'Finish the bunnies' key to successful season for Tigers

First-game jitters. They happen to all athletic teams at one point or another. Feeling pressure to perform, not enough experience or whatever it might be, there is no doubt that teams have come out too cautious or too nervous and not performed up to their potential in their season's opening games.

It was these jitters that head coach Roger Hughes referred to in Saturday's press conference following the football team's defeat at the hands of Lehigh, 28-13.

As was quoted earlier this week, Hughes said: "We made a lot of first game mistakes."

I'd have to say that these mistakes led to one of the worst things that any team must deal with — an inability to finish.

Examples:

First drive — junior quarterback Matt Verbit and the offense march down the field, coming out with an early spark that would not be so evident later in the game. But the problem was that the drive couldn't be capped off, as a missed Derek Javarone field goal ended the Tigers' hopes.

Red zone — from the Lehigh 12-yard line, the Tigers were aiming to punch it in for the six. They were down 14 at that point. However, a botched handoff by Verbit intended for sophomore running back Greg Fields gave the Mountain Hawks the ball.

Overall — Princeton managed a total of 400 yards of offense in the game. Lehigh produced 389. While the two are close, the Mountain Hawks had four touchdowns to show for it (including four extra points), the Tigers only had two fourth-quarter touchdowns to show for it (sans one extra point).

With a defense that is still unproven in the secondary, an offense that struggles to put points on the board when it should is going to make things very difficult for Hughes. Not only that, but when a team has worked so hard to get into a position to score, its failures can definitely be a morale/momentum killer — causing frustration.

'Defense wins ball games'

"Defense wins ballgames," my old football coaches used to say, and in part they are right. But whenever I ask my father who is winning a particular game he just turned on, his answer is usually, "The team with the most points." While that may sound like a fairly obvious statement, taken in the context of the Tigers' current troubles, it means this: while defense will stop teams from scoring, an offense must score points in order to produce wins.

Even the Baltimore Ravens, winners of Super Bowl XXXV, understood this. For while the Ravens had the best defense in the NFL, they still beat up the New York Giants because their offense (not anywhere near the best in the league) was able to capitalize on its few opportunities.

As an old basketball coach of mine used to say: "You have to finish the bunnies." He was referring to the fact that when you have an open or high-percentage shot (or bunnies, as he called them), you have to take advantage of it. When you've got the opportunity to score, you have to make it happen.

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However, problems with finishing on offense seem to be the case with all the football teams of which I would consider myself a fan.

Point in case: Notre Dame.

Head coach Tyrone Willingham has a big problem. The Fighting Irish defense is solid and can go up against almost any offense in the country and do well. However, his offense is pitiful. With a quarterback controversy brewing (I'm pulling for the freshman, Brady Quinn), Willingham will need to light a fire in his offense in order to get them to produce the points. It's not that Notre Dame can't start and sustain a drive (though against Michigan it didn't seem that way), but it's that when the team should score, it doesn't. The Irish are inconsistent when it comes to finishing drives.

Second point: New York Giants.

Oy! Two overtime games in a row! At least they pulled out the one this week. Of course, the game against the Washington Redskins was more of a defensive letdown than offensive. But even with the week before, on Monday Night Football no less, the offense was completely ineffectual early on — making mistakes and not completing drives.

In closing, I point out that, as football goes, I root for only three teams: the New York Giants, Notre Dame and Princeton. All three of these teams have the potential to be solid offensively. But of these three teams, the Tigers are the one squad that I still see in a hopeful light. Notre Dame will be mediocre at best. The Giants will be streaky, able to produce and finish offense at times but failing at others. These teams are where they will be pretty much all year.

Princeton, on the other hand, is just starting its season.

All in all, last week was a respectable start to this season. The Tigers beat the spread (even I underestimated Princeton last week, picking Lehigh to win, 35-14). Entering this week's game against Lafayette, the successes that the Tigers did have will certainly be built upon, or this team has a long season ahead of it.

With the team's Ivy play not set to start until October, Princeton has time to iron out these problems this week against Lafayette before Columbia comes knocking.