The Home Opener

TigerBlog begins today with a quick field hockey note.

As Princeton prepares for this afternoon's Ivy League opener at Penn, it does so with sophomore Bridget Murphy back in the lineup. If you were at the season-opening game against North Carolina, you saw Murphy suffer what appeared to be a season-ending injury just six seconds into the game. This was after her freshman season was lost to the pandemic.

Instead, she was able to come back in far, far less time than anyone would have imagined. She made her collegiate debut this past Tuesday at Maryland, and she made a huge impact immediately.

You can read her story HERE.

The field hockey team has games today and Sunday (home against Rutgers at noon). In between, the football team has its home opener tomorrow at 1 against Stetson.

When that game was originally scheduled, it was to be a homecoming day of sorts for former Princeton head coach Roger Hughes, who led the Tigers to the 2006 Ivy League championship. Hughes coached Stetson from the program's inception in 2013 until last year, when he left to become the president of his alma mater, Doane College.

Actually, it wasn't the inception of the program. Stetson had a football team all the back in 1901, but the program was dropped in 1956. Stetson played in the 1952 Tangerine Bowl (which TB believes is now the Citrus Bowl), defeating Alabama State 35-20. 

The final game the Hatters played before dropping the program was a 64-0 win over the University of Havana. At least that's what it says on Wikipedia.

The current Stetson team is 2-0, with big wins over Warner and Ave Maria, a pair of NAIA schools. Stetson had last week off.

Princeton, on the other hand, made its debut last week and shut out Lehigh 32-0. Tiger quarterback Cole Smith won the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week award, and why not? This was his stat line: 30 for 41, 412 yards, three touchdowns. Those are Pat Mahomes numbers.

Smith's 412 yards were the 12th-best single-game total in program history. TigerBlog, being the historian he is, wondered if that was the record for a Princeton quarterback in his first start.

When he checked the games above Smith, the only one that might have been better was Doug Butler's 417 in 1983. There were two issues with this.

First, those 417 yards came against Bucknell in Week 2 of the 1983 season, and TB was pretty sure Butler didn't start in Week 1. Once he confirmed that, he saw something interesting. 

In some places he looked, Butler had 417 passing yards in the game. In others, Butler had 411.

Why the discrepancy? TigerBlog isn't sure, but he would guess it has something to do with the hand-kept stats back then. Perhaps in the final stats, someone had trouble distinguishing the "1" and the "7?"

So now what? Seriously, what are the odds that the 412 yards Smith threw for would fall in between the two totals TB saw listed from Butler in the game 38 years ago? 

TB tried to find the box score in the archives room, but that's the only game that wasn't in the folder. Again, what are the odds. He'll reach out to Bucknell to see what they have.

Meanwhile, Princeton is looking to improve from last week's effort, as team's often do from Week 1 to Week 2. Yes, a 32-0 win is convincing, but the Ivy League looks strong and there are challenges in every week to come. And there were certainly things that needed to be cleaned up from last week. It was the kind of opener coaches love. A big win, with some clear areas that need to be addressed. 

One of the areas is not depth. Princeton may have its deepest team ever this year.

Beyond Stetson is the Ivy League opener against Columbia next Saturday, also on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. The final non-league game is at Monmouth on Oct. 9, and Monmouth is a top 20 team.

Princeton is not. No Ivy team is ranked, partly because of the late start and partly because there was no Ivy football last year. That's going to change as the season goes along. Who will move into the rankings? It could be any one or two or three in the league. 

Princeton only has four home games this year (though there are still two more away games within an hour drive). The weather tomorrow in the Princeton area is supposed to be perfect. The team is certainly worth checking out.

Kickoff is at 1. See you there.