Tigers must stop Big Red ground game

If practice makes perfect, then Princeton's team has already had two games to be perfectly prepared for this weekend's matchup against Cornell.

The Tigers (4-2 overall, 2-1 Ivy League) face the Big Red (3-3, 1-2) on Saturday and will attempt to stop the Ivy League's strongest rushing team from derailing what's been a promising season so far.

But after facing Brown's Nick Hartigan and Harvard's Clifton Dawson, the Tigers hope to be ready to stop Cornell and its star back, Luke Siwula, on the ground.

That's not to say the contest won't be a challenge, though, for the Big Red offense is full of pitfalls for Princeton.

"Their running back is very good at picking the creases. He doesn't turn the ball over," head coach Roger Hughes said. "With the scheme that they run, they're trying to slow down your defensive effectiveness and quickness by making play fakes and having other options available."

Siwula, a sophomore, has posted four 100-plus yard efforts so far this season, including 162 yards last weekend in a 38-24 loss to Brown. He has led Cornell to a team average of 4.7 yards per carry rushing; personally, he averages 5.0 yards per carry.

Additionally, senior quarterback Ryan Kuhn has averaged 4.9 yards per carry on 106 touches for the Big Red.

But one potential cause for hope might lie in some of the numbers that the Tigers have put up this season. Princeton has held its opponents to 988 yards so far this season while racking up 1289 on offense. If Princeton can continue to execute like it has in its wins this season, the Tigers stand a good chance of getting another crucial league win.

Noting the deceptive nature of Cornell's offense, Hughes pointed out how important defensive execution, in particular, would be.

"When you're playing option football, you have to be disciplined, you have to be in your gaps," Hughes said. "All it takes is one small mistake, and they're by you down the field."

Much like Princeton's, Cornell's offense frequently utilizes the option play and will look to pull the Tigers out of position with various fakes. Because of the nature of the Big Red threat, Princeton will have to spread its defense a bit thin to cover all of them — making each and every player important.

"You can only assign so many guys to the option pitch and dive on either side of the formation. If they are there and don't make the play, there's no one else to make it," Hughes said.

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Saturday's game is sure to be as much a mental game as anything else, but if last weekend's performance was any indicator, the Tigers should be ready to play.

Sophomore quarterback Jeff Terrell went 15-for-26 against Harvard, passing for 200 yards and one touchdown in his best performance so far this season. Even better, he's averaging 197 yards per game this season.

Princeton's cumulative total of 1,097 yards by air mail towers over Cornell's 671, largely thanks to the efforts of Terrell in his first year as the starting quarterback.

And he's not the only one who'll come ready to play. Senior cornerback Jay McCareins, the star of last week's game after he returned a kickoff 93 yards for the winning touchdown with seven minutes to play, will be Princeton's best defensive weapon, leading a talented secondary.

For McCareins to have a maximum impact, however, it will be critical for Princeton to stop the run and force Cornell to pass the ball. The Big Red has outrushed the Tigers by 493 yards, 1,499 to 1,006, this season.

Whether or not the day will be dominated by Cornell's rushing attack remains to be seen, but if history is any indicator, the contest will be close.

Last year, the Big Red slipped away from Princeton with a 21-20 victory. Including that game, four of the last five games in which the Tigers have faced the Big Red have been decided by a three-point margin or less.

"Since our staff's tenure here, we have either had to come from behind in some kind of miraculous fashion, generally, or we've ended up losing the game [against Cornell]," Hughes said.

Using the past week's game as a precedent, in which Princeton snapped a nine-year losing streak to Harvard, the Tigers should be optimistic for this weekend's performance. And while Hughes noted that it's hard to be fully psyched up for every game each and every week of the 10-week season, the Tigers, who are playing to stay in the Ivy League race and avoid that dreaded second league loss, are sure to bring a little momentum into this weekend's contest.

How perfect the practice they've had against Harvard and Brown will make them remains to be seen.