Christmas In October

So when is it too early for Christmas music?

Surely the first week of October qualifies as too early, right? Or do you listen all year round? Does anyone do that? 

When a Christmas song comes on TigerBlog's iTunes, he usually fast-forwards past it to the next song unless it's at least November. Today, though it's only October 7, he's going with two Christmas references.

The first is this:

TB will get back to you in a second about why he chose the Carol of the Bells. First, there's also this quote, from Princeton's Michael Ruttlen Jr.:

"That's when it became real to me, that I could go to the number one academic school in the country and play the sport I love. It was like Christmas when I got all the things I sought."

That Ruttlen quote is from a feature story on goprincetontigers.com, written by Craig Sachson. You can read it HERE.

Meanwhile, back at the bells, if you're a Princeton football fan, you probably already know that the Tigers have a bell on their sideline. If you cause a turnover, you get to ring the bell.

Did you know that Lafayette has a bell on its sideline for the same reason?

Princeton plays its final non-league game of the season tomorrow at Lafayette, with kickoff at 12:30. Presumably, whoever rings the bell the most will have a leg up on winning the game, no?

Lafayette, also playing its final non-league game, is 2-3 on the year and 1-0 in the Patriot League. The Leopards are also 0-1 in the Ivy League, with a 12-0 loss to Penn. 

The rest of the Lafayette schedule to date has included a 6-0 win over a Sacred Heart team that defeated Dartmouth and a 24-14 win over Bucknell last weekend in its league opener. The other two losses are to Temple (30-14) and No. 16 William & Mary (34-7). 

 The Princeton-Lafayette series goes all the way back to 1883. The Tigers have a 44-4-3 advantage, including a 36-33 win in two overtimes in 2010. Who scored the game-winning TD for the Tigers that night? 

While you're thinking about that, TB will point out that the win over Lafayette was the first for Princeton head coach Bob Surace. Here's what TB wrote after the game:

The win was Bob Surace's first as Tiger head coach. The record for wins by a Princeton coach is 89, held by the very first Princeton coach, Bill Roper, so it's 88 to go to tie for Surace.

Fast-forwarding, Surace now has 68 wins so it's 20 to go to tie. He's now 68-45 at Princeton and 23 games over .500 after at one point being 18 games under at 2-20. If you take for granted that Surace has been consistently putting high quality teams on the field, keep in mind where he started. What he's done as the Tiger head coach is extraordinary.

Back at the overtime game in 2010, the winning TD was scored by Jordan Culbreath.

And now, once again back in the present, Princeton comes into this game off a 24-6 win over Columbia in its Ivy opener. The Tigers rang the bell four times in that game and now have 10 bells in three games, as well as a +2 per game average that ranks first in the FCS. Lafayette, for its part, also has 10 bells rung, with a +.8 per game average.

Lafayette has been a strong defensive team, even against the tough schedule. The Leopards lead the Patriot League in scoring defense at 18.0 per game and red-zone defense (68.4%). 

For Princeton, the defense is No. 1 in the FCS in red-zone defense (40%) and has allowed the fewest first downs of any team in the FCS. 

After this one, it's six Ivy games in six weeks for Princeton. Each Ivy team has played one league game and two non-league games to date, and Princeton, Penn, Harvard and Yale are the four teams who are 1-0. This week's matchups in the league have Harvard at Cornell tonight and Dartmouth at Yale tomorrow. 

Princeton will host Brown a week from tonight on Powers Field.