Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Crazy For You

TigerBlog said he'd start with the number 773 today, and so he will.

Princeton gained 773 yards of total offense in its win Saturday against Lehigh. That's the most Princeton has ever had in any game, dating all the way back to the 1800s - though TB has never seen a stat sheet from the 1869 games against Rutgers or anything.

That's a lot of yards. That's nearly a half a mile of offense in one game.

The result was the most points Princeton has scored in a game since 1934, when the Tigers defeated Amherst 75-0. There was also a 66-0 win over Williams in 1950, which equaled the number of points the Tigers had Saturday.

And with that, TigerBlog will get back to football in a few seconds. First, he wants to share with you this video from the wrestling team on Twitter.



TigerBlog got the reference immediately. If you were between, say, 15 and 25 in 1985, you probably got the reference too.

It's a play on the movie "Vision Quest," which came out in 1985. It's classic mid-1980s, with Matthew Modine as a high school wrestler who drops down two weight classes to go up against the three-time state champion, all while falling in love with the older Linda Fiorentino (whose character was from, of all places, Trenton, N.J.).

Yeah, throw in some Madonna songs, like "Crazy For You," and you have a classic. And now the wrestling team - the always creative wrestling team - has taken it up a few levels.

And now TB can't get "Crazy For You" out of his head. In fact, he just started whistling it.

I never wanted anyone like this
It's all brand new, you'll feel it in my kiss
I'm crazy for you, crazy for you


Again, a classic.

Okay, now back to Princeton football.

Princeton currently ranks first in the FCS in scoring offense (53 points per game) and total offense (607.2 yards per game). Princeton is also second in scoring defense (8.3 points per game), seventh in total defense (260.8 yards per game) and eighth in rushing defense (88.0 yards per game).

TB's colleague Craig Sachson has put together a bunch of other notes about the Tigers through four games:

* Princeton has scored 212 points this season through four games. The last time Princeton scored that many in the first four games was 1888. Yes. 1888.

* Princeton has allowed 33 points in four games. The last time Princeton allowed that few through four games was 1987.

* Princeton has not allowed a second-half point.

* Princeton has allowed 33 points through four games. There are four players - Nicolas Ramos (40), Jesper Horsted (38), Charlie Volker (36) and John Lovett (36) - who have scored more by themselves.

* Princeton has scored a touchdown on 28 of its 46 possessions. Of the other 18, eight have ended in field goals and three ended with the end of a half.

And then there's the one that TB gave you yesterday - Princeton has played eight halves and has scored at least 30 points in five of them.

What does it all mean? Right now it means that Princeton is 4-0, with six Ivy League games to play. The next one is Saturday, at home against Brown.

Princeton is one of four unbeaten teams in the FCS, along with North Dakota State, Colgate and Dartmouth. Princeton and Dartmouth are the only two Ivy teams without a league loss.

In case you forgot, Princeton and Dartmouth will not meet in the final game this season. Instead, they'll play on Powers Field on Nov. 3, in Week 8.

That's a long way from now. All Princeton can do is focus on the next opponent, which in this case is Brown, a team that lost its Ivy opener to Harvard and is playing to get back into the league picture.

This weekend's game is part of Alumni Weekend, which is also a change from year's past, since it won't be Harvard or Yale, both of whom are on the road this year. This game is also the halfway point of the season, and it's the start of that six-game sprint to the finish.

What will it look like when the season ends?

The season record for points (in the modern era) is 437. That means Princeton needs to average 37.5 the rest of the way to match that.

Will that record fall? Will this be a championship season? There are still more questions than answers.

Through four weeks, though, this is a team that has been a lot of fun to watch and has been playing at a level in all phases of the game that few before it here have matched.

Should TB bother to work in something about how it's a team that Princeton fans can be crazy for, or does that just go without saying?

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