Brown's RB Malan runs for 208 yards as football falls to Bears

In Saturday's football game with Brown, junior running back Cameron Atkinson had both the Ivy League's longest rushing play as well as the longest kick-off return of the season, but his 287 yard total performance was not enough as Princeton (1-3 overall, 1-1 Ivy League) fell to Brown (2-2, 1-1), 35-24.

Both sides of the ball for the Tigers were noticeably weaker due to injuries, and the absence of junior wide receiver Chisom Opara greatly hurt the air attack and wiped out the big passing plays.

"We need to get our pass protection straightened out a bit if we're going to throw to anyone down there," head coach Roger Hughes said. "But certainly, having a threat outside makes it harder to defend you, and when [Opara] catches the ball, he can do some things with it. He certainly brings in a big play capability that we didn't have out there."

Indeed, the combination of poor pass protection and the wide receivers not getting open when they needed to created a situation in which sophomore quarterback David Splithoff could only throw for 82 yards on 12-for-26 passing. Maybe even more indicative of the situation is that he was sacked five times, opposed to Brown's quarterback Kyle Rowley being sacked just once.

As a result of the impotent passing game, the Tiger offense depended on the ground efforts of both Atkinson and Splithoff, who combined for 273 yards on 33 carries. Out of those 273 yards, Splithoff got 107, 25 more yards than what he passed for.

Although the defense was somewhat stymied by injuries, the secondary was still able to come up with a few big plays to keep the team in the game, including two interceptions by junior defensive back Kevin Kongslie. Still, though, Princeton allowed Brown's fullback Michael Malan two touchdowns and 208 rushing yards and his back-up Joe Rackley was able to net 84 total yards on just 15 carries.

"My hat goes off to Brown," Hughes said. "I thought their running back ran very hard, and we didn't do a good job of tackling."

The first three quarters of the game were a seesaw battle in which both teams fought back and forth for the lead.

Just as the losing team has put the initial points on the board in every Princeton game thus far in the season, Atkinson scored first with a 62-yard run on the third play of Princeton's second drive of the game. His run was the longest run in the Ivy League so far this season.

The play shocked the Bears, but not for long, as Brown went 88 yards on their next drive to even up the score.

Senior kicker Taylor Northrop hit the first of his three field goals of the day on the next drive, but disaster struck the next time the Tigers got the ball.

Princeton started on its own 13 and were pushed back to the eight before punting. Brown was able to block the punt and recover it in the end zone for a touchdown, making the score 14-10 in favor of the Bears at the end of the first quarter. To rub salt in the wounds of the Tigers, it was later discovered that Brown was able to block the punt under less-than-optimal circumstances.

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"We only had 10 on the field there for the blocked punt due to a miscommunication after one of our players was injured," Brown head coach Phil Estes said.

The only scoring of the second quarter was a Northrop field goal at three minutes, 45 seconds after sophomore defensive back Brandon Mueller recovered a fumble on the Brown 32. The home team went to the locker room with a 14-13 lead.

The third quarter was similar to the second in that the only points came from the foot of Northrop, thus putting Princeton up, 16-14, going into the final 15 minutes of the game.

The final quarter began with Brown driving deep in Tiger territory. After a couple of failed rushing attempts, Malan was able to dart through an opening for a 16-yard touchdown run, putting Brown up by five.

Not to give up, though, Atkinson returned the ensuing kickoff 52 yards to the Brown 40, a distance that was another Ivy season high. From the 40, the Tigers rushed the ball five times — twice by Splithoff for 29 yards and three times by Atkinson for 11 — into the end zone to regain the lead. With the two-point conversion successful, the Tigers went up, 24-21, with 12:11 left in the game.

Looking as though the game would go back and forth until the end, Brown scored on its next possession, putting the Bears up by four with 9:06 left — still a long way to go in the game.

On the subsequent drive, though, the Tigers had a bit of bad luck as a lateral from Splithoff went well over Atkinson's head and was recovered by Brown at the Tigers' 20. Brown needed just one pass to wide receiver Chas Gessner to create the final score, 35-24.

"The nice thing is that when we got down, we came back. We showed some onions in doing that," Hughes said. "I was proud of their efforts, but we've got to do fundamental football better. We had guys lining up in wrong formations. We got tagged for that. We have to execute on offense better. While our team is disappointed, we're not discouraged yet."