7-0 vs. 7-0, Again

There is so much to talk about this week related to Princeton football, what with the 150th anniversary of the first college football game Wednesday and then the second-straight 7-0 vs. 7-0 showdown coming Saturday.

Throw in the way one of those teams got to 7-0 and the venue for that unbeaten showdown, and you hardly need the midweek historical recognition to make this exciting.

For the record, it'll be 7-0 Princeton and 7-0 Dartmouth Saturday at 3:30 at Yankee Stadium. The teams took wildly different paths this weekend to stay unbeaten.

So where to start?

How about with Caden Dumas, the injured Princeton sophomore tight end? Princeton defeated Cornell 21-7 Friday night on a really cold night in Ithaca, really cold, as in wind chills in the 20s. And there was Dumas, on the sideline, in a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. No sweatshirt. Nothing else. Just the sleeveless t-shirt.

And he never looked cold. He's from Massachusetts and all, but that night was cold for anyone.

From the press box (the heated press box), TigerBlog kept checking to see if Dumas had put on a coat or anything, but nope. He went all 60 minutes sleeveless. That deserved a game ball, no?

As for the game itself, it was another showcase of how great a season Jeremiah Tyler is having, as the junior linebacker had 11 tackles, four for loss, with 1.5 sacks and a pass breakup. He's having a first-team All-Ivy, Bushnell Cup finalist, All-American level season.

There were other standouts for Princeton. Collin Eaddy rushed for two more touchdowns as he is the Ivy League leader with nine now. Eaddy and Ryan Quigley combined for 172 yards on 37 carries, and Quigley's back-to-back 15-yard runs after a James Johnson fumble recovery set up Eaddy's first TD.

Kevin Davidson completed 20 of 29 for 186 yards and a touchdown to Andrew Griffin, whose six TD receptions also leads the Ivy League. Trevor Forbes and Sultaan Shabazz each had an interception; for Shabazz it was his Ivy-best third of the season.

Davidson, by the way, is currently first all-time at Princeton in career completion percentage for quarterbacks with at least 250 career passes. His name appears all over the record book, including first in average yards per attempt.

When you complete a high percentage of passes and average a lot of yards per attempt, good things will happen.

Anyway, that was Princeton-Cornell, a game that Princeton never trailed.

Dartmouth-Harvard Saturday? That was a little different.

Dartmouth defeated Harvard 9-6 in a game the Big Green did not lead until the final play, which was a 43-yard Hail Mary pass that was simply extraordinary. And stunning.

Here it is:

"UNBELIEVABLE! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!"

🔊🆙 Dartmouth completed the Hail Mary to beat Harvard 😱 #SCtop10

(via @DartFootball) pic.twitter.com/ECw0cuLOQ7

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 3, 2019

That play alone made for a huge swing in the Ivy League race. Had Harvard won, then three teams would have been either 4-0 or 3-1 (including one-loss Yale) in the league. Now two teams are 4-0 (Princeton and Dartmouth), Yale is 3-1 and Harvard is 2-2 after back-to-back tough losses to Princeton and Dartmouth.

Speaking of back-to-back, for the second straight year you get two unbeaten teams in Week 8 when the Tigers and Big Green get together.

The teams also played last year when they were both 7-0, and this marks the seventh time there has been a matchup of Ivy unbeatens in November. Prior to last year, you had to go back to 2011, and before that it was 1993. Here is the complete list:

1964 — Princeton (7-0) def. Yale (6-0-1), 35-14
1965 — Dartmouth (8-0) def. Princeton (8-0), 28-14
1968 — Harvard (8-0) and Yale (8-0) tied, 29-29
1993 — Penn (7-0) def. Princeton (7-0), 30-14
2001 — Harvard (7-0) def. Penn (7-0), 28-21
2018 — Princeton (7-0) def. Dartmouth (7-0), 14-9
2019 — Princeton (7-0) vs. Dartmouth (7-0)

The two teams are both nationally ranked and are two of three unbeaten teams in the FCS along with No. 1 North Dakota State. They are first (Dartmouth) and third (Princeton) in the country in scoring defense.

And the game is being played at Yankee Stadium, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first college football game, which was Nov. 6, 1869, between Princeton and Rutgers, and the 250th anniversary of Dartmouth College.

Princeton brings a 17-game winning streak into the game. Dartmouth has won nine straight since the loss to Princeton a year ago and has won 19 of its last 20.

Speaking of history, here's a pretty good nugget courtesy of loyal TB reader Steven Feldman of the Class of 1968: The last time Princeton had a winning streak of 17 games was between 1964 and 1965. That run ended with a loss to a Dartmouth team that came in having won nine straight.

Anyway, with all of that, it'll be a big week of football coverage, here, on goprincetontigers.com and on social media.

And it ends Saturday at 3:30 with kickoff at Yankee Stadium between a pair of unbeatens.

This will be quite a week for Princeton football.