Princeton's football team has often shown a remarkable ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In Saturday's game against Yale, though, the team outdid itself. After leading for the entire game, Princeton managed to allow Yale a 92-yard touchdown drive in the last minute of the fourth quarter. There was, literally, one second left on the clock when Yale's wide receiver caught the game-tying touchdown pass.
There's more to the story — read about it in today's Sports section — but the bottom line is that we managed to play good football throughout but then lose the game with a fumble in double overtime. It was the kind of loss that leaves fans silent, dispirited.
There are many explanations to offer. Bad luck and some surprising penalties didn't help, but the main problem was staffing — with stars like Zak Keasy, Jay McCareins and Brandon Mueller out for the year, the team was short on manpower. Next year, with these three and many of Saturday's best players returning, the team may do better by default.
But if head coach Roger Hughes wants to find a good explanation for this season's disappointing record, he might start with a good long look in the mirror. Princeton managed to play both Harvard and Yale to double overtime this year and still somehow ended up with a pair of losses. Those were close games, winnable games, the kind of games where good coaching can make a pivotal difference. The great game-coach Bill Tierney of the powerhouse men's lacrosse team, for instance, has won about 90 percent of his one-goal games.
Princeton football lost the momentum Saturday with an unsuccesful offensive drive at the end of the first half, and from that point on, everyone — fans and players on both sides — seemed to anticipate a Tiger collapse. A coach is supposed to get peak performance from his players when it matters most, and Hughes did not do that. If he had, we might have been planning a bonfire. Daily Princetonian editorials are written by the Editorial & Opinion Editors, Managing Editors and Editor-In-Chief.
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