Manic Saturday

Susanna Hoffs?

Was that the answer to the trivia question on the Princeton-Lafayette football telecast Saturday?

The question was - who was the Cincinnati head coach when Bob Surace (now Princeton's head coach) and John Garrett (now Lafayette's head coach) were hired there in 2002? The obvious answer would have been Marvin Lewis, who seems to have been there forever.

Ah, but when the question came on the screen during the third quarter, it spelled "Bengals" with an extra "a" instead of the "e," which made it sound like "Bangals," and ultimately "Bangles," an all-female rock band for whom Hoffs was the lead singer. Their biggest hit was "Manic Monday;" the real trivia question is this: Who wrote that song?

The Bangles had a few really good songs, including "Eternal Flame" and a great version of "Hazy Shade of Winter." They were not, though, football coaches.

The actual answer to the question was Dick LeBeau. And TigerBlog doesn't mean to harp on the typo in the trivia question, since he makes way more than his share of typs each week. And it was corrected between when the question was asked and when it was answered a few minutes later.

By the way, he knows it's "typos." He did that on purpose, to be funny.

Also by the way, it was Prince who wrote "Manic Monday."

Princeton defeated Lafayette 38-17, improving to 2-0 on the young season heading into this Saturday's Ivy League opener against Columbia on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.

The Tigers

TigerBlog spent eight years as the football contact in the Office of Athletic Communications. For eight years, he went from being the football contact to men's basketball to men's lacrosse, with a few other sports mixed in as well.

He turned football over to his colleague Craig Sachson for the 2002 season, and Craig has been all over things ever since. In fact, Craig hasn't missed a single game in that time.

The win over Lafayette came in Sachson's 152nd game as Princeton's football contact. In that time, Princeton has won three Ivy League titles, and its overall record is 76-76.

Surace came to Princeton well into the Sachson era. In fact, this is the eighth season as head coach of the Tigers for Surace, and his overall record is 35-37. He has won two Ivy titles, in 2013 and a year ago.

While 35-37 isn't as good as Sachson's record, it is important to keep in mind that Surace started out 2-20. Yes, it's easy to forget that now, but that was where Surace was after 22 games.

And since? How about 33-17. That's pretty good.

As for the game against Lafayette, there were things that were pretty and things that weren't. Added all up, it was a game that was never really in doubt, even if it was still just 10-10 midway through the second quarter.

Chad Kanoff had another big game, going 31 for 41 for 256 yards and three touchdowns. If you're wondering, it's just the 13th time in program history that a quarterback has completed at least 30 passes in a game.

Okay, one more trivia question - two Princeton quarterbacks account for six of the first 12 games with at least 30 completions, with three apiece. Name the two.

Jesper Horsted caught six passes against Lafayette, with two of the touchdowns. Charlie Volker, playing for the first time this year, had 111 yards on 20 carries, and one TD of his own.

With two weeks gone in the Ivy League season, what is known?

A few things.

First, everyone who was ready to write off Harvard after the Crimson lost to Rhode Island in Week 1 needs to check out the score against Brown from this past weekend. It was 45-28 Harvard.

Then there was the basketball game that Penn and Lehigh played. Final score of that one? It was 65-47 Penn.

That game featured 1,167 combined yards between the teams. No team had ever scored that many against Penn in a game the Quakers won, and Penn hadn't scored that many itself in a game since 1946. The 112 combined points were the most in any game in the 141 year history of Penn football.

Yale sprinted away from Cornell in the second half to get to 2-0, joining Columbia, Princeton, Penn and Dartmouth, who defeated Holy Cross. Penn and Dartmouth play each other in a big Ivy opener as well this coming weekend.

It's way too early to figure out what's what in the league. All you have to know is that every game is huge.

Oh, and speaking of things you have to know? The two quarterbacks with three games of at least 30 completions are Quinn Epperly and Doug Butler.