Football Thoughts From Andorra

Hello from Andorra.

TigerBlog flew out of Philadelphia Saturday evening with the men's lacrosse team, arriving Sunday morning in Barcelona. TB always struggles to sleep in anything that's moving, which is great for driving back from Ivy League athletic events late at night and awful for overnight transatlantic flights.

One thing he did accomplish was not overpacking. In the two days before the team left, TB was asked  about 20 times if he'd packed already.

Today is the day that the team will be doing its hike across the 2,000-foot long suspension bridge that is at an altitude of 6,000 feet and sits 800 feet over the gorge. Will TB be able to put aside his fear of open heights to do this? He'll let you know tomorrow.

He was able to do so when the team was in Portugal in 2016, when he amazed himself by ziplining across a river from Spain back into Portugal. That seems like it was a bit more intimidating than this will be, but he hasn't actually seen what's in store high up in the Pyrenees.

It was a really busy Friday night before the trip began. TB was at the lacrosse scrimmages on Sherrerd Field, watching the women play Rutgers and Monmouth and the men play Ohio State. In the middle there was also the football game against Brown on Powers Field, which TB watched on ESPNU.

The game was the first of two straight on Friday nights for Princeton, with a game in Cambridge against Harvard this coming Friday. The Tigers and Crimson are both 2-0 in the league on the season.

For TB, he'll be in Barcelona when that game is played. Kickoff is at 7 (also on ESPNU), which means that it'll be 1 am Saturday in Spain when the game starts. TB will have to simply check to see who wins when he wakes up.

As for the Brown game, the series has features scores like 56-42, 65-22, 48-10, 53-0 and 31-7 in recent years. This time, the Bears were much, much tougher, which TB likes to see, since he's a big fan of Brown head coach James Perry, who was the first offensive coordinator under Bob Surace at Princeton.

This time, it was a 35-19 final, after it had been a 14-10 game at halftime. The Tigers scored three second half touchdowns, all of which were things of beauty.

The first two were courtesy of Blake Stenstrom to Dylan Classi, who connected on two perfectly run routes and passes. For Classi, it was part of a huge night that saw him catch nine passes for 169 along with the two scores. He also went over the 100-reception mark for his career, making him just the 16th Tiger ever to reach that mark.

Stenstrom, by the way, threw for 258 yards and three TDs, including a first-half strike to AJ Barber for Barber's first career TD.

The third touchdown was the one that essentially sealed it, as freshman Ryan Butler broke a 49-yard run that was a mix of speed and power that was incredibly impressive. Butler finished with 98 yards rushing, the best game of his career to date. He also has eight rushing touchdowns halfway through the season, which puts him on pace to join some elite company if he can keep it going.

The Tigers had to withstand a 41 for 61, 339-yard night by Bears quarterback Jake Wilcox as Brown gave Princeton a game for all four quarters Friday night. If you recall, a year ago Princeton and Harvard went way beyond four quarters.

Do you remember that game? Did something happen? TB can't remember.

He's joking, of course. Last year was the five overtime game that people will talk about forever. This year's game can't possibly be as close, right? Can it? 

Maybe it can.

Who knows? TB is looking forward to waking up Saturday morning in Barcelona and checking the score.

In the meantime, he's going to go and try to muster up the courage to walk across this suspension bridge. He's going to guess he does it, though he can't guarantee he'll ever look down.