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.