Talking Football

Here's TigerBlog's one-word review of the first episode of Season 2 of "Homeland," which aired last night:

Wow.

If you don't have Showtime, stop what you're doing and order it. If you have to skip lunch a few times a month to afford it, too bad.

That's how good "Homeland" is. Season 1 was insane. Season 2's first episode had no letdown, and the coming attractions made TB want to immediately watch every other episode on demand, just like he did for Season 1, when he watched 12 episodes in three days.

And now we can talk about football.

Before we get to Princeton football, did you see the quarterback stats from the West Virginia-Baylor game? Baylor's Nick Florence went 29 for 47 for 581 yards and five touchdowns - and he had by far the worse game of the two QBs.

West Virginia's Geno Smith was 45 for 51 for 656 yards and eight touchdowns. That's a lot of, well, everything, except incompletions. Smith's season numbers, by the way, are 141 for 169 for 1,728 yards, 20 touchdowns and no interceptions.

Special bonus stats from the game: WVU's Stedman Bailey caught 13 passes for 303 yards and five touchdowns, and the teams combined for 1,507 yards of offense.

West Virginia won the game 70-63, which looks like a basketball score, not a football score. TB's theory is that the teams got together last week and decided that they'd play no defense at all in hopes of getting an otherwise nothing game to become national news.

If they did, it worked really, really well.

Then there was Princeton sprint football.

Before Princeton's game at Cornell Friday, TB checked the scores for Franklin Pierce, the first-year program. As it turned out, the Ravens had played one game, a 26-21 loss to Cornell, so TB figured that there'd be something to be learned by the final score of the game Friday night, which was 22-15 Cornell.

Do what you will with those scores. And this one: Penn 24, Franklin Pierce 20. Princeton hosts Post this Friday and then Franklin Pierce a week from Friday.

In the quarter-century that TB has been involved with Princeton Athletics, he's never really figured out the right segue for going from talking about the sprint team to the "other" football team.

Are they the heavyweights? The real team? Just the football team?

It makes for a difficult transition.

Anyway, the football team defeated Columbia 33-6 Saturday afternoon in New York City in a game that the Tigers desperately needed.

It was a performance that gave Princeton exactly what it needed, and that was the ability to look at the result on the field and see progress, not just be told "hey, you're getting better."

Were you to be cynical, you could point out that the 2011 Tigers were 1-2 after three games, with losses to two Patriot League schools and a win over Columbia, and then went 0-7 the rest of the way.

While that's true, the 2012 Tigers are so much better than the 2011 Tigers, and the numbers back it up.

Princeton lost to Lehigh by 12 and Bucknell by 25 and then beat Columbia by three a year ago.

This year, Princeton lost to Lehigh by three and to Georgetown by one and then beat Columbia by 27.

Last year, Princeton was -34 in point differential in those games. This year, Princeton is +23.

That's a 57-point shift.

So now what? Where are the Tigers with seven games to go?

The goal for this year is to establish that the team is on the way back, that it is competitive. Seven more games like Lehigh and Georgetown would accomplish that, but not in a good way.

The high-end goal should be to get to .500 for the year. Winning two games over two years and then more than doubling that in the third year isn't an easy thing to do, though.

Remember, Princeton is doing this without Chuck Dibilio, the player that the rebuilding effort was supposed to be built around, the one who is out this year after his stroke.

Up next for Princeton is a game at Lafayette, whom Princeton defeated two years ago and didn't play last year. The Leopards are much-improved this year, and it should be a tight game Saturday night in Easton.

After that, it's the run of six straight league games.

After Week 2 two years ago, Princeton was 1-1 with a not-too-shabby loss to Lehigh and an OT win over Lafayette.

After Week 3 last year, Princeton was 1-2 after an Ivy-opening win over Columbia.

Both years ended 1-9.

Now Princeton is 1-2 again.

To TB, this year feels different.

103 Straight

The Ryder Cup starts today outside of Chicago. Apparently, it's Craig Sachson's favorite sporting event.

Sachson told TigerBlog this yesterday as they warmed up for squash. He loves the Ryder Cup.

For those who don't know, the Ryder Cup is a golf competition between a team of golfers from the U.S. and a team representing Europe. It is held every two years.

Sachson talked about the pressure on each player, the fact that they're not getting money but instead are representing a team for one of the rare times in the sport, the reaction of the normally mellow golf crowds.

TB prefers the World Cup to the Ryder Cup. And the NCAA men's lacrosse championships and the Super Bowl (in that order, unless the Giants are winning the Super Bowl, as they have two of the last four years). And the Olympics. And probably a few others.

The pregame squash talk turned to another interesting fact about Sachson. In his role as football contact for Princeton Athletic Communications, Sachson will be attending his 103rd consecutive football game tomorrow, when Princeton opens its Ivy season at Columbia.

Armed with this news, TB tried to figure out what his longest consecutive streak of attending Princeton football games was.

TB was the football contact before Sachson, and he spent eight years in that role. Prior to that, he covered the team at the newspaper. Since Sachson's arrival, TB has been on the radio and of late the PA announcer for the games.

And for all that, he thinks his longest streak is 28 straight games. Basketball, it seemed, often got in the way of the Princeton-Dartmouth (and then sometimes Princeton-Yale) football games.

Still, all told, TB still has he edge on Sachson in total number of Princeton football games. If he had to guess, TB would say he's seen between 150 and 170.

His current streak of consecutive games stands at two, as in the two played this year. It'll go back to zero tomorrow, as he won't be making the trip to New York City.

The Princeton team that goes to Columbia does so with an 0-2 record, but the results are still encouraging.

Princeton lost 17-14 at Lehigh in what was its first game and Lehigh's third - and the Mountain Hawks have one of the top programs in Division I-AA. Princeton then fell at home last week to Georgetown 21-20 on a field goal with 14 seconds to play.

So are all 0-2 starts created equal?

Last year Princeton was outscored 68-31 in its first two games (Lehigh/Bucknell) and then defeated Columbia 24-21 to open the Ivy season.

The Lions are 1-1 on the year, with a win over Marist and a loss to Fordham. Like the Tigers, Columbia very much wants to be 1-0 in the league come tomorrow night.

The interesting thing about the early season for TB is that there's no way to guess what will happen next. TB has the sense the Tigers are much-improved, but as he has been saying, it's important that wins follow that.

Besides, after the Columbia game, there is one at a much-improved Lafayette and then the sprint of six Ivy games in six weeks.

Whatever happens, it's going to happen quickly.

When Sachson gets to 110 straight, what will Princeton's record be for the year?

It's possible that tomorrow's game will be a huge piece of answering that question.

The Date Night Variable

The big news for today is that the season premiere of "The Big Bang Theory" comes up at 8 on CBS.

Or you can DVR it or watch it on demand or something like that, or even DVR it and start it at 8:07 so you don't have to watch any of the commercials, as viewing possibilities have changed radically since TigerBlog first began watching TV on a black-and-white set with a dial that had to be turned with somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 watchable channels.

A year ago, TB had never watched one episode of "The Big Bang Theory." In the last few months, he has seen every one, most of them more than once. Who says TB doesn't spend his time wisely?

TB watched the trailer for Episode 1 of the new season, which starts with Howard in outer space. It is entitled "The Date Night Variable," so presumably Howard does not play a huge role.

Of course, the excitement for the new "The Big Bang Theory" season is nothing compared to what figures to be the highlight of the weekend, the premiere Sunday night of Season 2 of "Homeland."

How much is TB looking forward to that one? It airs from 10-11 Sunday night, and there is zero chance that TB will flip away even for one second to get an update on the Giants-Eagles game, going on at the same time.

An average episode of "The Big Bang Theory" last year drew around 13 million viewers. The last episode of "Homeland" drew 1.7 million. TB is fascinated by what those numbers will be this time around.

Between now and the premiere of "Homeland," there are 23 competitions involving Princeton teams, according to the all-sports schedule.

Of those 23, only two are at home, but they're well worth attending.

Princeton hosts Dartmouth in a soccer doubleheader Saturday, beginning at 2 with the women's game and then concluding at 5 with the men's game. It is the first weekend of league games for the men and the second for the women.

If you think that Ivy women's soccer is pretty tightly bunched, you'd be right.

Last weekend's first four games were all decided by one goal, with two 2-1 games and two 1-0 games. Princeton was on the winning end of its game, knocking off Yale 2-1 in overtime.

Dartmouth defeated Brown by a 2-1 score last weekend as well. Penn and Columbia also won.

Of the eight league teams, seven are at .500 or better overall. It's very unlikely that the league champ will be undefeated, so getting to 2-0 would be a great first step.

Princeton is led by Jen Hoy (whom you can hear on this week's TigerCast) and her 11 goals in nine games. She leads the Ivy League and actually has more than twice as many goals as any other player.

On the men's side, Princeton is 4-3, which makes the Tigers one of three teams over .500 heading into the league. The other two? Cornell at 8-0-0 and Brown at 7-1-0.

Ivy League men's soccer is wildly competitive. The Tigers, winners of their last three, went 7-0-0 in the league two years ago and then struggled last year, showing that the margin of error is slim on the men's side as well.

The men's team features Thomas Sanner, who has won the Ivy Rookie of the Week award three of the four weeks it's been awarded.

Dartmouth comes into the game at 3-4 overall, but everyone is now 0-0 in the league.

The soccer doubleheader on Myslik Field at Roberts Stadium is your only opportunity to see Princeton teams at home this weekend.

And there you have it.

"The Big Bang Theory" tonight.

Soccer Saturday.

"Homeland" Sunday night.

You're on your own for tomorrow.

A Day To Atone

TigerBlog's people have two holidays that really mess with his eating habits.

The first is Passover, the eight days that celebrate the Israelites' exodus from enslavement in Egypt, led ably by none other than Moses.

For each of those eight days, TB's people are not allowed - well, not supposed - to eat anything leavened, which essentially eliminates bread, pasta and basically everything else most people eat every day.

The other is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which just happens to be today.

On Yom Kippur, Jews are to fast, from sundown of one day (yesterday) to sundown of the next (today). No food. No liquids. Nothing. For 24 hours.

TigerBlog has spent much of his life mulling over the question of which is more challenging, going eight days minus so many huge staples of his diet is tougher or one full night and day without eating anything.

Yom Kippur is the most solemn day of the Jewish year, a day of quiet reflection and prayer to atone for one's sins of the past year.

It is the end of the Jewish High Holy Days, which began eight days ago with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.

In Jewish culture, the High Holy Days never come on time. They're either early or late, as in "the holidays came really early this year," which is said at every family celebration as a way of suggesting that the hostess was caught completely off guard, what with the end of the summer and all, and therefore couldn't create a proper meal for the occasion. This is usually followed by a general agreement that "we should only be together on wonderful occasions."

For children, the goal on Yom Kippur is always to go the entire 24 hours without eating, though it's rarely achieved.

The tendency is to overeat at dinner before sundown when Yom Kippur begins, but this doesn't do anything to sustain someone the entire next day.

TB's schools were always closed on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and he never went to classes in college on the holidays. He's almost always taken off from work, except at some point when he began to attend Princeton's games should the holiday fall on a weekend.

This put him in a different place than Sandy Koufax, who famously did not pitch in Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur.

TB's first Yom Kippur game was a football game at Brown back in the 1990s.

He decided to make the trip because he figured that leaving at 6 am, driving to Providence, working at the game and then driving some of the way back - all without eating - would be a tougher challenge than sleeping later and not being as busy.

Brown Stadium is not located on campus, set instead at the end of a residential neighborhood about a mile away with a temple across the street from the parking lots.

TB decided to go to the services being held at the temple, and he went in and found three players - two from Princeton and one from Brown - at the services as well. As he recalls, the Brown player was in his uniform.

The 2010 Princeton football season opened on Yom Kippur with a game at Lehigh, and TB did the radio for that one. About five feet from his booth was the pregame media food, which looked great from TB's hungry standpoint.

As for that Brown game, TB made the trip with Princeton's radio team of Tom McCarthy, now the Phillies' TV play-by-play man, and Walter Perez, now a reporter on Channel 6 TV in Philadelphia. The two of them spent the entire trip eating, and when not eating, talking about eating. As TB remembers it, they both got really good bacon and egg sandwiches at a bagel place in the morning.

That particular Yom Kippur, TB broke his fast at a Wendy's off I-95 in Rhode Island.

Anyway, TB is talking today off, except for a few reflections on the holiest day of the year.

He'll be back in the office tomorrow morning, well fed and fully atoned.

Good Call

If you're an NFL fan like TigerBlog, then you remember the good old days, back when every coach, player and commentator praised the officials after every game.

Remember those days? Every call was right. There was never any controversy about anything, whether it be a judgement call, the administration of the game, none of it.

Everyone lived in blissful happiness, knowing full well that no matter what, the game would never be decided by an officials' error, since they didn't make any.

TigerBlog gets the whole ref controversy. It's easy to blame the replacements.

And now everyone is looking for it on every play in every situation everywhere.

TB's theory is that if the real refs came back but nobody said they were the real refs, everyone would still say all the same things about them as if they were the replacements.

Take last night's game between the Packers and Seahawks. The last play of the game might not have been a great call or even the right call, but it was hardly the worst call of all time.

Offensive pass interference is never called in that situation. And Golden Tate had a lot of the ball and never let go of it, even if the Packers' M.D. Jennings had more of it.

Did that call give the Packers the loss? Hardly.

Maybe if Aaron Rodgers threw for more than 223 yards. Or, to all those offensive linemen who couldn't wait to tweet, maybe eight first-half sacks were part of the problem.

It's not possible for the replacement refs to come in and be exactly as good as the regular ones, simply because they don't have the experience of officiating games at that speed with players that size with that much scrutiny. It takes more than three weeks of regular season games to make that happen.

But are they as horrific as they're being made out to be? No, they're not.

The uproar over last night's game is predictable, and it does deflect attention away from the fact that in a 60-minute game, the powerful Green Bay offense rolled up 268 yards of offense while the defense forced exactly zero turnovers against a rookie quarterback in his third game.

Oh, and for the New England-Baltimore game, how would real refs have made anything different on the game-winning field goal, which, by the way, was 1) good and 2) not reviewable.

Officials are such an easy target.

The ones who officiate college men's lacrosse have endured a great deal of screaming and yelling and ranting and anything else coaches could come up with, and it's not going to get any easier for them this coming year.

The new rules in men's lacrosse that were recommended last month by the rules committee and then tweaked and finally formally adopted this week include a brand-new challenge for the refs.

To address the issues related to pace of play, the rules committee came up with the idea of using the stall warning as sort of a pseudo shot clock.

Under the old rules, when the refs decided that the team with the ball was making no effort to go to the goal in a reasonable amount of time, a stalling warning was issued. At that point, the team with the ball had to keep the ball in the box or else it would become a turnover.

The problem with that rule, though, was that it has become harder and harder for the defense to force the turnover in that situation, as offenses have gotten way better at playing keepaway (partly because of new stick technology) and defenses have had to choose between trying to aggressively force the offense out of the box while risking overplaying and giving up a layup or sitting back passively.

For TigerBlog, those situations could be fascinating, though the balance had certainly shifted from fascinating to happens-too-often.

To get around this, the rules committee came up with the new rule. Once a stalling warning is issued, the refs will immediately begin a 30-second countdown, the first 20 seconds of which will use a timer and then the final 10 seconds of which will use an arm countdown.

If the team with the ball does not get a shot on goal in those 30 seconds, it'll be a turnover. A shot on goal is defined as a goal, a shot off the pipe or a save by the goalie (the shot off the pipe doesn't count as a statistical shot on goal, by the way).

The rule change no longer requires the offensive team to keep the ball in the box during the 30 seconds after the stall warning is issued.

As for the last two minutes, the team ahead is no longer required to keep it in the box, but the rule about getting a shot on goal in the 30 seconds will apply once a stall is called. This could be a huge advantage to a team up by one who gets the ball with fewer than 45 seconds or so remaining, since it could probably just spread the field and kill the clock.

The idea is to prevent teams from simply sitting on the ball without instituting a shot clock, which could, among other things, provide a financial/staffing issue for schools.

The problem is that so much of the game will now be decided by the officials' discretion as to when to issue the stall warning. In the past, that was a problem too, and the defensive coaches are already yelling "stall" after the offensive team makes more than five passes.

Now, though, the timing of calling the stall has direct implications on what happens in the next 30 seconds, so when it's called becomes a much bigger deal.

And then there are the mechanics of the situation, with issues related to starting the 20-second timer, teams not knowing how much exact time is left on the countdown, what will happen when the ball goes out of bounds but the offense retains possession (the timer runs, the arm countdown stops).

Still, it's a good step in the direction of taking some of the problems related to the pace out of the game.

TB still thinks a bigger problem revolves around substituting, with offensive and defensive specialization.

And he thinks ultimately there will be a shot clock in college lacrosse.

For now, it'll be interesting to see how the refs respond to the new responsibilities placed on them.

In case you haven't noticed, people love to rip on the refs.

And The Emmy Goes To ... Homeland

Is there anyone anywhere who laughed at anything any of the presenters said during the Emmy Awards last night?

Anybody at all who thought any of that banter, which is so poorly written and then attempted to be portrayed as spontaneous, was actually funny?

Is this really the best that award shows can do? Supposedly the top writers and most "talented" performers are all working on this show; can't someone come up with something that isn't embarrassingly awkward?

Of course, there is little in the way of actual talent that separates the average TV or movie actor from the other 100,000 or more wannabe actors who don't get the break. TigerBlog has said this before a thousand times, that unlike endeavors like writing or even sports, acting isn't something where the most successful by definition are the most talented.

Still, someone should have been able to stand up and say "no, this isn't funny." As it turned out, the production for the Emmy Awards was pathetic, done in by the lack of anything remotely funny in the presentations and the widespread self-absorption of the winners and sometimes losers on the night.

TB watched the show because 1) nothing else on another channel was grabbing him, including the Patriots-Ravens game (TB thinks that field goal was probably good and wonders how it would have been any different had the regular refs had been on the field) and 2) because he wanted to see how his two favorite shows made out.

The first, "The Big Bang Theory," struck out, wiped out by "Modern Family." TB has heard that "Modern Family" is hilarious, but he's never seen it.

The second is "Homeland," a show TB hadn't heard of maybe three weeks ago, before he watched all 12 episodes in a four-day span in which he simply could not turn away from the riveting show.

TB's favorite dramas of all time are "Hill Street Blues" and "The Sopranos," shows he spent years and years watching, developing a feel for the characters and the different directions the plot went, all while seeing every episode many times each.

In the case of "Homeland," his entire experience with the show lasted half a week, and he hasn't rewatched any episode. And yet it was so well done, so well written, so well acted, with such perfect character development that TB can't help but put it in a class with any show he's ever seen on television.

Even the two major plot twists that could be seen as a contrived really came ended up working, and that's not an easy trick to pull off.

"Homeland" cleaned up with four awards, including Best Drama, a writing award and the two top acting awards. The best male actor in a drama went to Damian Lewis, whom TB didn't know was actually British, something not obvious from watching him in "Homeland" or when he was the top American officer in "Band of Brothers."

As for Claire Danes, her acting performance in the 12 episodes of Season 1 was so over the top perfect that there could have been no suspense that she would win. She made Carrie - the CIA agent who tracks returning POW Lewis - into a nearly flawless professional with a completely flawed personal life, and there was an inevitable crashing together of the two at the end that was simply riveting.

If you haven't seen the show, do it. Right now. Stop what you're doing and go watch it.

Princeton football had its own breakout star on national television this past weekend. Or at least that's what DiAndre Atwater looked like during Princeton's football game Friday night on ESPNU.

Atwater - the son of former NFL great Steve Atwater and the brother of one of the Georgetown players - ran for 92 yards on 15 carries and had around 80 yards receiving wiped out by penalties. Atwater also exploded 53 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Unfortunately for Princeton, Atwater's TD didn't stand up as the game-winner, not after Georgetown drove the length of the field and kicked a field goal with 14 seconds left as the Tigers fell 21-20.

Through two games this year, Princeton is 0-2, having been outscored by a total of four points, in losses to two Patriot League teams.

A year ago, Princeton was 0-2, having been outscored by a total of 37 points, in losses to two Patriot League teams.

Princeton could have won either or both of its first two games, and TB can point to one play in each game that might have swung things. That's not really something that was true a year ago.

Those are intangible improvements, and teams can get some confidence from them. What would be an even greater source of confidence would be wins, being able to say "we're getting better and the record reflects it."

The next chance to do so is this Saturday, with a 12:30 kickoff at Columbia.

Princeton is 0-2 but 0-0 where it counts, in the Ivy League. In many ways, Weeks 1 and 2 are a test run for the league season, which starts at Columbia, takes a week off for the game at Lafayette and then concludes six more league games in six weeks after that.

Columbia is 1-1 on the year, with a win over Marist and a loss to Fordham. Just like the Tigers, Columbia would love to be 1-0 in the league.

It's way too early to push the panic button for Tiger football in 2012. There are some strong pieces in place, and the first two opponents were not easy.

This Saturday is a great opportunity.

Step 1 was to show that the team is competitive, and two losses by four points does that.

Step 2 is to turn a one-point loss into a win.

Step 3 is to see how winning becomes contagious.

Fall Is Here ... Maybe

TigerBlog used to know what day was the first day of fall, winter, spring and summer.

Then, over time, all that faded away.

Is it the 20th? 21st? 22nd?

Actually, TB heard on the radio that fall starts tomorrow, which is the 22nd, at 10:46 am. He actually was surprised to hear that.

There's a part of "The Great Gatsby" where one of the characters is talking about how she always looks forward to the longest day of the year and then forgets about it when it actually happens. TB is pretty sure the scene is meant to show how devoid of any sort of depth that particular woman is.

The longest day of the year around here (actually, all days are the same length; she was referring to the day it stays lightest out the longest) has sunlight til after 9 pm. Sunset today is at 6:56.

TB loves discussions of what is somebody's favorite season. TB doesn't really have a favorite per se, as each season has its very strong points.

He does know that he loves this time of year, the late summer/early fall and on through Halloween and Thanksgiving, the two greatest holidays of them all.

Spring is supposed to be the time of rebirth and rejuvenation, after the long winter. TB sees it the other way.

TB's world goes something like this: Spring is for lacrosse, and June and July are for summer lacrosse. August and early September are for baking in 90-100 degree heat and humidity.

By the time mid-September rolls around, the weather starts to cool and the humidity starts to drop, and the result is this current two-week stretch of weather that has featured one rainy day and 13 of the most perfect weather days of all time.

That's as rejuvenating as going from the cold winter into the rising temperatures of spring, at least to TigerBlog.

The beneficiaries of this weather are the people who are planning to come to Princeton tonight.

The Princeton Invitational men's soccer event begins this evening, as Penn takes on FDU (5:00) and Princeton then hosts Rider (7:30). It'll be Penn-Rider (noon) and Princeton-FDU Sunday (2:30).

Admission is free.

Men's soccer coach Jim Barlow was here earlier this morning, and TB pointed out that if the game tonight comes down to which coach is better at imitating people, then Princeton has no chance. Rider coach Charlie Inverso - who had a great three-decade career at Mercer County Community College - is as good an impersonator as TB has ever heard, maybe short of Rich Little and Andrew Dice Clay.

Unfortunately, the football game was moved to Friday night for ESPNU, which means it goes on at the same time as the men's soccer event, something TB never likes to see here.

Princeton hosts Georgetown at 7 in the first meeting between the schools since 1925.

The Tigers are 0-1 after a close 17-14 loss to Lehigh last week. Georgetown is 2-1, its loss a 24-21 decision to Yale last Saturday as well.

Princeton is looking for improvement from Week 1 to Week 2, but more than that, the Tigers are looking for a win. Beating Georgetown would be a big step for many reasons, including:
* showing measurable improvement
* evening the record
* having a win to build on heading into the league season
* getting a win over a quality opponent

TB is interested in what happens on the field obviously. He was also interested in what the weather would be.

Last year's home football schedule was five games. It rained for three and snowed for one.

Tonight will be perfect weather, temperature in the mid-60s at kickoff.

After last year, that's already a win.

32 Songs, 4 Hours, 2 Goals, 35 Seconds

Peter Farrell walked in and said "stop what you're doing and get tickets."

To Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, that is.

Farrell, Princeton's women's track and field coach, then said this:

"I've seen the Beatles, the Stones, the Dead, Jimi. I've never seen anything like this."

Lastly, he said this: "It's the best $120 I've ever spent."

Farrell went to see the Boss last night at MetLife Stadium. As it turns out, it was the first time in 30 years that he's seen him.

And he couldn't stop raving.

Eventually, he made TB go to backstreets.com to get the playlist for the concert, which ended this way:

Thunder Road. Born To Run. Rosalita. Dancing In The Dark. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out. And lastly, Twist and Shout.

Not too bad, huh?

For TB's money, there's never been anyone better at anything than Springsteen is in concert. Maybe Michael Jordan as a basketball player, but that's it.

If you've never seen him, you're cheating yourself. The Boss is three days away from his 63rd birthday, and yet there he was last night, out there again, for nearly four more hours of unbridled energy.

As TB said to Farrell, Bruce could sell out that stadium every night for 100 years and people would still be buying tickets. And raving when they left.

Meanwhile, while Farrell was being awed by the Boss, Jen Hoy was scoring three first half goals in Princeton's 5-2 win over Lafayette in women's soccer.

TigerBlog learned from Twitter that Hoy had scored her three goals. 

He didn't realize that two had come 35 seconds apart and that the three were within 18 minutes of each other.

Armed with that knowledge, he went off to the NCAA record book to find out where that all fit in.

After all, two goals in 35 seconds by the same player in soccer? That's not something that happens all the time.

TB's experience in trying to find out where Hoy's feat stands was not exactly successful.

The record book has an entry for fastest consecutive goals by the same player, which is a shocking five seconds. And amazingly, two players share that record: Jill Pearson of Fresno State in 1997 and Stephanie Erickson of Northwestern in 1994.

Five seconds? To have one player score twice?

TB thought he recognized Erickson's name,  and when he looked, he found out she was Harvard's coach for a year before returning to Northwestern to take over the program there.

And the record for three consecutive goals by the same player? Who would have that record?

Well, let's just say that TB didn't have to look up the name once he had it.

Abby Wambach scored three goals in a 2:02 span of a game against Arkansas back in 2000. TB didn't know that Wambach, a Rochester native, played at Florida.

So Hoy's goals weren't a record. But where did they stand?

The record book lists the top 30 fastest goals by the same team, by opposing teams, to start a game - all of those except by one player. And that meant TB couldn't find out where Hoy now stands.

For that matter, he doesn't know if it's a Princeton record or an Ivy record.

He does know that it's fast.

The women's soccer team is now 3-3-1 as it prepares to head to Yale for its Ivy League opener. The Tigers could easily be 5-2, had it not been for two tough stretches against Colgate (a 4-1 lead turned into a 4-4 tie) and UC-Irvine (two late goals led to a 2-1 loss after the Tigers had to play a player down for 70 minutes).

While 5-2 would look better than 3-3-1, it wouldn't really impact Princeton as it heads down the path of the league schedule. Princeton has looked great at times this year, and Hoy, who already has nine goals, is a marvel to watch.

The game Saturday is big, but it's not season-making-or-breaking. A loss would be a setback but not an insurmountable one.

On the other hand, a win would be great, especially with four of the next six league games at home. 

Make Sure You Get Tuna

John Cornell was one of two people who ever held the position of "publications coordinator" here in the OAC.

The first was a young man named Mike Zulla, who started here as an intern and then became the first publications coordinator. When he left, Cornell came in from the Naval Academy to become the second.

After Cornell's tenure was up, TigerBlog changed the position, which was something of a luxury at the time, back to a more traditional athletic communications one. Now, looking at how few publications are still done around here, the thought of having a position devoted completely to printed pieces is something completely antiquated.

Zulla, who married former fencer and von Kienbusch Award winner Caitlin Rich, used to write on the dry erase board (which also no longer exists) what his whereabouts would be if he had to be out of the office. To this day, TB can still see "Z at dentist" written in huge letters across the white background.

As for Cornell, he came from Navy, as TB said, and spent his first week at Princeton simply walking around the office giving his opinion on basically any and all subject, though he managed to pull this off in a somewhat charming way, which is no easy feat.

At one point, Cornell did some diet where it was okay to eat three cheese dogs at Wawa and the chicken/cheese lunch at Fridays but not an apple. And, somewhat stunningly, TB remembers that he lost weight through the process.

One of TB's favorite emails of all time is the one that Cornell wrote nine years ago this month entitled "Back in the Day." It starts out with "You know you worked in OAC in 2001-2002 if..."

TB just reread it, and once again it is hilarious. Among the entries:

-You can order Friday's without the menu
-You know all about Navy
-You know the difference between Yasser El Hallaby and Yariv Amir
-You hate Yale but you like Steve Conn and Tim Bennett
-You get there early to make sure you get Tuna
-You're sure the record book is updated
-You love Luis
-You've actually talked about squash at the water cooler

There are a ton of others, all of which are inside jokes. Steve Conn and Tim Bennett, for instance, are universally loved Yale's sports information people. Getting tuna means getting there early at the football luncheon to get a tuna sandwich before they were all gone. Yariv Amir works in the OAC; Yasser El Halaby is the greatest college squash player ever.

As for the record book, well, let's just say that anyone who was asked if their sports were updated replied "yes," even if the answer was really "not for the last few years."

There was another one that said: -When someone asks about John Thompson, you don't think about Georgetown Basketball. This, of course, was before John Thompson left Princeton to go to Georgetown.

Before he was at Navy, Cornell used to work at Post in Connecticut, which has to make him the only person to work at three of the eight sprint football playing schools.

Two of those three, Princeton and Navy, meet Saturday on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, with kickoff at 2.

It's a rare Saturday afternoon game for the sprint team, which almost always plays on Friday nights, something made impossible this week by the Princeton-Georgetown game, which will be Friday at 7 on ESPNU.

Princeton opened the season with a 23-16 loss to Mansfield Friday night. TB was at the men's soccer game and on his way to Princeton Stadium when Mansfield intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown to clinch it.

As for Navy, well, TB went back to some of the recent scores in the series and noticed an interesting stat, though not a very good one.

Princeton has not scored a point against Navy since 2004. The Tigers have been outscored 400-0 in that time.

Why bring this up?

Well, because the Tigers appear to be a bit more competitive. Maybe hoping for a win Saturday might be a bit much, but measuring improvement might be possible based on the final score, especially if it doesn't end in "-0."

TB gives Steve Everette and his team a great deal of credit, for the optimism if nothing else.

One day, the Tigers will get a win. Hopefully it'll be this year. Maybe it won't be.

But there's no denying the courage it takes to keep trying, every week, for this team.

Tonight's Attendance Is ...

Back before he was the Director of Athletics at Bradley University, Mike Cross was the Executive Associate Director of Athletics here at the U.

Every now and then, Princeton gets referred to as "The U" around here, just to keep things light.

Anyway, when Mike worked at Princeton, he and TigerBlog had great discussions about basically any and all topics in intercollegiate athletics. And movies. And TV. And everything else.

TB remembers when he first met Cross, back when he came here from Michigan a long time ago. His first impression was that of an academic, though maybe it was because he had a Ph.D. in education, something not nearly as common in athletic administration as, say, a law degree.

In fact, Cross' biggest strength here, and TB assumes in his current position in Peoria, is his pragmatism, which is about as valuable a commodity as one can have in any position. It's okay to have the grandiose conversations and the big dreams; it's just that they need to be balanced by the practical realities of the economic, political, human situation.

TB prides himself on his own pragmatism, which should never be confused with taking the easy way out or not being willing to evolve and try new ways of doing business. It's just that ultimately, there has to be an ability to see the big picture.

That doesn't mean that the conversations that TB and Cross had weren't valuable. Many of those conversations revolved around the idea of attendance at events, especially football.

TB thought back to those times talking to Cross as he looked at the home attendance for the three Ivy League home football games from this past weekend.

They were:

Butler at Dartmouth - 9,089
San Diego at Harvard - 5,272
Marist at Columbia - 3,933

Princeton's game at Lehigh was played in front of 7,346 at Goodman Stadium.

The game was played on a 100% perfect can't-ask-for-more weather day between two schools separated by a one-hour drive (so any Princeton fan could easily have gone), and the home team is a Top 15 Division I-AA team in the middle of a sustained period of excellence. And the stadium is a great place to see a game.

Add up those four games, and it comes to 25,640, or about a quarter of the number (98,782) that saw Penn State host Navy on a campus that is trying to get away from the football-runs-the-school mentality.

As TB and Cross spoke all those times, the two shared the main point, which is how is a school like Princeton (or any other Ivy school) supposed to know if it's being successful in getting fans to the game?

Should Princeton set a goal for average attendance in a year? Or are there too many variables that make that impossible? Is failing to reach such a goal, if set, a sign that there was something else that the athletic department could have done?

Princeton hosts Georgetown Friday night in its home opener.

On the one hand, the weather is supposed to be perfect again (75 degrees during the day, around 68 for kickoff, no chance of rain). Princeton Stadium is also a great place to see a game. Princeton seemed to be vastly improved in its game against Lehigh, and the Georgetown game figures to be a nice barometer of where the team stands right now.

Of course, it's also a Friday night at 7 and on ESPNU. And its the first meeting between the schools, rather than a traditional rivalry. And Georgetown isn't a big-name football team, even if it is a very strong football team the last two seasons.

So what would be a good crowd?

10,000?

7,500?

5,000?

Again, TB has no idea.