Early season inconsistency, injuries plague football defense

As Colgate quarterback Tom McCune rolled to his left to avert a Princeton rush, he spotted a receiver downfield breaking open near the first-down marker. He launched the ball in a fast-moving, tight spiral.

What McCune did not see was sophomore cornerback Blake Perry, who picked off the pass and darted up the sideline for an 18-yard return. The defense put the offense in great position at the Colgate 31-yard line, just as they had done on several occasions the week before against Columbia.

Unfortunately for Princeton, that defense seemed to disappear shortly after Perry's interception. The Tigers would only stop the Raiders four more times the rest of the game—Colgate's five other drives resulted in touchdowns.

The Tigers showed gross inconsistency in between their rout of the Lions last week and their dismal performance against the Raiders. The defense gave up only 66 yards to Columbia's All-Ivy rusher John Reese, and only 93 rushing yards overall. It also gave up only 215 yards passing, limiting Columbia to just 26 minutes, 11 seconds of total offense. This week was a different story.

"They're a good team, I'm not taking anything away from Colgate," head coach Roger Hughes said. "But I felt that we did not play anywhere near the level that we played last week, and that is unacceptable."

Unacceptable is certainly one word to describe it. A team cannot win football games when it allows the opposition to possess the ball for 34:49, to run for 241 yards, and to pass for 265 yards.

"In the second half, they ran seven [isolation] plays right in a row, right down our throat and scored, and that is unacceptable," Hughes said.

The isolation (or iso) play stops a defense cold by putting blockers on all the defensive linemen and allows an offense to spring a running back loose. It is an effective play that defenses study how to stop and adjust for, but no play is so clever that it should gain yardage seven times in a row.

On several plays — including both the iso and various pass plays — Colgate offensive players broke through or bounced off of several hits.

Princeton's poor tackling was all too evident in the third quarter with 10:20 left, when the Raiders had a fourth down with 12 yards to go. On a gutsy call, they went for it. McCune dropped back and found one of his favorite targets, wide receiver Joe Parker, in triple coverage.

McCune let the ball fly, and Parker managed to catch it. All three Tiger defensive backs hit him, but Parker stayed on his feet and dove the extra yards for the end zone, evading another tackle on his way in.

Princeton's defensive woes were not totally the result of inconsistency. Sophomore defensive end Joe Weiss suffered a fractured tibia on a Colgate drive in the first half — ending his season.

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Also on the injured list, senior linebacker Chris Roser-Jones was out for the week with a hamstring injury. With three key players out, a monkey wrench had been thrown into the Tigers' defensive game plan.

"You lose great players like that, and emotionally you're going to feel it at first," senior defensive end Phil Jackman said. "But we have to bounce back. We have to be more consistent up front."

Given the dual setbacks of inconsistent play and injured personnel, Princeton faces a tough road back to the kind of success they had against Columbia. Hughes insists that his team is up to the challenge.

"We are not giving up on anything," he said. "We're going to be a good team but we have to understand the work ethic and mental toughness it takes to play at the level Colgate played. Now they are going to learn how to do it."