The No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams in the AP preseason college football poll are no longer ranked.
That would be Texas and Penn State by the way. When is the last time neither of those two was ranked?
Penn State nine days ago was unbeaten and thinking national championship. Then the Nittany Lions lost 30-24 in two OTs to unbeaten Oregon, at home. Okay, Oregon is a legit national championship contender.
What followed was shocking. Penn State flew across the country to take on a winless UCLA team, one that had just fired its head coach and was in complete chaos. And what happened?
UCLA 42, Penn State 37.
Congratulations go out to TigerBlog's colleague Andrew Borders, a proud UCLA alum.
Meanwhile, the Arch-Manning-will-roll-to-the-Heisman-and-No.-1-pick thing has ground to a halt as well. Manning hasn't been bad, not by any means. He just hasn't been otherworldly. Or maybe the expectations have been too insane.
Manning, in his first full year as a starter, has completed 60 percent of his passes for 1,151 yards, with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions. Is that good? Is that good enough?
Ah, college football. Do you know who is ranked fourth? That would be Ole Miss, which has had a few other Mannings as quarterback through the years.
As for Princeton Football, the Tigers opened their Ivy League schedule Friday night with a 17-10 win over Columbia on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. Columbia led 10-0 after the first quarter before the Tiger defense clamped down.
Columbia had 147 yards in the first quarter and then 168 for the next three quarters combined. That's an average of 56 yards per quarter for the last three.
Here is Columbia's drive chart:
FG, TD, punt, interception, interception, half, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, end of game
That's great defense. And it's the two interceptions that TigerBlog would like to mention now.
One of those two picks is probably the greatest single interception TigerBlog has seen from a Princeton defender. It was perfectly timed, wildly athletic, momentum swinging and pretty much any other superlative you want to mention.
The only problem is TB isn't sure which one he thinks it was.
There was the Marco Scarano interception, the one where he came over the top of a Columbia receiver to steal the ball, without committing pass interference in the process. That play made SportsCenter's top 10 plays of the day.
Yes, but then there was the one from A.J. Pigford. This one came after the Tigers, still down 10-0, had come up short on a fourth-down play at the Columbia 2 with three minutes to go in the first half. The Lions then got a first down, so it was looking all the world like at worst it would be a 10-0 game at the break.
Instead, Columbia attempted a pass that was thrown from its end zone, and Pigford timed it perfectly, tipping it and then diving to control it at the 1. Asher Weiner punched it in two plays later, and it shockingly it was 10-7.
It stayed that way into the fourth quarter before Ethan Clark finished an eight-play, 71-yard drive with a two-yard run and Estaban Nunez Perez kicked a 38-yard field goal.
Princeton receivers Josh Robinson (four catches, 73 yards), Roman Laurio (two catches, 67 yards) and Paul Kuhner (one catch, 51 yards) all made huge contributions as the Tigers again went with their two-quarterback rotation.
If you add up those three totals, you get seven catches for 191 yards. If you add up their three career totals prior to the game Friday night, you get eight catches for 95 yards.
Right now, every Ivy team has played three games, with two non-league games and one league game. Your four 1-0 Ivy teams are Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Penn.
Next up for Princeton is a tough one, at home against nationally ranked Mercer. The Bears are 4-1-something, after starting the season with a game that was halted in the fourth quarter due to weather and therefore counted as a no-game, a loss to Presbyterian and now four straight wins.
The most recent was this past Saturday's 45-21 win over Samford.
Kickoff Saturday on Powers Field will be at noon.
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