New Haven, Conn. — It was cold. It was rainy. It was miserable.
It was Yale.
On Saturday, football fell to the Elis, 7-3, dropping to 5-4 on the year, 3-3 in the Ivy League, and 0-2 in the H-Y-P series.
"We didn't win the statistic that matters the most," head coach Roger Hughes said. "We didn't win the game."
With the score 3-0, with less than five minutes left in the fourth quarter, the overworked Tiger defense showed a chink in its armor. Princeton had not let the Elis within thirty yards of their end zone the entire game, allowing them to run more than six plays in a drive only twice. The defense was the only thing keeping the Tigers in the game, and then it inexplicably fell apart.
On Yale's eleventh possession of the game, the Elis chewed up five minutes, 57 seconds off the clock and drove 85 yards in 17 plays. Princeton's defense missed tackles right and left, and Yale's ballcarriers never went down without a fight, exacting revenge after being pushed around the first three-plus quarters.
Yale's one-two running back punch of Robert Carr and David Knox, combined for 55 yards rushing and receiving on the drive, but it was quarterback Jefff Mroz and wide receiver Ron Benigno who came through for the Elis to finally put points on the board.
"We were missing tackles on that drive," senior linebacker and captain Drew Babinecz said. "The defense came into the game saying that if they don't score any points, we won't lose. We're disappointed in ourselves even though we played well."
With 4:48 left on the clock, on third and seven from Princeton's 11, Mroz took the snap and lofted the ball to Benigno, finding the weak point in Princeton's zone defense, just over the head of Princeton sophomore cornerback Jay McCareins — the one player that Hughes said he would want to be put in a game-deciding situation most.
The ball fell into Benigno's hands in the back right corner of the endzone for the first touchdown of the game. After the extra point, the score was 7-3 and would remain unchanged.
The game was characterized not by touchdowns, but by a struggle for field position, with the ball usually staying between the 30-yard lines — Princeton's average starting field position was its 27-yard line, and Yale's was its 31.
The one score Princeton did get was in the beginning, when, on its third drive, it took the ball from its own 10-yard line to Yale's two.
The Tigers settled for a 20-yard field goal with 2:32 left in the quarter.
Other than that, little happened offensively, with the teams exchanging 16 punts on the game. Attempting to rattle the inexperienced sophomore quarterbacks, the two defenses controlled the game with blitzes nearly every play.
"Our defense played well," Hughes said. "We did pressure effectively, especially with [junior defensive ends Joe] Weiss and [Tim] Kirby."
Weiss, however, recorded the only sack of the game, as Mroz was able to maneuver around the pocket much better than his Princeton counterpart.
Verbit seemed to hold the ball too long, often taking a sack rather than throw the ball away or make a gutsy throw downfield. He showed jitters when he frequently pulled the ball down to run after looking at only one receiver, but he had trouble escaping the Yale pressure.
"There was more blitzing than we expected," Hughes said.
The Elis recorded six sacks, forcing the Tigers to move backward a total of 26 yards in the game.
Princeton had a chance to pad its three-point lead on its last drive of the first half, but poor clock management did the Tigers in, and they were unable to get any points on the board after Verbit took a sack with less than 10 seconds on the clock and no timeouts, instead of throwing it away. Intentional grounding would have had the same effect as a sack, but would have stopped the clock, so the kicker could get on the field.
"He thought he had another timeout," Hughes said. "We thought it was a better idea to give our kicker a chance. We have to get the ball to the 20-yard line to give him a realistic shot."
At the 17-yard line, Verbit spiked the ball to stop the clock, but took the sack on the next play, and the first half ended.
Princeton made the game exciting on the drive after the Yale touchdown, however, when, pinned at its own 10 yard-line, Hughes called a risky screen pass that took advantage of the swarming Eli defense. Verbit took the snap from center and pump faked to his left, before pulling the ball back and turning to his right to deliver a short pass to senior running back Cameron Atkinson, who had what seemed like the entire offense out in front of him throwing blocks. Atkinson, who holds the Princeton 60-yard dash school record, was off to the races, but a single Yale defender had a good angle from the opposite side of the field and was able to knock him out of bounds at the 36-yard line.
"I didn't see him, the person who tackled me," Atkinson said. "I thought I was gone, but if I had seen him, I would have tried to cut back."
Princeton gained three yards on the next four plays and turned the ball back over to Yale.
On the Tigers' final possession, they moved the ball to their own 41-yard line, but had to turn it over on downs again.
In the end, one team made more big plays than the other, and one drive made the difference.
As Hughes said, "The only statistic that matters is the scoreboard."
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