In a football game, in order to win, a team must control three things — the ball, the offensive line of scrimmage, and the defensive line of scrimmage. Saturday against Penn, Princeton controlled none of those.
"They beat us in every phase of the game," head coach Roger Hughes said.
The Tigers were in possession of the ball over five full minutes fewer than the Quakers, and turned the ball over five times — twice within their own three-yard line.
The disparity in time of possession is easy to explain in that Princeton had just two first downs in the first half. Many of the second half statistics, including Princeton's two fourth-quarter touchdowns, are skewed because Penn took out nearly all of its defensive starters and played prevent defense for much of the final two frames.
It is hard to have a large time of possession when the team goes three-and-out on most of its drives. Princeton did exactly this, first earning a first down early in the second quarter at the 50-yard line, while already down, 16-0.
The Tigers did not progress that far on the field again until the fourth quarter trash time that produced their first touchdown.
The only way to account for this lack of production from a winning football team is poor blocking on the offensive line.
"Their defensive line had their way with our offensive line," Hughes said. "The offensive line went the wrong way three times on the first three plays. We didn't execute blocks correctly. We had bad line calls. We were a step off on a lot of things. I am disappointed with their execution."
Princeton's first drive lasted only three plays, the last of which was a seven-yard sack for a safety by Penn linebacker Travis Belden.
"What better way to start off a game," Belden said. "We dominated up front."
In the first half, Princeton's offense gained a total of 29 yards — 31 of which were through the air.
How did that happen? Princeton's offensive line was so dominated by its Penn counterparts that, not only did it not block well enough for Tiger ball carriers to gain any yards, but it also went two yards backwards in the running game.
Penn was allowing less than 51 rushing yards per game coming into Saturday, but, as Hughes said, the offensive line did not execute the way they should have.
The Tiger defense has easily been the most consistent part of the team throughout the season, but even it was dominated at the line of scrimmage.
Penn gained only 63 yards on the ground on 34 rushes. That is a deceptive statistic because sacks are added into that total. Without the 16 yards lost on sacks, the Quakers would have had a respectable running game.
In the third quarter, Princeton virtually shut down Penn's offense, allowing only 33 total yards, but the damage had been done.
At 23-0, the game was in Penn's hands by the half. After an interception return for a touchdown halfway through the third quarter, no matter how spectacularly the Tiger defense played, it could not make up for that deficit with such poor execution on offense.
The Penn offense very well could have let up by then as well.
It didn't.
When Princeton began to threaten, scoring quickly on the Quaker defensive backups, Penn's offense flew down the field at will, answering both Princeton scores with touchdowns of their own.
Princeton did not give up an exorbitant amount of rushing yards, but Penn's offense is not rushing-based; the Quakers throw the ball to win games.
On 46 pass attempts, they allowed only two sacks, with one of them coming from a defensive back on a blitz. One sack out of the defensive line on 46 pass attempts is not an effective way to shut down a passing offense.
Also, junior cornerback Blake Perry and sophomore cornerback Jay McCareins dropped two possible interceptions each, which is abnormal for both of them. Either interception could have easily shifted the momentum of the game.
"I'm not sure we played to our capabilities today," Hughes said.
But, nonetheless, every loss teaches a lesson. What was the lesson from Penn's game?
"What did I learn today?" sophomore quarterback Matt Verbit asked. "Penn's a pretty good team, that's it."
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