You don't need a program to know this is a rivalry. Harvard and Princeton compete for students, professors and rankings. Tomorrow at Princeton Stadium, the Crimson will try to take something else away from the Tigers: their share of first place in the Ivy League.
In spite of the football team's lack of success in recent years, the campus has taken notice of the football team's 2-0 Ivy record, especially after its 55-28 pasting of Brown last Saturday.
"There's always a lot of excitement about the Harvard game, especially with all the alumni coming back," senior offensive tackle Dennis Norman said. "But a lot of people are congratulating me a lot more about last week."
The recent history of this series is ugly for Princeton. The Tigers' four straight defeats have included a two-point loss, a one-point loss and a seven-point loss. The 13-6 disappointment last season in Cambridge, Mass., came on a fourth-down, one-yard touchdown plunge with two seconds remaining by quarterback Brad Wilford.
"I think our guys, especially our seniors, would like to try to even the score one last time," head coach Roger Hughes said.
The last time the Crimson visited it won 23-22, handing the Tigers their first-ever loss at Princeton Stadium. Tomorrow, history is not on the side of the Crimson. Not since the 1912-16 seasons has Harvard won five straight games against Princeton.
"I expect a war on Saturday," Hughes said. "While we performed much better offensively last week, Brown's defense isn't the quality that Harvard's is, so we've got our work cut out."
There are a lot of similarities between the Bears' and Crimson's offenses, however. Brown is currently first in the league in scoring offense, tallying 34.8 points per game. Harvard is just behind with 30.0 points per game.
Battle lines
Princeton's offense, currently scoring 24.6 points per game, was hitting on all cylinders last week, putting up 55 points against a Brown team ranked just ahead of Harvard in scoring defense — 30.6 points per game to 31.4.
Much of the attention for the offensive explosion was focused on freshman David Splithoff, who was named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week. Splithoff was the first freshman to ever start at quarterback for Princeton and the first freshman ever named Eastern College Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week for his 13-17, 289-yard, three-touchdown debut performance.
On Saturday, he will not be the only player to have made an impact in his first start. Harvard quarterback Neil Rose, in his collegiate debut this season, was 24-38 for 412 yards and three touchdowns against Holy Cross.
Harvard is not a traditionally pass-happy school. Prior to this season, no Crimson quarterback had ever thrown for 300 yards or more in a game more than twice in his career. Rose has done it three times in his first four starts.
Just as Harvard's pass offense has been stellar, its pass defense has been sorry. The Crimson is ranked 122nd out of 122 teams in Division I-AA, giving up 313.2 yards per game. The statistics may be deceiving.
Harvard often puts eight players on the line, daring opponents to beat its defense in the air and forcing them to abandon the run. Don't expect Princeton to play along.
"Every game we make a commitment to the run," Hughes said. "And with a freshman quarterback you try to limit the amount of decisions he has to make and take the game out of his hands a little bit. That's why our run game needs to be good."
It will also be tougher going for Princeton's passing attack, which will have to operate without Nate Lindell, who will miss the remainder of the season because of torn knee ligaments suffered in last week's game. Lindell had touchdown receptions of 74 and 50 yards against Brown before going down. Senior Tim Ligue will fill his starting spot.
To beat Harvard and stay at the top of the league, Princeton will have to overcome the injury and be the team it was last week.
"Our kids are focused and confident now because they know we can be the team we saw last Saturday," Hughes said.
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