Ivy Kickoff

First things first. 

Congrats to Will Venable, who has taken his Chicago White Sox into the second round of the Major League playoffs with a sweep of the Houston Astros. What Venable has done in his first two seasons as the manager is extraordinary. 

Next up is the Division Series against Cleveland. This one is best-of-five. 

Also, TigerBlog will be at the field hockey game against Yale this afternoon, which starts at 5 on Bedford Field. 

It can't go to another shootout, can it? That's enough about that. 

Anyway, today's subject is football, specifically Princeton's Ivy League opener tomorrow at Columbia. Kickoff in New York City is at noon. 

Before TB gets into that matchup, he would like to share a picture from last week's 22-0 Princeton win over Albany. Here you go: 

This shot comes courtesy of Ryan Samson. The subject is Princeton wide receiver Jackson Green, who is celebrating a reception in the game. It almost looks more like a preseason media day photo against a fake background, but it most assuredly is not. 

You also have this picture of Green, by the way. This one comes from last Memorial Day: 

Green spends the spring as an All-American shortstick defensive midfielder for the Princeton men's lacrosse team. He was a huge part of the team's NCAA championship last spring. 

Almost nobody comes through a college career with those two photos. You have to be a two-sport athlete, and you have to win a national championship in one of them. You also have to have a big smile. Green checks all the boxes. 

Speaking of Princeton wide receivers, Joey Wassler caught his first career touchdown pass in last week's game against the Great Danes. He's also the subject of a Craig Sachson feature story, one that mentions that Wassler is one of six siblings. Here's something from the story that you might like: 

"They're all huge," Joey says of brothers David, Jackson, Jacob and Josh (sister Samantha is a basketball/volleyball standout as well). "We would beat the crap out of each other in the backyard. If my brother scored 20 points in his morning basketball game, I went to my afternoon game looking for 21. That competitive spirit wasn't just about athletics, but academics as well. My siblings are great students too." 

You can read the story HERE.

Okay, now for the game tomorrow. 

Columbia is 2-0 after overtime wins against Lafayette and Georgetown. Princeton defeated Albany after an opening day loss at Bryant. 

Harvard and Cornell both won their Ivy openers last week, against Brown and Yale. In addition to Princeton-Columbia, the other Ivy opener this weekend has Penn at Dartmouth. 

Columbia ranks seventh in the FCS in total offense at 477.5 yards per game. The Lions also lead the Ivy League in rushing offense, something that has helped them to an average time of possession of 34:52, which is third in the FCS.

The Lions, by the way, average 154.5 yards per game on the ground. Of that total, a league-best 122.5 come from Griffin Johnson, who has 36 more per game than any other player in the league. Johnson is averaging 5.0 yards per rush for his career, which is not shocking when you consider that he's averaged 5.0 yards per game for each season as well.  

Ordinarily, time of possession doesn't really tell you much. A team that can score quickly can have a lot of points and not a lot of possession time. In Columbia's case, at least through two games, having the ball that much with that kind of rushing offense suggests a grind-it-out mentality, though that's not necessarily the case. Columbia also averages 323 yards per game through the air. 

Of course, with only two games, the sample size is probably too small to draw any meaningful conclusions based on numbers alone. 

But hey, what numbers favor Princeton? Well, for starters, Princeton is sixth in the FCS in fewest turnovers, with two. TB would much rather be near the top in that stat than in time of possession. 

Both Columbia (at Marist) and Princeton (at Wagner) have their final non-league game next week, which means the winner of this game will get to sit on that 1-0 league record for two weeks. 

There's a long way to go in the Ivy football season. For Princeton and Columbia, it's just kicking off. 

That's at noon tomorrow in New York City, on ESPN+. 

Welcome To October

For some reason, TigerBlog begins his first entry of each month with the obvious comment that the calendar has flipped. 

It's either "Welcome to X month" or "It's X month." The only exceptions seem to be when the first of the new month is on a Saturday or Sunday — and even then he starts out that Monday with some reference to the fact that it's a new month. 

With that in mind, he has decided that he will not mention that today is October 1. 

October, by the way, is named for the party god of the ancient Germanic tribes: Oktoberfest. Just kidding. Just kidding. It was named October because on the original Roman calendar, it was the eighth month of the year. Then someone came along and invented January and February, but October kept its name — sort of like the Big Ten or Big 12.

For some reason, TigerBlog did go down the rabbit hole of reading all about October. For instance, he found this: 

When deer are in a gray coat in October, expect a hard winter.
Much rain in October, much wind in December.
A warm October means a cold February.

Also, apparently today is International Day of Older Persons, something that was enacted by a UN resolution in 1990. And what constitutes an "older person?" According to the resolution, that would be anyone 60 or older. TB is NOT an "older person," and therefore he will not be celebrating. 

Today is also International Coffee Day. TB has never in his life had a cup of coffee, so he won't be celebrating that one either. It's also International Music Day; he'd be happy to sing for you.

October is also, informally at least, the start of Crossover Season. Between now and the end of the month, you'll have the season debuts of the Princeton women's and men's hockey seasons. In fact, Division I women's hockey actually began last weekend, and the men face-off starting this weekend. 

Some sports are sprints. Others are marathons. The Frozen Four for women will be March 21-23 in Duluth; the men's Frozen Four will be April 8-10 in Washington, D.C.

For now, though, the month begins as fall teams are heading to the heart of the Ivy League seasons. There will be three Princeton-Yale matchups, with two in Central Jersey, and Princeton's team in each will be looking to rebound from a tough league loss a week ago. 

The first of those three games is tomorrow at 5, when the field hockey team takes on the Bulldogs on Bedford Field. As you know, Princeton is 4-4, with four shootout losses, including three in a row, to No. 7 UConn, No. 8 Harvard and most recently two days ago to No. 2 Maryland. 

You also know how TigerBlog feels about shootouts. There's no need to dwell on it. Yale, like Princeton, is now 1-1 in the league, as are Columbia and Dartmouth. Harvard and Cornell are 2-0. Brown and Penn are 0-2. Not that this has anything to do with Princeton, but you have to go back to 2018 to see a year when Dartmouth and Columbia both had at least one Ivy win in the same season.

The other two Princeton-Yale matchups are Saturday in soccer, with a men's game at Myslik Field at 4 and the women's game in New Haven at 7. 

Right now, Princeton has the highest RPI in the league at No. 28. Still, the Tigers dropped their league opener last weekend at Dartmouth, who along with Cornell are both 1-0-0. 

Yale opened its Ivy League season with a tie against Penn. Hey, why can soccer have ties but field hockey cannot? You know how many tie games the 16 Ivy soccer teams have had so far? How about 21? 

The women lost their Ivy League opener at Harvard last weekend in a wild 4-3 game. Princeton trailed 2-0 midway through the first before tying it 2-2 at the break. Harvard went back up two before Princeton answered again, but the Tigers couldn't tie it. The teams combined for 32 shots on the day. 

In other Ivy League events, the women's volleyball team is home tomorrow and Saturday against Columbia and Cornell, with start times of 6 and 5. Each Ivy team has played one league match so far, and the four 1-0 teams are Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Cornell. 

The complete weekend schedule is HERE.