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+.