Two teams, five games: Tigers-Bears crucial in Ivy races

I've been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time. The season is four weeks old, and the Princeton football team will finally host an Ivy League opponent when the Brown Bears come to Princeton Stadium this weekend.

Janina Bowl I figures to be an intriguing matchup for several reasons. Payback should and will be an incentive. The Bears' 53-30 win over Princeton last Oct. 9 still hangs over the Tigers' heads. Brown put that one away early, but still kept passing and passing and passing until James Perry had racked up 62 pass attempts and 424 yards through the air.

And of course, there is the issue of Brown's little rules infraction that has made the team ineligible for this year's conference football title. Head coach Phil Estes has done a nice job rallying his troops in the wake of that bombshell, but when the punishment was first announced last summer, he didn't exactly set any records for remorse.

"We were treated like cheaters, and that was wrong," Estes told USA Today. "There were mistakes that were made, but there was no intent."

It isn't right for the media to beat a dead horse, but Estes must be taken to task for trying to kill the horse a little too soon. Estes and his team can downplay it all they want, but as far as I'm concerned, the Bears should feel fortunate they were allowed to keep last year's title after Brown admitted that certain prospects had been offered financial aid based on their athletic abilities.

But I'm not going to dwell on Brown's football fiasco because it's not worth the time. The real reason this weekend's game looms large for the Tigers is quite simple. The Bears are one of the league's most talented teams and an upset win for Princeton would leave the Tigers at 2-0 in conference play, still somehow tied for first after what has been an opening month filled with adversity.

And that, folks, is the theme of this column. To steal a page from James Carville — it's the standings, stupid.

When you think of Ivy rivalries, you think Harvard-Yale. And while I've often been amused by Penn fans' obsessive hatred of all things Orange and Black, a basketball game against the Quakers is as good as it gets around here.

Princeton-Brown? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it. But for this weekend, it should. Despite the fact that it's still only October, in all five clashes between the Tigers and Bears this weekend — football, women's soccer, men's soccer, women's volleyball and field hockey — a win would go a long way toward solidifying Princeton as a championship contender. And isn't that what sports are supposed to be about?

You're impressed with the women's soccer team's 8-2 start, during which the Tigers have outscored their opponents, 21-4? Me too. Think Princeton is a shoe-in for the Ivy title? Allow me to introduce you to Brown's 9-0 overall record. The Bears have outscored their opposition 19-1 so far this season.

In addition to their gaudy overall marks, both teams boast unbeaten Ivy records — the only teams in the conference that can make such a claim. If Princeton wants to be considered the Ivy League's new premier women's soccer program, a win Friday night against Brown is a necessity.

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The injury-ravaged men's soccer team is on the brink of Ivy disaster at 0-2 in conference play. But the good news for the Tigers is that they've already shown an ability to close out the season strong. Last year, Princeton lost a tough early-season game to Columbia, then went up to Providence, R.I, and defeated Brown, 2-0.

The Tigers did not lose another Ivy game for the rest of the season, and it'll take another run like that to defend the conference title. If Brown wins this Saturday, the Bears have to be considered instant favorites to win their fifth Ivy championship in six years. But if Princeton holds them off, the Tigers would trail Brown by just one game in the standings and would figure to be in the hunt for the rest of the season.

The women's volleyball season started just last weekend for Princeton, so the Ivy contenders haven't had much of a chance to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. And in truth, the regular season is less important in volleyball, because the Ivy League has a postseason tournament.

But here's something to consider before the Tigers and Bears play this Saturday: Princeton has won four of the last six conference championships. Brown has won the other two. Draw your own conclusions.

And at 1952 Stadium, the Tiger field hockey team will continue its march toward a conference title by trying to avoid a repeat of the one slip-up it has suffered in league play since 1993. Last year, Brown shared the league championship with Princeton and took the Tigers' place in the NCAA tournament by ending their 35-game conference winning streak Oct. 9.

In all honesty, I should probably give this game an asterisk. This season, Brown has struggled to an 0-3 league mark. This appears to be the one matchup of the weekend in which one of the two teams holds no hope of finishing close to the top of the conference.

But make no mistake, Princeton should be as fired up for this weekend's game against the Ivy cellar-dwellers as it will be before any league matchup this season. Bad memories will do that to a team.

I don't expect to see anyone walking around in any "Brown Sucks" shirts this weekend. And I hardly expect the type of animosity between fan bases that we enjoy with Penn. There's no bonfire at stake this weekend.

But if you care about seeing the Tigers collect Ivy championships and think this year's standings are more important than traditional feuds, than this weekend could be the biggest of the fall season.