Tigers-Green

While the Ivy League field hockey tournament begins today, the real competition was in the Princeton team hotel yesterday evening. 

The occasion? A team trivia contest, with the Tigers divided into six teams. TigerBlog's team of Josie Bianco, Caitlin Thompson, Lilly Wojcik and strength and conditioning coach Rich Fahsbender maybe won, or maybe tied. TB will go with won. 

He also learned a few things. If anyone ever asks you which country's flag is the only one in the world that is not a rectangle, the answer is "Nepal." If you're wondering which country has the largest amount of coastline, that would be "Canada." What's the only country that is in all four hemispheres? That would be Kiribati.

Anyway, it was fun. Kudos to Ivy Defensive Player of the Year Ottilie Sykes for organizing. And if you want to check out the league semifinals today, it's Harvard-Yale at 11:30 and Princeton-Cornell at 2:30. It'll be pouring at Harvard, apparently. 

The weather tomorrow in Princeton should be much better. In fact, you might even call it "perfect" weather for football, with temps in the upper 50s and a partly cloudy day. 

You can't ask for more for a football game, especially a huge one late in the season. It'll be Princeton and Dartmouth at noon tomorrow on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium.  

What makes this one huge? There are three weeks left in the Ivy League season, and the standings look like this:

Princeton/Dartmouth/Harvard 3-1
Brown/Yale 2-2
Columbia/Penn/Cornell 1-3

TB will get back to the game in a second. First, there is the matter of Homecoming. 

If you see a really tall guy with an Australian accent who looks familiar but is wearing green, don't get shaken. If the Cornell game last weekend was Princeton's actual Homecoming for alums, then the game tomorrow will be Homecoming for Elliott Carr, who left Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications to take over the same office at Dartmouth. 

By all accounts, Elliott is doing a great job in Hanover. He is one of those people you never have to worry about in terms of putting in the effort, going above and beyond and doing a consistently high-quality job. 

Also, old friend Bruce Wood — the TigerBlog of Dartmouth — will be in attendance. There aren't many people left who come to cover a game at Princeton who can remember covering games in Palmer Stadium. Bruce is one of them. 

Okay, back to the game. The math is obvious. There's a three-way tie for first with three weeks left, and this is the last remaining game among the teams that are at the top of the standings. Harvard defeated Princeton two weeks ago. Dartmouth defeated Harvard last week. 

While the Big Green were taking down Harvard, Princeton was having a massive, possibly season-changing, come-from-behind 21-20 win over Cornell. The Tigers will finish the regular season at Yale and home against Penn after the game tomorrow. 

Harvard has Penn at home and Yale on the road. Dartmouth has Cornell away and Brown at home. 

Obviously if one of the three teams wins out, it will have no less than a share of the league championship. Dartmouth would be assured of the league's automatic bid to the FCS playoffs with three ore wins. Princeton and Harvard would both need to win out and get a little help, at least to get the automatic bid.  

Those are the stakes. What do the stats say about the game? 

Well, they suggest that the team that best stops the other team's running game will be in good shape. Dartmouth is third in the league in rushing offense. Princeton is fourth in rushing defense. Princeton is fifth in rushing offense. Dartmouth is seventh in rushing defense. 

Ah, but the teams rank 7-8 in the league in passing offense. Stop the run and make them throw. That's probably written on both team's game plans. 

What else jumps out? Dartmouth is 10th in the FCS and Princeton is 11th in fewest penalties per game. Both teams are tied for fourth in the FCS in fewest turnovers, as both have lost one fumble and thrown five interceptions (three of Dartmouth's five came last week against Harvard, who in turn threw five in the game; that's a lot of interceptions). 

Princeton-Dartmouth. Kickoff at noon on Power Field.