The First Monday Of 2023

Happy New Year everyone.

Here's to a great 2023 for everyone. Who knows what the year holds for Princeton Athletics or what will make the list for the top stories of the year in another 363 or so days. That's part of the beauty of athletics. You never know what's going to happen next.

Of course, it's possible that some people were updating their lists of great moments in sports in 2022 even as the ball was dropping in Times Square Saturday night. How could they not after the two college football semifinal games? 

The two games combined had 188 points and 2,014 yards of offense. There were comebacks, big plays, big performances, questionable calls — pretty much everything you could want to see.

When the dust settled, Texas Christian had defeated Michigan 51-45 and Georgia had defeated Ohio State 42-41. As the Buckeyes lined up for the potential game-winning 50-yard field goal on the final play, the clock struck midnight in the East. 

You know it was a great game when you get this quote from the losing quarterback — ''That probably was the most fun game I've ever played in my life."

That was Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud, who threw for 348 yards and four touchdowns, 50 fewer yards and one touchdown more than Georgia's Stetson Bennett, who rallied his team from two TDs down in the fourth quarter and won it with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Adonai Mitchell in the final minute. 

So now it's TCU vs. Georgia for the national title, one week from tonight. TCU, by the way, is 13-1 on the year. Do you know who beat the Horned Frogs without looking? That was Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game, which sort of renders those championship games a tad questionable in the current format, what with Ohio State not even a participant in the Big 10 game.

TCU, by the way, hasn't won a national football championship in 84 years. Georgia hasn't won one in 12 months.

In fact, TCU has won two national titles, in 1935 (led by quarterback Sammy Baugh) and 1938 (led by quarterback Davey O'Brien). TCU's online media guide has an interesting sentence about the 1935 championship, won when SMU lost to Stanford in the Rose Bowl and TCU "whipped LSU in the Sugar Bowl." Final score? TCU 3, LSU 2.

Also, in case the college football season of 1935 rings a bell with you, TCU wasn't the outright national champion that year. Princeton also was voted a national championship in 1935 after going 9-0. In fact, there were five schools who were voted as national champion by one of the seven polls used (the AP poll started in 1936): Princeton, TCU, Minnesota, SMU and LSU.

Anyway, as TigerBlog said, there was a need to do some updating of the best moments of 2022 on an FBS level. For Princeton, TB stands by his list from a week ago, though there is an important addition to it.

Oh, and by the way. Every New Year's Day, TB thinks he should switch from third person to first person, and yet he's never done so. Maybe one of these years.

One of the final Princeton events of the calendar year 2022 was the Midlands Wrestling Tournament, hosted by Northwestern. Princeton's Quincy Monday, an NCAA runner-up a year ago at 157 pounds,  won the 165-pound championship at the Midlands, outpointing Wisconsin's Dean Hamiti, ranked fourth in the weight class, 4-3 in the final.

The win made Monday's fourth Midlands champ ever, all of whom have come in the last three tournaments. That's fairly impressive for Tiger wrestling, considering this was the 58th Midlands. 

Monday also was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Wrestler. His title was part of a team effort that saw the Tigers finish eighth among 46 teams.

Princeton's Luke Stout finished fifth at 197. Kole Muhlhauser finished seventh at 174.

Next up for Princeton is the Franklin & Marshall Open this coming Friday. It should also be a fascinating Ivy League season, at least one that's more wide-open than usual, and then of course there is the postseason, where Monday and Patrick Glory will look to go one step further than their runner-up finishes of a year ago at the NCAA championships, which will be held in Tulsa in March.