Big plays key for football in first win over Colgate in five years

Football's game against Colgate this Saturday was tailor-made for SportsCenter.

The story could be told with 30 seconds of highlights, and no one would miss a beat. A handful of big plays decided the game.

The first play of the game was a 62-yard bomb on a deep post from junior quarterback David Splithoff to senior wide receiver Andy Bryant for an easy touchdown.

"They lined up exactly how we expected," head coach Roger Hughes said.

On the next two drives, Princeton forced a fumble, and Colgate had a 49-yard completion on a drive that ended in a field goal. In only three minutes, 42 seconds, the crowd had a feeling that the game would be exciting and high scoring.

While the game ended with Princeton on top only 14-10, the excitement was still evident in occasional explosions for long yardage.

The importance of big plays for the Tigers comes in the fact that they do not need to be executing well all game long for them to work. Everything comes together for a moment and the character of the game changes.

For the second consecutive game, Princeton used big plays to win, even though its execution left something to be desired.

Both teams were able to rely on their defenses for consistency, which was lucky because the offenses provided little. If the defense was able to keep its opponent from gaining 50 yards on a play, odds are they did not give up any points.

Princeton scored two touchdowns — one 62 yards and one 73 yards. The two drives on which they came totaled three plays and 57 seconds. Colgate scored a field goal and a touchdown, totaling eight plays and 2:45. Not much else happened the rest of the game, except for a few long plays mixed in that did not end in points.

The Tiger offense never clicked for a sustained drive of grinding the football down the field.

One would expect the winning team to get inside the opposing team's 20-yard line at least a few times for meaningful scores that would show dominance over its opponent. In fact, Princeton penetrated Colgate's 20-yard line on only one drive.

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That drive ended without points. The only other chance Princeton had to score was after a sophomore quarterback Matt Verbit connected with sophomore wide receiver B.J. Szymanski for 55 yards, but Verbit's interception on his next pass showed that Princeton not only needed to have big plays for yardage — they needed to have big plays for points.

Probably the most heartening thing about Saturday's win for Princeton was that the Tigers were able to come from behind in the fourth quarter for the second week in a row.

With less than four minutes to play, Princeton was able to pull out the win with a fantastic play from Splithoff to Szymanski that sealed the deal 73 yards later.

"We called that play for this specific situation," head coach Roger Hughes said. "They put the linebacker, No. 43, on B.J., and Splithoff read it perfectly. B.J. ran a perfect route — it was a great play."

Both touchdowns came when the Princeton staff noticed a hole in the Raider defense.

Princeton had its best-coached game of the year on Saturday. If the Tigers had lost, it still would have been the best-coached because they took advantages of their opportunities, while not risking the game in case it did not work out.

Both touchdowns came on first downs, and were safe passes to wide open receivers. The coaches exploited mismatches when they made themselves available and rested their hopes on the stellar Tiger defense until they could find those chances.

Last week, Hughes made a point of saying that his team beat Columbia without playing at their highest level. He saw it as a sign of a "mature team."

This may be true, but unless the Tigers decide that they want not only to win games, but win games against strong Ivy League teams, they had better learn to put it all together.

Fundamentals are important and overpowering opponents is what really makes a champion. Big plays won't work every time, even though they might work well on ESPN.