"To be the man, you've got to beat the man, and today the man beat us, but we're getting closer," football head coach Roger Hughes said after Saturday's 34-10 loss to No. 10 Lehigh.
"The man" did not dominate the entire game, though.
The first half had the Tigers (0-1 overall) playing even with the Mountain Hawks (2-0 overall, 1-0 Patriot League) and actually leading by a field goal at the break.
The second half was different, though, at least for the home team. The second half was when all of the scoring took place, and the vast majority of it was scored by the Mountain Hawks. Although Princeton continued to commit the turnovers, Lehigh did not, and the Mountain Hawks were able to score 14 points on their first two drives after scoring none during their previous six.
The first Lehigh drive of the second half, like the remainder of the drives to come, was led by its quarterback, Brant Hall. He was involved, either by throwing or running, in each of the six plays of that drive, which took the Mountain Hawks from their own 46 to the endzone at nine minutes, 30 seconds.
On the ensuing kickoff after the touchdown, Princeton fumbled and lost the football on its own 14-yard-line, setting up Lehigh for another quick touchdown at 8:39.
Princeton fumbled in its own territory again on its next drive, leading to Lehigh's field goal at 3:41 left in the third to make the score 17-3.
And to cap the dismal third quarter, the Mountain Hawks scored another touchdown on the last play of the period to add seven more onto Lehigh's already quickly expanding total.
The final quarter began with Princeton's best drive of the game. The Tigers went 75 yards on 12 plays to score their only touchdown of the game at 8:49 left to play.
"I'm proud of how our kids came back in the beginning of the fourth quarter on that first drive," Hughes said.
Those seven points would be all Princeton could muster in the quarter, though, compared to Lehigh's 10.
The first half was vastly different than the second half. It was characterized by strong drives from both teams that ended in ill-timed offensive mistakes.
Lehigh committed the first offensive mistake on the team's second drive of the game. The Mountain Hawks started on their own seven-yard line after a 67-yard punt by senior Taylor Northrop, and muscled the ball across midfield in five short plays. On the sixth play, though, sophomore defensive back Brandon Mueller forced a fumble that was recovered by junior defensive back Kevin Kongslie at Princeton's 39 yard-line.
Each team had a short series and a pair of punts afterwards before what could have possibly been the Tigers' most memorable march of the game.
Princeton started with the ball on its own 31 yard-line and began a 13- play, 67-yard drive to Lehigh's two. On first and goal from the two, though, something went wrong with the Princeton snap. The ball sailed over sophomore quarterback David Splithoff's head, and he found himself chasing the ball back to the 30-yard line with the Mountain Hawk defense in close pursuit. When Splithoff finally reached the ball, he scooped it up, quickly turned and threw a desperate heave out to avoid being tackled with the ball in hand.
He did not escape the yellow flags of the referees, though, and was called for intentional grounding, thus causing the team's next play to be second and goal from Lehigh's 29. The next two plays were hardly more effective as the Tigers amazingly found themselves out of field goal range on 4th down after being on the two yard-line for first down.
That was not the last incidence of offensive misfortunes in the half, though. On Lehigh's next drive, the team took the ball from its own three yard-line to Princeton's 26 before senior defensive end Phil Jackman forced a fumble that he recovered at the Princeton 33.
Lehigh had one more turnover on its own 20 before Princeton's next drive was stopped on Lehigh's 15 by yet another fumble.
Although the yardage amounted by each team in the first half was considerable – 152 for Princeton and 244 for Lehigh — Northrop scored the only points for either on a 37-yard field goal attempt with 5 seconds remaining in the half.
Needless to say, neither coach was happy with his team's performance.
"I felt like in the first half, we played like it was our first game – no excuses," football head coach Roger Hughes said. "The first ten minutes of the third quarter, we made some big turnovers, and that lost the game. You can't make big turnovers against a team like Lehigh. "
In the game, the Tigers committed six turnovers — four fumbles and two interceptions — most of which either ended a strong Princeton drive or put Lehigh in scoring position.
The player that took the greatest advantage of Princeton's mistakes was Lehigh quarterback Brant Hall, who managed to rush for a gameleading 119 yards – more net rushing yards than everyone else combined — and throw for 213 for a personal offensive total of 332.
"I credit our defense for shutting down the rest of their running game," Coach Hughes said. "I think we did much better on defense than we did last year. Brant Hall is such a playmaker."
But the silver lining in the cloud remains that Princeton plays Ivy League cellar-dweller Columbia this Saturday at Princeton Stadium.
"I have a lot of confidence in this team," Coach Hughes said. "I feel like we can play with anybody on this schedule."
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