In A Rush

There was only time for one more play in the Princeton-Howard football game, and TigerBlog was disappointed as he looked on from the press box.

Disappointed? In the Tigers? 

Nope. Not at all. How could he be?

Princeton led for the final 58:14 of a 60-minute game while taking down the Bison 30-13 in the Powers Field at Princeton Stadium home opener. Princeton put up the first 23 points of the day and then, after Howard had cut it to 23-13 in the fourth quarter, ended things with a masterful 75-yard drive that ended with a Dareion Murphy 22-yard touchdown run. 

So why the disappointment? 

Well, it's because prior to that final play, Princeton had exactly 200 rushing yards in the game. And TB knew that the final play would be a kneel-down, which would mean negative rushing yards, which would mean fewer than 200 for the day. 

Actually, Princeton ran for 226 yards, with minus-26 on sacks of Blaine McAllister and the five-yard loss to the team on the kneeldown. And 200 is a nice round number, but hey, 195 is still impressive.

It was all part of the massive turnaround from Week 1 to Week 2 for Princeton. It's something that TB spoke about last week, and it's something that was on full display on a drizzly afternoon. 

What stood out the most was the running game. Princeton struggled to move the ball on the ground in its 35-20 season-opening loss to Lehigh, finishing with minus-7 rushing yards. Even if you take away the sacks from that game, Princeton had 25 carries for 41 yards. 

Against Howard, it was a much different story. 

John Volker went from 10 carries for 28 yards against Lehigh to 12 carries for 88 yards against Howard. That's going from 2.8 per carry to 7.3 per carry. McAllister, even with the 26 yards in sacks, finished with 50 rushing yards.  

The Tigers had a 10-minute disadvantage in time of possession against Lehigh. The running success led to a nearly four-minute edge against Howard. 

The ability to move the ball on the ground wasn't the only improvement for Princeton. In fact, like you'd expect from the first game to the second game, pretty much everything from Princeton was tightened up. 

McAllister, a senior, was making his first career start, and his first pass of the day was a 37-yard TD strike to Luke Colella. McAllister also ran for a touchdown. 

The defense tackled well and shut out the Bison into the fourth quarter. Princeton only gave up 226 total yards of offense, after Lehigh put up 346. 

Punter Brady Clark had a big day, with four punts for a 47.5-yard average, including one 70-yarder and two inside the 20. 

All in all, it had to be a big confidence boost for a team that could have used one. And it came at the right time.

Princeton now heads into the first game of its Ivy League schedule Saturday at Columbia at noon. The two league games this past weekend were both surprising, as Cornell defeated preseason favorite Yale 47-23 and Brown rallied for two touchdowns in the final five minutes to shock Harvard 31-28. 

Columbia will also be 1-1 heading into the game next weekend. The Lions' two results? A convincing win over Patriot League preseason favorite Lafayette and then a loss to Patriot League preseason No. 5 Georgetown. 

For that matter, Lehigh was the Patriot League preseason No. 6 pick. Howard is the defending MEAC champion and the runner-up for the HBCU after falling to Florida A&M in the championship game.

You never can tell from week to week. 

In fact, six of the eight Ivy League schools are 1-1, with Penn and Dartmouth at 2-0 each. Those two, by the way, play this coming weekend in Hanover. 

For Princeton, the game against Howard — and the week of practice before it — became a hugely important stretch of this 2024 season. It's not easy in football to have to sit on a disappointing loss for seven days before you can play again.

It's even harder when you haven't had any on-field success to date. To be able to put together the performance against Howard that Princeton did was a great step in the right direction.

What happens next? In the Ivy League, who knows. 

The goal, as always, is to play meaningful games in November. As October starts, all eight Ivy teams are trying to put themselves into that position.