Princeton's First Undefeated Football Season Since 1964

Okay, so truth be told I wasn't planning on going.  Yes, it was Penn, and yes, Penn had a winning record and if you live in the Philadelphia area one of life's pleasures is to beat Penn, which has many more alums than your school.  Penn alums abound, not as much as the "We are Penn State crowd," but they do make their presence known.  Your own school rose to the top ten in the FCS rankings, somewhat meaningless in that football is the only sport where the Ivies forbid teams to compete in the post-season.  The reasons are hard to fathom, but as with legislation, once a group makes up its mind, it's hard to get them to change it.  The "they' in this case, of course, are the presidents of the Ivies, who, perhaps when pushed hard, would tell you that the lobbying they receive on sports issues at allegedly some of the most prestigious schools in the country is a royal pain in the posterior.  But I digress. . .


A good friend called on his ride home the night before and thought it would take a lot of convincing for me to go to the game.  Quite frankly, I hadn't thought about it, what with Thanksgiving coming up and both kids away at college.  And it was going to be cold, and I thought that I had sworn off cold-weather events since going to many football games as a kid with my dad and then through college, watching my kids play spring sports in February and going to the Eagles' parade last winter.  Then again, I had watched Arsenal in North London at night a few weeks ago in 45-degree weather and the forecast was for about 46 degrees and sunny at game time.  My friend thought it would take more convincing; I said yes in a heartbeat.


I mean, we had to go watch some history, right?  We were at the best game played at the prior stadium, Palmer Stadium, in the fall of 1981 when  Yale marched into Tigertown undefeated and ranked 19th in all of Division I (there was no BS about FBS and FCS then) and Princeton scored with 4 seconds to go to upset the Elis 35-31 and end a 15-game losing streak to Yale.  We were at the Palestra in the mid 1990's when Penn went up 29-3 with a few minutes to go in the first half and was up 40-15 with about 15 minutes to go, only to have the Tigers storm back and silence the red-and-blue faithful with a 50-49 victory that marked at the time the fifth-best comeback in NCAA men's basketball history.  This time, though, the Tigers were the favorites.


They had not always fared so well as favorites, and in the Ivies for the most part any team can beat any other on any given day because, well, that's what usually happens.  Okay, except this year when the Cornell Big Red came to Central New Jersey and lost 66-0; it would have stood to reason that Cornell did not have much of a chance going into the contest. as 66-0 is usually a score one associates with Alabama when it plays its cupcake pre-season schedule, paying half a million to some mercenary school without a chance in heck to win in Tuscaloosa, so as to give a chance for the first three units to get a tuneup and the alums to tailgate.  Was that game evidence of the gridiron hegemony of Princeton this season?  Or did they just beat a bad Cornell team?


I don't know why I am so focused on that game given that it was lopside and Cornell was the worst team in the league.  The Tigers scored at will as if the Ivies were Madden Ivy 2018, throwing, running at will and doing much more on defense than a depleted squad last year could do.  They beat Dartmouth in a battle of wills, a game which Dartmouth led most of the way before Princeton scored late a few weeks early to pull out a 14-9 win at home, the type of game that the Tigers had trouble closing out in some prior seasons.  The week before they could have scored 85 on Yale before they took their foot off the pedal, only to have the Yale QB have a memorable day where he looked like Dan Fouts from the old Charger Air Coryell days and racked up 460 yards passing despite throwing four picks.  This after the Tigers led 21-0 four minutes into the contest.


Tiger fans tailgated, donned their orange and black, some beige, and wondered whether the Tigers could close out the season in fine fashion.  Penn needs no extra motivation to beat Princeton and to ruin any opponent's undefeated season, but it turned out to be not much of a contest.  The Tigers went up 14-0, then were up 21-7 at the half before Penn scored on a long play at the beginning of the second half to make it 21-14.  But then Princeton scored three unanswered touchdowns to make it 42-14 in a game where the defense forgot the troubles of the prior week against Yale and the offense showed that the QB could run well and that the star wide receive could run by and behind the Penn secondary.  That receiver -- Jesper Horsted -- also a fine baseball player -- set the Tigers' career record for receptions in a season, breaking a 34-year old record held by a crafty, wonderful receiver named Kevin Guthrie, who did not play varsity ball his freshman year because back then freshmen were not eligible to do so.  Guthrie was in the end zone, and friends joked that with the offense that head coach Bob Surace has deployed he might have had 250 catches in his career; as it was, he had 194 in three seasons.  The crowd in the end zone -- always the heartiest of fans -- gave him a rousing ovation for his accomplishments.


And then it ended.  The Tiger players and staff fan onto the field, sang the alma mater, "Old Nassau," in front of the Princeton band near the tunnel leading out to the stadium, and the players, their families, the coaches and alums partied into the evening.  The last time Princeton won the league while going undefeated was in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was President and before things like personal computers, the internet and smart phones were on the scene.  Many seasons and good memories have come and gone for Princeton football, but this season ranks among the finest accomplishments since that year.


It would be nice to say that the sun shone brightly, that the stadium was packed, that the crowd was loud, that the home fans wore only orange and black, but that is not the essence of Ivy League football.  There are no "card alignments" in the stands, no 350-piece synchronized marching bands (although I do love Ohio State's and Bethune-Cookman's) no "orange outs," no "Game Day" from ESPN (although the fellahs once covered Amherst-Williams and Harvard-Yale).  My guess is that more than half the students did not go to this game, because the Ivies being the Ivies they got in because of their unique talents that require them to spend time elsewhere on Saturdays (after all, as some Ivy snoot once said, you don't get offered admission being a spectator).   I don't know what to think of the overall lack of student support, save that the kids so have a lot more to do while aging alums look for comradery in the stands (and perhaps at some point in life it is okay to watch and not to participate).  Beside which, with all of the discussions regarding joint replacements, sitting in the standings offers a better alternative for most than over-50 sports leagues.


Again, I digressed, as when you have something to celebrate one is wise to remember all that was right about the day -- a nice, innovative coach, a team that dusted its opposition this season and rose to the occasion against its toughest opponent (okay, not a dusting, but a true revealing of character), bantering with friends in the end zone and enjoying a crisp day.  It really doesn't get much better than that, and if you wear warm socks, bring a good pair of gloves and hat the weather actually can be quite enjoyable.


Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! as they say on campus to start the "locomotive" cheer that Princeton alums are so fond of.  To seal the championship at home, in front of friends, family, classmates, alums, to win convincingly, to leave no doubt. . . a very memorable day.