Tigers And Lions

In keeping with the "Wild Kingdom" theme for the latter part of this week, TigerBlog did a bit of research on the difference between the largest of the big cats: Tigers and Lions.

As it turns out, Lions are much more sociable than Tigers. On the other hand, Tigers are bigger and longer. 

Lions, as you probably know, travel in packs called a "pride." Some "prides" can have as many 30 lions who travel and hunt together, with often only one of those lions a male. 

Tigers are more solitary. Tigers hunt alone.

The story TB read had some interesting facts, and some relatively unnecessary ones — such as how to tell the difference between the two. That's pretty obvious, no?

The last part of the story asked the question of who would win in a fight between the two. As it turns out, they don't really overlap too often, with the majority of wild Tigers in India and wild lions in Africa. 

There was, though, one famous dust-up between the two species, back in 1914 at the Bronx Zoo. On that occasion, a tiger wandered over to the lion cage and, well, it was pretty much all tiger from there. 

Will there be a repeat of that outcome tomorrow, at a location about four miles away from where the 1914 fight occurred? Or will it the revenge of the Lions? 

This time, it'll be at Wien Stadium, and not the Bronx Zoo, where the Tigers and Lions meet up. This time, it's in football, as Princeton is at Columbia at noon tomorrow.

The game is the Ivy League opener for both. While traveling in their separate circles the first two weeks, both teams have a win and a loss.

The Tigers started out with a loss to Lehigh and then followed that with a win over Howard. Columbia won its first game, defeating Lafayette, and then lost last week to Georgetown.

What do the stats say through two weeks? TB's first thought is that there hasn't been enough Ivy football yet to draw any serious conclusions. 

Then again, there is always something to take away. 

Consider, for instance, that Columbia is the top rushing team in the league at this point, with 185.5 yards per game on the ground. If you look at the Lions' two games, they had 204 rushing yards against Lafayette in the win but still had 167 last week in the Georgetown loss. 

Princeton went from minus-7 rushing yards against Lehigh to 195 against Howard. Also through two games, Columbia is No. 2 in the league in rushing defense (87.5 per game).

When it comes to rushing stats in the early season, here's an interesting one: Columbia has two of the top four rushers in the league with Joey Giorgi (second) and Malcolm Terry II (fourth), and yet the two of them combined do not have the same number of yards as the league leader, Penn's Malachi Hosley (153.5-137.5).

Hmmm. Is there anything else interesting statistically after two weeks? 

Oh, here's one. It's one of TB's favorites every year. 

Princeton leads the league in the number of fourth-down conversion attempts with nine. The next two teams are Harvard and Brown, with five each. TB is (almost) always a fan of going for it on fourth down. 

This will be the 93rd meeting between the two, and Princeton holds a 75-16-1 lead in the series, which dates to 1874. Princeton has won 11 of the last 12 meetings, including a 10-7 win a year ago on a rainy night in Princeton.

This is the only Ivy game in the first four weeks for these two teams. Princeton will be going from playing a team for the first time (Howard last week) to the 93rd time (Columbia this week) and then back to the first time next week (at Mercer). Columbia will play Wagner next week.

Getting off to a winning start in the Ivy League is huge. Factor in that the team that comes away with a win will have two weeks to get ready for the league sprint of six games in six weeks, while the other team will have to wait two weeks to try to turn the page on a league loss. 

It's the Tigers and the Lions on this week's Wild Kingdom Game of the Week.

Oh, and TB was right. "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" was on Sunday nights on NBC after football, followed by "The Wonderful World Of Disney."