schedule, which opened with a 41-7 loss to Harvard. 

Princeton comes into this one after a home loss against Mercer, another Top 20 team. Princeton's lone Ivy game was a come-from-behind 17-10 win over Columbia.

Josh Robinson, a freshman wide receiver for the Tigers, has own the last two Ivy Rookie of the Week awards. Robinson had two catches for 26 yards in the first two games and now has 10 for 133 yards in the last two, but you don't need any stats to tell you that he's already a good one. You can figure that out just by watching. 

Jackson Green caught his team-best second touchdown pass in the game last weekend. Those two, along with Charley Rossi and Roman Laurio, have established themselves as a pretty solid, deep group of receivers for Princeton's rotating quarterbacks Kai Colon and Blaine Hipa.  

It's a big one in Providence tomorrow.  

Kickoff is at noon.  

Both Sides Of The Atlantic

Okay, Riccardo Fantinelli's recent travels are way more impressive than the ones that TigerBlog and the Princeton field hockey team recently completed. 

This is from the X feed of a college golf website:

Respect to Riccardo Fantinelli of @princetongolf. The Senior from Rome, Italy finished up at the Eisenhower in Singapore on Sunday (shot level par, T28), flew 14 hours to London, caught a connecting flight to Edinburgh and was on the tee on the Jubilee Course at just past 10am on… pic.twitter.com/ps8gCv4K8v

— Clippd_Scoreboard (@Clippdscore) October 14, 2025

Yeah, that's impressive stuff. On the other hand, he did have 14 hours on the flight to London to study for that midterm, right? 

In all seriousness, that's some big-time dedication to school and sport. If you want to succeed at the highest levels of both, there is no better choice than Princeton. 

Fantinelli and his Princeton golf teammates, male and female, have spent the week in Scotland, competing at the St. Andrew's Links Collegiate. Where would you more like to play if you're a golfer? 

And where would you more like to hit a shot like the one that Fantinelli did here: 

Absolute beauty from @princetongolf's Ricardo Fantinelli on No. 15 at the Old Course. 🤌 pic.twitter.com/dSZfbVj1UN

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) October 15, 2025

That was just about perfect, no? 

The Tiger men defeated Cal to win the team championship early yesterday, a day after Reed Greyserman shot a six-under final round to win the individual title. 

*

Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, it's another busy fall weekend ahead for Princeton. 

The Cornell women's volleyball team will be in Dillon Gym tomorrow night at 7 in a matchup of the top two teams in the Ivy standings as the league schedule reaches its midpoint. Cornell is the lone Ivy unbeaten at 5-0, followed by Princeton at 4-1 and Brown and Yale at 3-2. 

The Big Red, who last won an Ivy title in 2006, swept the Bears and Bulldogs a week ago in Ithaca. In fact, after opening its league season with a win at Columbia (who is at Dillon Gym Saturday at 5), Cornell has played its last four at home. 

Princeton won at Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend. TigerBlog hadn't checked the score yet when he walked past two tall women who were wearing "Dartmouth Volleyball" gear last Saturday morning; he thought better of asking them who won. 

The match tomorrow will decide if Princeton and Cornell are tied for first or if Cornell has a two-match cushion through six league dates. 

The top four teams in the league meet up in the Ivy tournament for the league's automatic NCAA bid. 

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The men's soccer team is still No. 1 in the RPI after its 1-1 tie at James Madison Tuesday night. The Tigers return home to face Columbia Saturday at 4. 

The Ivy League standings show Princeton at 3-0-0, followed by 2-1-0 Cornell. It's fairly balanced after that with four weeks of league games to be played, as Penn, Brown, Yale and Dartmouth are all within two points of each other in the race for the four Ivy tournament spots. 

Harvard and Columbia are both 0-2-1 in the league. 

On the women's side, Princeton is in Hanover to take on Dartmouth in what goes without saying is a big game. With the women one week ahead of the men, there are only three games to go in the league, and all will impact the Ivy tournament field. 

Princeton got a huge win last week at home against Cornell, evening its league record at 2-2-0. There are five teams within three points of each other, with Harvard with nine points, Dartmouth with eight and Brown and Columbia with seven.  

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The field hockey team is back home to continue its stretch of four games in nine days with games against Cornell tomorrow at 4 and Monmouth Sunday at noon. 

The Tigers are now ranked sixth in the coaches' poll and fourth in the RPI after the big 3-2 win at defending NCAA champ Northwestern Monday, ending the Wildcats' 15-game winning streak. Northwestern, by the way, stayed No. 1 in the coaches' poll. 

One of the hardest things to do in sports is to win the game after a big win. The challenges this weekend are big: Cornell is 9-2 on the season and Monmouth has an RPI of 12. 

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This isn't completely a fall weekend. The women's hockey season begins with two games at UConn, tomorrow at 2:30 and Saturday at 1. 

This season marks the debut of Courtney Kessel as the Tiger head coach. 

The ITA men's tennis regional comes to Princeton this weekend, as well as the Princeton Invitational for men's and women's cross country. The men's water polo team continues its trip to California for fall break.

The complete schedule can be found HERE. 

The Road Trip

United Airlines Flight 2362 had just pushed back from its gate at Chicago's O'Hare Airport Monday night when the pilot announced that the flight to Newark had been delayed. 

Instead of wheels up, it would now be nearly an hour of sitting on a remote part of the tarmac. For the group of 29 that made up the Princeton field hockey travel party, you would think such news would have been met with annoyance. 

After all, the Tigers were headed home after a very, very long weekend, one that saw the team leave the Caldwell Field House parking lot at 7:45 am Friday morning. Now it was Monday evening, and what was to have been a late-night arrival back in Princeton had suddenly become an early-morning one. 

This is the kind of situation that leads to annoyance and frustration.

Instead, an impromptu team party broke out, with laughing, storytelling and the kind of banter that comes from a close-knit team like this one. Two little girls ventured back to talk to the players. A man who had just run the Chicago Marathon and then found himself seated in the middle of all of this kept saying "you guys are great" over and over. 

Annoyance? Hardly. Not with this group.

Besides, with the way this trip had gone, who actually wanted it to end? 

Princeton field hockey had itself quite a four day weekend, didn't it. By the time the bus rolled back into Caldwell, the Tigers had been together through a long bus ride to New Hampshire (with a stop at Amherst College for a practice session), a hurried bus ride to Boston, the flight to Chicago, a homecoming party at the house of one of its players in Wilmette and then the long and delayed trip home. 

There were meals, hotels, miles and miles on buses — pretty much all spent singing, laughing, teasing (the good kind) and mostly just enjoying the time together after midterm week. 

There was also the matter of business. Princeton had two games to play, and both would turn out to be big wins, with 120 minutes of field hockey that saw the Tigers never trail at any point. 

It started Saturday with a 4-0 win at Dartmouth in a game in which freshman Caitlin Thompson scored her first two career goals, including one 58 seconds into the game for the fastest goal by a Princeton player in 74 games. 

It ended Monday in Evanston, when Princeton defeated top-ranked Northwestern 3-2, ending the Wildcats 15-game winning streak, a run that included last year's NCAA championship. What proved to be the game-winning goal came from Beth Yeager, making her the sixth Tiger ever to reach 50 goals, and goalie Olivia Caponiti made it stand up with big saves on three penalty corners in the final 30 seconds. 

The wins were big. The greater experience is what they'll all remember. 

You can draw a straight line from the on-field performance to the camaraderie and team-first mentality that comes from trips like the one this team just had. It's a stretch to say that it's the reason Princeton took down the No. 1 team in the country because of how much fun everyone had the night before at sophomore Izzy Morgan's house. 

You need the kind of talent Princeton has as well, but you also need to be, literally and figuratively, all on the bus together. This can be challenging for a team that has nearly a 50-50 split between American players and international players (10 from England, one from Germany), and yet every conversation, every interaction, is a mix of the two accents. 

There are no cliques. There's only one large group of Tigers. 

TigerBlog had a front-row seat for the entire trip (or, in the case of the flight home, a 35th row seat, after his 37th row seat on the way to Chicago). The team culture is evident, starting with head coach Carla Tagliente and associate head coach Dina Rizzo, with assistant coaches Pat Harris and Pattie Gillern. They set high standards. They are competitive. They are driven to win.

And they also are driven to make the experience a fun one. They laugh along with their players when the time is right. They perfectly balance two hugely important dynamics: when to be serious and when to have fun.

If you can figure that out, you can have weekends like the one just passed. 

When the plane finally got back to Newark, there was nobody with those red flashlights to guide the plane to the jetway. The wait for someone to show up? That was 50 minutes. 

Again, nobody seemed to mind. TigerBlog was in Seat 35F, by the window. Sophomore Pru Lindsey, who is having a breakout season, sat next to him, in the middle. The two delays enabled her to watch the entirety of "Gladiator," a movie she'd never before seen. 

The lesson? Enjoy the moments, without worrying about the other stuff. 

If you can get enough people to buy into that kind of attitude, you can have weekends like the one Princeton field hockey just did. 

Another Win

So here's a fascinating quote:

“I wish Coach [Trent] Dilfer the best and thank him for his class, tireless work and commitment during his tenure at UAB. While his efforts did not translate into a winning record, each young man who played for him will be a better person as a result.” 

This was the quote from Alabama-Birmingham Director of Athletics Mark Ingram on the school website. Knowing how quotes end up on school websites, TigerBlog would suggest that this quote went through several versions before it was approved. 

Is there anything that sums up where FBS football is right now? Yes, winning is obviously important, hugely important. Everyone doesn't get a trophy.

And yes, coaches on the FBS level know what they're signing up for when they take the job. You just had to look at the headlines this weekend to see how ruthless the profession is.  

Didn't someone get fired over the weekend who took his team to the College Football Playoff semifinals a year ago? Yes, he did. Didn't another one get fired who was in his second year coaching at his alma mater and had every mechanism to be successful yanked away? Yes, he did too. 

Still, "each young man who played for him will be a better person as a result?" Doesn't that have to at least buy you until the end of the season, and maybe at least another one?

Oh, and speaking of "buy," put the word "-out" after it and those numbers become staggering.  

TigerBlog was also struck by the fact that Dilfer — a Super Bowl-winning quarterback with the Ravens — was fired with a two-year record of 9-21. 

Hmmm. Want to know whose first two years as a Division I head coach saw him have an 8-21 record? 

That would be a certain Bill Tierney in his first two years at Princeton. Yes, lacrosse isn't FBS football, but still — isn't there something to be said for allowing coaches to grow and develop into the position? Tierney certainly did, right? 

There will always be a long line of coaches ready to sign up for this, knowing that the financial rewards can be life-altering. On the other hand, what's the message? It's "win at all costs or be fired." 

Oh well. From TB's perspective, it just makes it harder to enjoy college football at that level.

And that's all he'll say about that for now. 

Besides, the Princeton men's soccer team won again. That's better than all of FBS football put together.  

This time, it was a 2-0 win over Cornell in Ithaca in a matchup of the only two perfect Ivy teams. The Tigers are now 9-1-0 overall, 3-0-0 in the league.

What's more, Princeton has shut out four straight opponents and seven of its last eight. Through 10 games, Princeton has given up only three goals. That's pretty good stuff. 

When was the last time Princeton men's soccer had four straight shutouts? That would be back in 1980, when Princeton defeated Harvard 2-0, tied Penn 0-0 and then beat Rider and Delaware 4-0 each.

By the way, the time before that was the last three games of 1953 and first in 1954. If you want four straight in the same season, then you go all the way back to 1942.  

The last time there were seven shutouts in eight games? Also 1942, when the Tigers actually had eight shutouts in nine games. Penn was the only team to score against that team, in a 5-2 Princeton win, and the Yale game to end the season was a 0-0 tie. 

Princeton is on the road tonight at 7 to take on James Madison. After that will be the next Ivy game, at home against Columbia Saturday at 4. 

Princeton continues to be ranked No. 1 in Division I in the RPI. The new coaches' rankings come out today; Princeton was ninth last week.

After the Columbia game will be a home game a week from tonight against Bryant. That will be the No. 1 RPI team against the current No. 3 RPI team. Who's No. 2? Vermont. 

For now, Princeton is alone atop the Ivy League standings, with a win over the only team within three points. 

The Old Course

So here's a question for you: According to the website "oldest.org," how many of the 10 oldest golf courses in the world are located in Scotland? 

While you think about that, TigerBlog will tell you that 1) he never heard of this website until he started researching the oldest golf courses and 2) it's addicting. 

In fact, about five hours elapsed between when TB wrote the first sentence and then the second sentence, since he was clicking on one "what is the oldest" list after another (okay, that's an exaggeration of sorts). 

For instance, did you know that Schweppes is the oldest soda in the world (dating to 1783)? Or that Crosse and Blackwell is the oldest food brand in the world (1706)? Any guesses on where the oldest restaurant in the United States is? That would be in Newport, R.I., where the White Horse Tavern was established in 1673 (they weren't taking online reservations back then). 

And what is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in the U.S.? Hint — it's in New Jersey. 

Okay, to answer the first question, of the 10 oldest golf courses in the world, there are 10 located in Scotland. The oldest is the aptly named Old Course at St. Andrews, which dates to 1552. King James II, though, banned the sport through a parliamentary act in the 16th century, and that ban lasted for 40 years. 

Why did he do that? Here's one note TB found:

The king believed that golf, along with football, was taking time away from practicing archery, which was crucial for national defense. The ban was part of a broader effort to ensure that every able-bodied man remained proficient in the use of the bow and arrow, a weapon that could turn the tide in medieval warfare. Despite the ban, golf continued to be played clandestinely, and its popularity grew, leading to its eventual acceptance and formalization. The ban is often cited as a quirky historical footnote in the evolution of golf, which later became a national sport in Scotland. 

Of course, James II died at the age of 29 when one of his own cannons exploded next to where he was standing. He became, apparently, his own personal 19th hole.  

The reason TigerBlog brings all this up today is because the Princeton men's and women's golf teams are currently in Scotland for their fall break. Even better, they're competing in the St. Andrews Links Collegiate, which teed off this morning. 

You can watch the event today, tomorrow and Wednesday on the Golf Channel from 9 am to noon Eastern time. 

This is from TB's colleague Chas Dorman, who is there to report:

The opening two rounds will be played at the Jubilee Course and the final round will be contested at the Old Course.

The format for the tournament includes 36 holes of stroke play in the first two rounds, with an individual champion crowned for both the women and the men. In addition, the first two rounds will determine seeding for the Championship and Consolation Matches on the final day at the Old Course. Joining the Tigers in the field will be Cal and Michigan State as well as the hosts from the University of St. Andrews. Previous champions include Arizona (women) and Northwestern (men) in 2024 and North Carolina (women) and Vanderbilt (men) in 2023. 

It's also possible that Chas will be hitting a golf ball or two during his time there. Such a trip would have been wasted on TigerBlog, who, as you probably know if you've been reading, is awful at golf.  

On the other hand, TB does love history. And who couldn't love to see where it all started, even if it had to be hidden from the King? 

How cool does this look: 

Unpacked at @TheHomeofGolf and went straight to the course.

Gorgeous day to be out alongside @Princeton_WGolf and prepare for the St. Andrews Links Collegiate starting Oct. 13 on @GolfChannel! pic.twitter.com/KJz3jbtyOU

— Princeton Men’s Golf Team (@princetongolf) October 11, 2025

And the oldest surviving roadside attraction in America? That would be the great Lucy the Elephant in Margate, which was built in 1882. At least that's what oldest.org says. If you've never checked out Lucy, she's a pretty imposing lady. 

Also, if you're in Margate to see Lucy, stop by the Downbeach Deli. Get the brisket.