Princeton At Harvard

How much celebrating did the people who run Major League Baseball do when their World Series ended up being the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers?

It couldn't have worked out better. Remember last year's World Series? If you're a Princeton fan you do. That was the all-Princeton World Series, as Texas (with GM Chris Young) defeated Arizona (with GM Mike Hazen).

Princetonians remember it with great fondness. Non-Princetonians probably don't remember it at all.

The Yankees-Dodgers? That's Major League Baseball gold.

It's the most-played World Series ever, with this the 11th meeting between the two. It is two huge market teams. It's Aaron Judge against Shohei Otani. a

What could be better? 

TigerBlog remembers another Yankees-Dodgers Series, back when he was a high school sophomore. His English teacher (who taught TB one of the two most important things he learned in school — grammar; the other was typing) that year made a deal with each student in the class, which was primarily American Literature. 

Here was your option: You could take the Dodgers or the Yankees or not play at all. If you did opt in, though, your next test would add or subtract the number of points that would be the difference between the number of games your team won and the other team won.

TigerBlog took the Dodgers. The Yankees won in six, or four games to two, so TB's next test score was docked two points. 

It was a genius move by the teacher in 1978. Would it get him fired today? 

Can you imagine if those two points had kept TB out of Penn? Phew. Then he'd really, really hate Reggie Jackson.

Game 1 of the World Series is tonight. TB is rooting for the Dodgers, solely because of Otani. If he had a big test coming up, he'd go with the Dodgers and hope not to lose points. 

Now imagine if college football tests could work the same way. If you were Bob Surace and you had a big test at Harvard tomorrow, would you be willing to risk four points for a chance to win four points? TB knows which team Surace is rooting for, and it's not the one with Ohtani.

Princeton heads to Harvard, with kickoff at Harvard Stadium set for 3 tomorrow. Every point figures to matter.

Last week, Princeton faced a team nicknamed "Bears" for the second straight game. This time, Princeton faces a former Surace offensive coordinator for the second straight week. 

Princeton knocked off Brown and head coach James Perry 29-17 last week, squaring its league record at 1-1. This week will be the first matchup between Surace and new Harvard head coach Andrew Aurich, someone else whom Princeton fans find difficult to root against, though they certainly will figure out a way to do so. 

Harvard is 1-1 in the league, having lost to Brown and then having defeated Cornell. Each Ivy team has played two games, and now each is looking at five straight weeks of league games to end the season.

The standings right now are symmetrical, with two 2-0 teams, four 1-1 teams and two 0-2 teams. 

At the end of the weekend, there will definitely be only one 3-0 team and one 0-3 team. The unbeatens are Dartmouth and Columbia, and they meet in New York City tomorrow. The winless teams are Yale and Penn, and they meet in Philadelphia tonight in the ESPNU game.

It was that ESPNU game last week that saw Princeton sprint out 19-0 and then hold off a Brown rally before closing the game out. As TB wrote earlier in the week, the key was turnovers — Princeton committed two, while Brown committed five. Even worse for the Bears was the fact that all five were in Princeton territory.

That sort of thievery would come in very handy tomorrow. Harvard is second in the league in time of possession, which is often an overrated stat. In this case, though, the Crimson have the ball on average six minutes more per game than the Tigers. Brown had a similar edge in possession time last week, but the turnovers neutralized that. 

Harvard quarterback Jaden Craig has thrown 13 touchdown passes and one interception. Princeton is the top passing defense team in the league. 

The forecast in Cambridge for Saturday at 3 is for 64 degrees and zero chance of rain. 

It would be well worth your time to be there. If not, watch it on ESPN+.

The five-week football sprint is about to begin.