Heps Champs, Again

TigerBlog was in the Schoellkopf Field pressbox during Saturday's Princeton-Cornell football game when he saw a very familiar face approach him.

It was none other than Dave Wohlhueter, or, more properly, The Legendary Dave Wohlhueter.

TB first met the Heat, as he's always been known, back in the 1980s, which shows you how long they've known each other. The Heat was the sports information director for Cornell from 1977-98, and he is a member of the CSC Hall of Fame and Cornell Hall of Fame.

Now 85 years old, he is still living his dream life. To give you an example of what that life is, this was his Saturday: 1) the first half of the game between Buffalo State-Ithaca College (he is an Ithaca alum), 2) the second half of Princeton-Cornell football, 3) dinner, 4) Cornell-Minnesota Duluth men's hockey.

It was great to see him, as it always is. Being around The Heat takes TB back to a time when the job was much different, when TB was much younger and when the Ivy League sports info ranks included great people like The Heat, Chris Humm at Brown, Kurt Kehl at Princeton, Chuck Yrigoyen at the Ivy League office, Kathy Slattery at Dartmouth, John Veneziano at Harvard and Bill Steinman at Columbia. 

As for TB, he only saw two games this weekend in person. The first was Princeton-Yale field hockey in New Haven Friday evening, when the Tigers won 2-1 in overtime to take the final spot in the Ivy tournament. 

His trip began Friday when he stopped off for breakfast with FatherBlog at FB's favorite North Jersey diner. From there, he drove over the George Washington Bridge and got on the Henry Hudson Parkway, which took him right past Van Cortlandt Park.

The weather was perfect. The grounds looked spectacular. And there was nobody there.

Had this been most years, TB would have gotten off the highway and watched the Ivy League Heptagonal cross-country championships, which would have just been getting underway.

Instead, for the second time ever, the event was being held at Franklin Park in Boston. Actually, for the men, it was the first time Heps was at Franklin Park, since the only other time Franklin Park hosted was for the 1981 women's race. 

Oh well. TB would have loved to have been there. As he's written before, most recently last week, Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events and as big a party as there is in Ivy athletics. Seriously, if you've never been, make sure to go one of these years. 

The races in Boston saw unseasonably warm weather, which is presumably less than ideal for cross country. In fact, it's likely that the runners would have preferred rainy and 45, but what they got was sunny and 80.

As for the results, the Princeton men won again, while the Princeton women finished in second. If you're keeping score, that's 24 Ivy League men's cross country titles for Princeton, including three straight and five of the last six.

This time, the Tigers did it as the underdog. 

Harvard came into the race as the home team and more importantly as the No. 7 team in the country, while Princeton was ranked 15th. The race itself was filled with drama.

The Crimson went 1-3-5 across the line. Would that be enough? Princeton's top finisher was Nicholas Bendtsen, who finished fourth. 

After that, it was a wave of Orange and Black, as Princeton runners came home seventh (Jarrett Kirk), eighth (Connor Nisbet), 10th (Anthony Monte) and 11th (Daniel O'Brien). Would that be enough? 

As it turned out, it would. Princeton got some help from two Yale runners and two Dartmouth runners, and when Harvard's next two came home 14th and 20th, the final score was Princeton 40, Harvard 43.

Ah, to have been there trying to calculate in TB's head the numbers and then waiting for the official word, followed by what he assumes was a big-time celebration. 

It's part of what makes Heps great.

Harvard went 1-3 in the women's race as well and then followed that up with a 10-16-17 to win with 47 points. Princeton was next with 73, led by Fiona Max in seventh.

Up next is the NCAA regionals at Lehigh a week from Friday.

First Place

October ends tomorrow (candy for everyone). 

Princeton is in first place in Ivy League football. You can't really ask for much more than that.

And so what if it's a first-place tie, and so what if almost every other team is nipping at the Tigers' heels. They're here as November begins, and the goal is always to play huge games in November.

That's become the norm since Bob Surace became Tiger head coach. The 2023 season will be no different.

Princeton took down Cornell 14-3 Saturday at Schoellkopf Field. In this crazy year of Ivy football, all you can hope for is to take care of the opponent right in front of you, without looking ahead to the bigger picture. Besides, as was the case Saturday, there's a pretty good chance that the team you're facing is also right in the Ivy race.

The weekend that just passed began with a five-way tie for first place. Now it's down to two teams in first, Princeton and Harvard, who defeated Dartmouth 17-9 to also get to 3-1. 

Penn's 30-26 Friday night loss to Brown meant both of those teams are now 2-2. So is Dartmouth, after its loss, and Cornell, after its loss. And Yale, the overwhelming preseason favorite, thumped Columbia, moving the Bulldogs to 2-2 as well.

That's craziness, no? 

The funniest thing so far about the 2023 Ivy football season is that just when you're ready to write a team off, back it comes. And just when you're ready to anoint a team as the favorite, back to Earth that team comes. 

Here's another little piece of craziness.

Should Princeton win out, it would be assured of at least a tie for the championship. So would Harvard. And Yale. And Penn. 

That's half the league that heads into November knowing that all it has to do is win its final three games to get a ring. 

The Princeton-Cornell game Saturday was as big a game as Cornell has had in a long time. The Big Red came in after hammering Brown 36-14 a week earlier, leaving them as part of that five-way 2-1 tie at the top. 

The crowd at Schoellkopf was loud. The game started with a Cornell drive that featured three first downs and reached the Tiger 36. Each play seemed to build Cornell momentum. There had already been two third-down conversions. Would there be a third? Not on this drive. How about a fourth-down conversion? Nope. Not that either. 

Princeton went three and out on its first drive, and then Cornell got one first drive before punting on its next possession. To that point, Cornell had run 19 plays to three for the Tigers.

Ah, but that fourth play. That was something different. 

Princeton had the ball on its 23 after a punt. On the first play, Blake Stenstrom went back to pass. As he did so, TigerBlog, standing on the sideline, turned to Executive Associate AD Anthony Archbald and said "look how open he is." 

The "he" was Tamatoa Falatea, who found himself wide open behind the Cornell defense. He was so shockingly open that Blake Stenstrom probably did a double take before getting him the ball. When he did, Falatea did the rest, wisely cutting back towards the middle of the field as he neared the goal line to open more space against the Cornell defenders.

That TD made it 7-0 Tigers. There Princeton was, four offensive plays into the game, with more than the number of points it would need to win. 

Usually when that happens, the game is a blowout. Actually, with how Princeton's defense was playing, it was essentially a blowout. 

The Tigers — who had six players with between seven and nine tackles but none in double figures — completely stopped the Cornell offense, which had those 36 points a week earlier against Brown. There was no point of the game after that first drive where TB even remotely considered that the Big Red were going to get into the end zone in any way other than one big play, and that never happened.

Princeton got another touchdown late in the first half, when Luke Collela completed a 33-yard play with a nice catch in the middle of the field and then a dive into the end zone to finish, making it 14-3 at the break. That's the way it would stay.

And so you're left with Princeton and Harvard in first, with the five teams on their heels. For Princeton, next up is a Friday night game at Dartmouth, which has not been a fun place to play for the Tigers through the years. 

Of course, Princeton will be bringing its defense on the trip. 

What the Tigers showed on that side of the ball in Ithaca was, once again, extraordinary.

A Big Red Kickoff

As you know, the Ivy League football race is a tad crowded right now.

With only four weeks to play, there are five teams who are 2-1 in the league. No team is unbeaten. Two teams are 1-2. One is 0-3. 

As you probably know, only twice has a two-loss team gotten a share of the championship. The last time was in 1982. The time before that was 1963. 

In other words, it doesn't happen often.

Will it happen again this year? If you had to say yes or no, what would you say? 

TigerBlog goes back and forth. If he really had to make a prediction, he would say that no team goes 4-0 the rest of the way, which means that there will be a two-loss champ (or champs).

What that means is that the magical two-loss number doesn't mean you're necessarily eliminated. Taken a step further, that means that seven of the eight teams can still feel like they have a legitimate shot.

The eighth team? That's 0-3 Columbia, whose three losses are 10-7 to Princeton, 20-17 to Penn and 20-9 to Dartmouth. Would you think you're going to roll over the Lions if you still had them on your schedule? Of course you wouldn't.

The 2-1 teams are: Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Penn and Dartmouth. The 1-2 teams are: Brown and Yale.

This weekend's matchups are: Brown at Penn tonight and then Princeton at Cornell, Columbia at Yale and Dartmouth at Harvard tomorrow.

The big picture says that no matter what, two more teams will get their second loss this weekend. That would be the loser of Princeton-Cornell and the loser of Dartmouth-Harvard.

Also, if Brown beats Penn tonight, then that would be two losses for the Quakers as well. 

To give you an even better sense of how wild this league is, here are some comparative scores: Brown 28, Princeton 27. Cornell 36, Brown 14. Dartmouth 23, Penn 20. Cornell 23, Yale 21. Yale 31, Dartmouth 24. Princeton 21, Harvard 14.

How do you make sense of all that? 

Well, one way is to look outside the league, as weird as that might seem. When Harvard beat then-No. 5 Holy Cross and rolled out to a 5-0 record, it looked like the Crimson were the clear favorites. When Lafayette beat Princeton on Powers Field, it looked like it wasn't quite Princeton's year. 

Then TB wrote this: If Lafayette wins its next game, then the game against Princeton will have a slightly different feeling to it. That next game was Holy Cross, and the Leopards in fact won that game, ending the Crusaders' long Patriot winning streak. 

Now all of the sudden, Princeton has a win over Harvard and a lot of momentum as it heads to Ithaca. So too does the Big Red after the hurting it put on Brown last week, one week after the Bears beat Princeton.

In other words, predictions? Why bother?

Do the stats say anything? 

Princeton has the nation's No. 1 rush defense, allowing 72.2 yards per game. A week ago, Princeton held Harvard, a team that came in with a run-first offense that gained 262 per game on the ground, to 68. That's nearly 200 fewer than the Crimson were averaging.

Cornell, on the other hand, is fifth in the league at 116.3 per game. Of those 116.3, the Big Red get a team-best 44.8 of them from quarterback Jameson Wang. Last week's challenge was stopping Harvard QB Charles DiPrima, who was the league rushing leader. DiPrima had 10 yards on the ground. 

Harvard's top two rushers, DiPrima and Shane McLaughlin, are the top two rushers in the league (DiPrima is now No. 2). In Wang's case, he throws it way more than DiPrima, partly because of game plan and partly because of game situation. 

Last week, Wang had five carries for 22 yards against Brown. He also completed 27 of 39 passes for 330 yards and two TDs. If he matches those numbers this week, that would not be ideal for the Tigers. 

Princeton has played six games to date. In only one of them has the final margin been greater than one score, and that was a nine-point win over San Diego in the season-opener. The last five weeks have seen Princeton play games decided by three (in OT), three (winning TD with less than two minutes left), three, one (in OT) and then seven (winning TD with less than two minutes left). 

It's been that kind of year, for Princeton and the rest of the league.

Why would this game be any different?

Princeton vs. Princeton In The World Series

TigerBlog can't remember a sporting event in which his rooting interest was so conflicted as it was this past week.

No, he's not talking about any Princeton games. He's not even talking about the Giants-Washington game Sunday. There was a time when that would have been a huge day for TB and his mother, whose favorite athlete ever was John Riggins while TB was a huge Giants fan.

In most of the years since her death, TB was always torn for those two games each year, sort of as an homage to his mother's team. These days, though, he roots against the Giants, because they got rid of Marc Ross and Jason Garrett, and those are red lines you can't cross with TB.

The event he's talking about was Game 7 of the National League Championship Series between Arizona and Philadelphia. 

On the one hand, TB is a Phillies' fan. For one thing, his son is a huge fan of the team. And hey, TB himself was once a vendor at Veterans Stadium in a season (1983) that ended with a World Series (Baltimore defeated Philadelphia).

Then there is Tom McCarthy, the play-by-play man for the Phils. TB roots for him, and for the Reds, because of John Sadak, another former Princeton announcer-turned-MLB announcer.

Lastly, the Phillies come across as a pretty fun group. They seem to really love playing together. And before the series began, TB couldn't name anyone on the Diamondbacks.

Other than the general manager, of course. And therein was the problem.

The Arizona GM is Mike Hazen, a former Princeton baseball outfielder. How could TB possibly root against Hazen? 

He certainly had no such dilemma in the American League. He was all-in on Texas, who beat Houston in seven games — in a series in which the road team won all seven games. 

In fact, between the two series, the home team was 3-11, including 0-6 in Games 5 through 7.

Texas, as you probably know, also has a Princeton alum as a general manager, Chris Young. It also has a Princeton alum as its associate manager, Will Venable, who like Young played baseball and basketball at Princeton and was first-team All-Ivy in both.

So that sets up a Princeton vs. Princeton World Series that begins tomorrow night in Texas (did Arizona decline home field?). Interestingly, the three Tiger alums were never teammates, as Hazen graduated in 1998, a year before Young started, and Young left in 2000 to turn pro (finishing his Tiger degree on time and writing his senior thesis on buses in the Minor Leagues), while Venable first came to Princeton in 2001 (and didn't play baseball as a freshman).

Hazen was a two-time first-team All-Ivy League centerfielder, in 1997 and 1998. In fact, Hazen was the first player to play for Scott Bradley at Princeton to earn first-team All-Ivy honors, since Hazen's senior year was Bradley's first as Tiger head coach.

Hazen hit .333 for his Tiger career, which ties him for 14th-best in program history with — Venable. In fact, the two had fairly similar numbers during their time as Tigers, with better power numbers for Venable and more overall hits for Hazen.

Venable was also a 1,000-point man in basketball, which is pretty good, considering he was always considered more of a defensive stopper than scorer. TigerBlog isn't sure Venable would have made it in the NBA, but he did see Venable outplay a lot of guys who did in big games. As it turned out, Venable had a nine-year Major League career before getting into coaching.

As for Young, he would have been a 1,000-point scorer, or maybe even a 2,000-point scorer, but his basketball career ended after his sophomore year when he was drafted and signed with the Pirates. Had he chosen to stay with basketball, Young almost surely would have had a long NBA career, perhaps even as long as the 13 years he pitched in the Majors.

Young is the only Princeton pitcher in the last 50 years to have at least five decisions in a season without losing game.

And now, they're all meeting up in the World Series. As TB has written before, this is a statement on what Bradley instills in his player as much as anything else.

For whom will TB be rooting? This time it's easy.

Princeton. 

Boston Heps

TigerBlog's Friday was set up perfectly.

Long, but perfectly.

Heps cross country in the morning at Van Cortlandt Park. Princeton-Yale field hockey at 5 in New Haven. 

He would even throw in breakfast at the diner with FatherBlog. And yes, that means having to drive him around on his errands, but hey, he's 88, so why not?

And then? He learned that Heps is not Friday at Van Cortlandt Park but Saturday in Boston. 

What? So now it'll just be the diner, the errands and the field hockey game.

The Ivy League men's cross country champion has been crowned at the Heptagonal race since 1939, with the exception of 1944 and 1945 during World War II and then in 2020 due to Covid. 

From that first year through 1978, each Heps championship meet was held at Van Cortlandt Park, which TB should have mentioned by now is in the Bronx. Was the 1939 meet like the contemporary ones, with its team tents all lined up along the finish area and alums who flocked to see it all?

The women's Heps dates to 1977, but it was a separate event for the first three years, first in New Haven, and then Ithaca and Philadelphia the following two years. The 1979 men's race was in Bethlehem, Pa., at Saucon Valley Golf Club, and then the two races  were first held at the same venue together in 1980. 

That venue? Van Cortlandt Park.

The women ran in 1981 at Franklin Park in Dorcester, Mass., before returning the following year to rejoin the men at Van Cortlandt Park. The race never moved from there again until 2011, when it was first held at Princeton's West Windsor Fields. Perhaps the forces of the universe didn't agree with that move — that 2011 race famously was held during a late October blizzard in Princeton.

The next 10 Heps saw Princeton host seven and three return to Van Cortlandt Park. And now, this Saturday, it returns to that same Franklin Park.

TigerBlog isn't sure where the course is set, but there is a zoo in Franklin Park that has both a "Lions Den" and a "Tigers Tale." Is that a good omen for Columbia and Princeton? 

The national women's rankings include only one Ivy school, and that is Harvard, who is 26th. Regionally, Penn is third and Princeton is sixth in the Mid-Atlantic Region, while over in the Northeast Region, Harvard is No. 1, followed by No. 8 Columbia, No. 11 Dartmouth and No. 13 Yale. 

On the men's side, there are two teams in the national rankings, the top 15, actually. Harvard comes in at No. 7. Princeton is at No. 15. Both teams made big jumps last week.

Villanova and Princeton are 1-2 in the Mid-Atlantic rankings this week, with Penn at No. 7. Harvard is behind Syracuse in the Northeast Region, followed by No. 5 Yale, No. 7 Cornell, No. 10 Columbia and No. 11 Dartmouth.  

That's a lot of high quality Ivy League cross country teams.

By the way, the same school is ranked No. 1 in both the women's and men's national poll. Can you name it? 

The women's race will be held at 11 Saturday, followed at noon by the men's race. 

TB's colleague Joey Maruschak will be covering those two races and then taking the short trip over to Harvard, where Princeton will be playing men's soccer at 1. If you're going to be in the area, you should do the same.

TB won't be there, sadly. Heps cross country is one of his favorite annual events on the Ivy League calendar, and he hasn't missed many in the last 30 years or so.  

Some Ivy League championships take months to play out. Getting off to a slow start can be overcome. A key injury here or an unlucky bounce there doesn't doom the entire season.

In Ivy League cross country, the championship season comes and goes in just a few minutes. You have to be ready on that day, for that course. That's part of its lure. That's part of its challenge as well. That's part of why it's such a great event.

That, and the party atmosphere that exists on the grounds before, during and after the race. TB will be missing it.

And the No. 1 team in both polls? That's Northern Arizona. 

Picture Perfect

TigerBlog has a new hobby — photography.

Here's a shot he took the other day with his iPhone: 

What do you think? Not too bad, right? 

Okay, okay. That isn't TB's shot, and that wasn't taken with an iPhone. Perhaps credit should actually go where it belongs:

Soham Bhattacharyya has been named overall winner of this year's Mangrove Photography Awards, for his image of an endangered tigress in the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve, India.

That is a great shot. Look how beautiful the Tiger is. Look how still it is. Who couldn't like that picture (other than, maybe, Harvard's football team this week)? 

How close did Soham actually have to be to the Tiger to take that? What kind of lens was used? 

What did the Tiger do in the next few seconds? Hopefully for Soham's sake it didn't look anything like this: 

You saw this picture in yesterday's TigerBlog. It was taken during Saturday's 21-14 Princeton win over Harvard.

Those Tigers are Liam Johnson and Ozzie Nicholas, and there's nothing still or peaceful about them when they're on the football field. Between them they have 111 tackles through six games. The next best total by a pair of teammates? Here's the complete list of other Ivy League teammates who combined have at least 100 tackles this season: _______________________.

In case you didn't get it, that means no other duo has at least 100. Johnson and Nicholas have 111.

That photo from the other day was taken by the great Shelley Szwast, who has taken so many great Tiger photos over the years, though not in a mangrove. That picture from the Harvard game is one of her best in that it tells the entire story of the game in that one shot. 

That's what great pictures can do. Princeton is fortunate to have Shelley, Greg Carroccio and Ryan Sansom behind the lens for many of its games. 

When TB first started here, the only need for photography was to make sure there were enough pictures for the following year's media guide (those were pre-season printed publications that were obsolete after one game, for those under 30). The NCAA rules required the insides to be black-and-white, with only cover on the inside and outside covers, so the overwhelming majority of photos from back then are in black-and-white. 

And they were actual photos, not electronic versions. There was film that went in the camera (as opposed to an SD card), and that film had to be developed at a photo shop, as opposed to working in PhotoShop. It was all pretty expensive. 

Today? There is no limit to the use of good photos, most especially on social media. The demand is great, which is why, as TB said, having quality photographers is a must.

And then there's TB, whose actual photography hobby is in its infancy. He did shoot the Princeton field hockey game at Brown and got a solid B- or so in that he had some usable photos but deleted maybe eight of 10 he took. 

He also tried against this past Saturday at Dartmouth. This time, it was in the pouring rain in Hanover, and his best picture was probably one he took of the inside of his umbrella. Or there was also one he took of the sky, when he actually thought he was pointing the camera at the field. 

Okay, everyone has to start somewhere. He'll be back at it again Friday in New Haven, for the field hockey game at 5 against Yale to decide the final Ivy tournament spot. 

Who knows, maybe if he keeps at it, he'll end up being as good at photography as he is at golf (which if you're a longtime reader, you know he's bad at golf). Actually, this is one sidelight he might be able to practice and, ultimately, become a reasonable photographer. 

His goal for the Yale game is to get at least one picture that tells the story of the game. You can check out the webpage and the field hockey social media after the game to see how he does.

By the way, if you want to see other great shots from the mangrove photo contest, click HERE.

Ivy Football Chaos

 

A game, once it is lost, can never be gotten back. 

The Princeton football team spent a week chewing on that reality after its brutal 28-27 loss at Brown in overtime and then took all of that frustration out on unbeaten Harvard. After the Tigers' 21-14 win Saturday on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium, you can make that "previously" unbeaten Harvard.

This was an epic performance by the Princeton defense. Harvard came into the game averaging 262 rushing yards per game, turning that into 41 points per game and a 5-0 record.

Would that attack steamroll Princeton? Would the Tigers still be trying to figure out how a two-touchdown lead got away in Providence? Whatever would happen, this game would be the most important game in the league, probably for the entire season. 

If Harvard won, the Crimson would be in the driver's seat, and Princeton would all but be eliminated. The rest of the league would clearly be chasing an unbeaten team that was starting to look invincible.

If Princeton won? Well, you'd have what it is you actually have today, which is an Ivy League that is completely wide open, unpredictable and very likely headed to its most dramatic November in a long, long time.

How crazy is the league? There are now five teams tied for first at 2-1 (Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell and Penn), with two 1-2 teams (Yale, Brown) and one 0-3 team (Columbia, who very easily could be 2-1 also). No opponent is a layup. Every game is a toss-up. 

If you go back to the very beginning of the Ivy League, only twice has a team with two league losses gotten a share of the championship. It hasn't happened since 1982. This year? It seems almost certain to be the case.

Well, maybe "certain" is the wrong word. After all, this year is one big Ivy football uncertainty. There is one thing that's definite, though: There will be either two or three one-loss teams after this coming weekend, since Princeton is at Cornell and Dartmouth is at Harvard. The other league games are Brown at Penn (that's a Friday night game) and Columbia at Yale.

Hey, it's not stretching things outrageously to say that by every team could have two league losses by the end of Week 8. 

All of that, though, is for later in the week. First, there's the matter of Princeton's takedown of Harvard.

There were so many subplots/numbers/turning points:

* Harvard came into the game with all of those rushing yards, and then Princeton allowed just one in the first half and just 68 for the day. How? Because Princeton is a team with great linebackers and great tacklers. 

* A Princeton offensive line that was missing two injured starters did not allow a sack. 

* Princeton went up 14-0 and held that lead until late in the third quarter. In a blink, Harvard put together back-to-back 10-play touchdown drives, tying it at 14-14. Stunningly, for the second straight week, a two-touchdown lead had gotten away. What was going through the minds of every Princeton player? Here we go again? Or no way, we're not letting this happen again? 

* Harvard had punted 15 times in its first five games and then punted 10 times against Princeton. There were 19 total punts in the game, and the 18th was one of the two biggest plays of the game, as Brady Clark's 51-yard punt that rolled dead on the 3 yard line forced the Crimson into awful field position midway through the fourth quarter. Princeton's defense got a stop, and the Tigers took over on the Harvard 45 to start the winning drive. 

* The other biggest play of the game came when Blake Stenstrom connected with Luke Colella for 18 yards on a third-and-9 to keep the game-winning drive alive. The winning points came on a 10-yard Stenstrom pass to Connor Hulstein. How unlikely a hero was Hulstein? The junior came into the game with one career reception and then had two against the Crimson, including the winning TD with less than two minutes to go.

* Ozzie Nicholas is, well, he's worth watching on every play. The Ivy League's leading tackler had 10 more against the Crimson, including a big-time sack on Harvard quarterback Charles DiPrima after the Hulstein touchdown. The game ended with a Will Perez interception on the next play. DiPrima, who came in as the league's leading rusher, had 17 carries for 10 yards (sacks count as negative rushing yards) and also completed 15 of 37 passes for 154 yards with three picks.

* That's six straight wins over Harvard for Princeton. The last time there was a streak this long? How about 1947-53.

You can exhale now after this past weekend, but not for too long. The next four games are coming up, and they will again turn the league race in some unforeseen and unpredictable direction.

So there you have it. 

Chaos in the Ivy League.

Kicking Off With The Crimson

The Ivy League football standings are pretty interesting right now.

You have one 2-0 team (Harvard). You have one 0-2 team (Columbia). You have six 1-1 teams. 

Also, you have six weeks of the season to go, with nothing but league games left to be played. 

Princeton has had to wait a long week to get back at it, after its tough 28-27 overtime loss to Brown last Saturday in Providence. The Tigers get back at it tomorrow at 1, when they kick off against that lone unbeaten, the Crimson.

If there's been one constant to this season, it's been that the forecast in the beginning of the week has called for rain. All week long, it's said there's a chance of rain, like a 70 percent chance of rain. That's been the case every Saturday.

Ah, but the hourly forecast now suggests that the rain will end well before the 1 pm kickoff, just like it did for the Lafayette game. So get there, plan your tailgate and watch one of college football's oldest rivalries. 

You'll note that TigerBlog said one of the oldest (the first meeting between the schools was in 1877). It's not one of the most played. 

Princeton and Harvard, in fact, meet for the 115th time, which is a mere 30 fewer times than Princeton has played Yale. Why is that? It's because tensions between Princeton and Harvard flared mightily in the 1800s, and the schools dropped each other after a near-riot in 1896.  

The series resumed in 1911, just in time for Harvard to have to line up against Hobey Baker. The teams didn't play again between 1927 and 1933; during all of that time, Princeton ended its season almost every year against Yale. In fact, one condition of restarting the series with Harvard was that Yale could continue to play its final game of the season against Harvard and, well, you know what happened there. 

By the way, here's a little trivia question for you: The three most-played rivalries in college football are Lafayette-Lehigh, Princeton-Yale and Harvard-Yale. What is fourth and fifth on that list (hint, No. 4 is an FCS rivalry and No. 5 is the most-played FBS rivalry). 

TigerBlog will give you a few paragraphs.

In the meantime, he'll talk about AJ Barber. The Princeton junior wide receiver has put up these numbers so far this year:

Weeks 1-3: eight catches, 84 yards
Week 4 vs. Lafayette: seven catches, 156 yards
Week 5 vs. Brown: eight catches, 142 yards, one touchdown

In fact, for his career prior to the Lafayette game, Barber had 329 receiving yards and one TD. Now he has 298 more yards with another TD in two games.

Barber ranks fourth in the Ivy League in receiving yards per game and eighth in total receptions. He's up to 26th in receiving yards per game in the FCS, and that's after averaging 28 yards per game the first three weeks. That's called heating up.

Oh, and as for the trivia answer, No. 4 is William & Mary-Richmond, who play for the Capital Cup, and No. 5 is Wisconsin-Minnesota, who play for Paul Bunyan's Ax.

Meanwhile, back at the Princeton-Harvard game, the Crimson have the No. 1 scoring offense in the Ivy League and the No. 1 rushing offense in the Ivy League. In the FCS, those numbers are sixth and third.

Princeton, on the other hand, ranks second in the Ivy League in scoring defense and first in rushing defense. Nationally, they are third and second in those two categories. 

Harvard averages 41 points per game. Princeton allows 15 per game. Those are wildly dissimilar numbers.

Princeton has won the last five in the series. The last time Princeton went that long without losing to Harvard was 1977-81, when the Tigers were 3-0-2. The last time Princeton won at least five straight against Harvard? That was 1947-53.

Those rather symmetrical Ivy standings will have a shakeup this weekend. In addition the Princeton-Harvard game, you also have Columbia at Dartmouth, Penn at Yale and Brown at Cornell. 

No matter what, things will look a bit different come tomorrow night. 

Of course, for Princeton, any football game against Harvard is special.

Thursday Catch Up

If it's Thursday, it must be time to catch up on some things:

* Yes, it's not even Halloween yet, but you can see what figures to be a great matchup in women's hockey at Baker Rink tomorrow night. Princeton, who opened its season with a sweep of Robert Morris last weekend, hosts Yale at 6 in the first game of the season for the Bulldogs. After that, it'll be Princeton-Brown Saturday at 6 at Baker Rink.

The Bulldogs come off a season in which they went 28-4-1, and they are picked second in the ECAC preseason poll. The team is led by goalie Pia Dukaric, who plays for the Slovenian national team and who was named the most outstanding goalie at the 2023 World Championships.

Princeton outscored Robert Morris 10-2 in last weekend's sweep. The Tigers, obviously, are led by Sarah Fillier, who is the third Princeton athlete ever to win an Olympic gold medal and then come back and compete for the Tigers, joining Bill Bradley and Ashleigh Johnson. 

* TigerBlog took a long walk yesterday around the campus. When it is empty here, as it is this week because of fall break, it is very, very quiet, eerily so almost.

* The four fall Ivy League tournament races are reaching their critical moments, with only two weekends left for field hockey and women's soccer and three for men's soccer. The women's volleyball race has just passed the midway point.

TigerBlog will start with women's volleyball. 

Right now, Yale is 7-0, with Princeton and Brown with two losses, Harvard with three and everyone else with four or more. While the other six teams all have a single match this weekend against their travel partners, Princeton and Penn (1-7) are off, since they already played their home-and-home earlier in the year. 

* If it's already women's hockey season, then basketball season can't be far behind. The Ivy League released its preseason polls this week, with the Princeton men picked to finish second and the women a unanimous choice for No. 1. 

What does this mean? Nothing, obviously. 

What matters most in a college basketball season is how a team progresses. Everyone knows where the Tigers finished last year — both teams — but the road is long and there are hurdles along the way. 

Preseason polls are fun. So is the coming of the season. March? That's a long, long way off. 

* All eight Ivy men's soccer teams have played four of their seven league games to date. Right now, first place to seventh place is separated by just four points (three points for a win, one for a tie).

Where does that leave Princeton? The Tigers have four points at 1-2-1 in the league as they prepare to host Brown this weekend (4, Saturday). The Bears are currently 1-0-3, which gives them six points. That's two more than Princeton, but the Bears are four spots ahead in the standings.

Obviously a lot will happen between now and the Ivy tournament. Princeton finishes the league season with games at Harvard (currently in first with eight points) and Penn (one point ahead of Princeton as part of the three-way tie for fourth).

* For tennis fans, the ITA Super Regionals for the men will be held at Princeton this weekend, starting tomorrow and running through Monday. Check the website for schedules, and if there is rain, locations. 

* TigerBlog didn't realize this until he saw it on X, but Princeton alum Tyler Lussi — the all-time leading scorer in soccer at Princeton for women and men — has five game-winning goals this season for the NC Courage in the NWSL. 

In fact, she's scored the only goal in five different 1-0 wins. That's, um, really impressive. 

* Speaking of women's soccer, Princeton has two league games left, at Dartmouth Saturday (3) and home against Columbia next Saturday. The Tigers are currently 3-1-1 in the league, tied with Harvard for second place (they've both lost to Brown and tied each other).

The Tigers are Crimson sit five points behind first-place Brown, who would host the Ivy tournament with one point in their final two games (Cornell and Dartmouth). The fourth spot is currently held by the Big Green, who have eight points, and then fifth place is held by Columbia with five points.

Should Princeton get a win or tie this weekend or should Columbia or tie in its game against Yale, it would clinch a spot in the league tournament. The same is true of Harvard. 

* Speaking of Dartmouth, the field hockey team will be heading south on I-91 when the women's soccer game starts Saturday. The Tigers' game against the Big Green in field hockey begins at 11 am. 

Depending on the outcome of the Yale-Columbia game tomorrow, then Princeton will either be in the Ivy tournament with a win (and a Columbia win) or will be playing a game that has no impact on the Ivy tournament (with a Yale win). 

Should the Bulldogs win their game, then the Princeton-Yale game next Friday would be a de-facto tournament play-in game, with the winner to join Harvard, Penn and Cornell. The Princeton-Dartmouth game in that case wouldn't matter, win or lose. 

* Lastly, TigerBlog wishes all of the best to Meg Moore and Derek Griesdorn as they tie the knot Saturday. Derek is a universally well-loved member of the equipment staff, and Meg used to work at the Ivy League office. Hopefully the honeymoon lasts forever — though TB will still be needing Meg to help with stats at lacrosse this spring.

Traveling Tigers

When TigerBlog's colleagues Kim Meszaros and Karen Malec left on their respective international trips with the Princeton women's lacrosse and Princeton women's squash teams, he wished them good times, good weather and good food.

The women's lacrosse team is currently in Italy for its fall break. The women's squash team also is in Europe, in their case in Portugal. 

Before they left, the weather forecasts weren't great. Judging by what TB has seen on social media, so far at least the teams have been met with blue skies.

The women's lacrosse team was at Pompeii yesterday. That, of course, is the site of the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. From what TB could see, the weather was perfect.

Also, it appears that, not shockingly, there have been carbs on the trip as well. Kim posted on her own social media that there was a pizza-making class, and she smiled as she displayed the final product.

The women's squash team, from their own Instagram story, spent the day at a training session in Lisbon and then seemed to be having salads for lunch. Again, the weather seemed to be cooperating.

It's already Wednesday, which means that the trips are already in their mid-point. They certainly fly by. 

TigerBlog has been on four of these international trips. They are remarkable opportunities for the players, and everyone else who goes, to have an amazing group experience that brings them closer together and also gives them a week that they'll never forget. 

There are cultural events. There are social events. There are service events. There are sporting events. There is practice and competition. And it's all packed into a week, far from home.

What more could you ask for if you were a college athlete? 

The NCAA permits teams to make these trips once every four years. At this time last year, TB was with the men's lacrosse team in Andorra and Spain. 

The best way to keep up with these teams is through their Instagram pages, both the teams and the individual athletes. In many ways, it's like you're there with them. You can certainly see what a great experience they're all having. Those who have made it possible are owed a huge thank you.

The Princeton campus this week is relatively quiet, as most students are home for the break. Fall and winter teams are practicing and competing, of course.

Not every team who flew somewhere headed east. In the case of the men's water polo team, they went west, to spend the week in California. 

Princeton is currently ranked sixth in the country in men's water polo. The program, which reached the NCAA quarterfinals last year, is in a phenomenal place, literally and figuratively. The figurative part is that Princeton is an established national power. The literal part is California, where the best teams are located.

So far on the trip, Princeton has defeated UC Irvine (ranked ninth) and UC Santa Barbara (ranked 10th). Today's challenge? That would be at No. 1 UCLA, at 9 Eastern time tonight. 

The Tigers will have a day off tomorrow and then play four more times at the Santa Clara Invitational, where they will take on three more ranked California squads: No. 15 Pacific, No. 12 San Jose State and No. 5 Pepperdine. They will also take on Division II Fresno Pacific before flying home. 

After the Tigers return home, they have two more regular season weekends, with matches at Brown, Harvard and MIT next weekend and then home matches against LIU and Iona at DeNunzio Pool Nov. 4. Beyond that is the Northeast Water Polo Conference tournament, which will be held at Harvard Nov. 17-19 and which will decide the league's automatic NCAA tournament bid.

For now, though, it's spring break. From where the women's lacrosse and squash teams are to where the men's water polo team is, that's about a 7,000-mile distance. 

These are weeks that these traveling Tigers will always remember.