As head coach Roger Hughes addressed the media following the football team's 43-3 dismantling of Columbia on Saturday, the three Tigers seated to his right shared a laugh while pointing at their printouts of the game's statistics.
Junior tailback Cleo Kirkland later explained the cause of their amusement. He, senior defensive end James Williams and junior quarterback Jeff Terrell had noticed that Terrell, in carrying the ball 11 times, had posted a team-best rushing average of 7.2 yards per carry.
Such giddiness was to be expected in the aftermath of a classic laugher — a game in which Princeton (3-0 overall, 1-0 Ivy League) so fully dominated the Lions (2-1, 0-1) that statistical discrepancies became the most plentiful topic of post-game discussion.
Indeed, Kirkland could have just as easily gotten a laugh by citing the Tigers' impossible total of 324 rushing yards, 130 of which he himself had totaled to achieve a career high.
Or Williams, one of the leaders of a suddenly stingy defense, could have mentioned that Dan Daylamani, a Columbia linebacker who ran 19 yards on a fake-punt play, was the Lions' leading rusher. But the one statistic most illustrative of Princeton's all-around dominance of the ground game was this: four Tigers — including sophomore quarterback Bill Foran, a third-quarter substitution — each singlehandedly eclipsed Columbia's team rushing total of 26 yards.
"I'm very pleased with both sides of the ball," Hughes said after the game. "Our offensive and defensive lines, I thought, dominated the game."
Paced by those units, Princeton jumped to a double-digit first-half lead for the third straight game, running up the score to 23-3 before heading into the locker room at halftime.
The Tigers scored on their first five possessions, not only on the strength of the ground game, but also with the precision passing of Terrell.
After a 12-play opening drive culminated in a 31-yard field goal by senior kicker Derek Javarone, the Tiger defense forced a quick punt, letting its quarterback get back to work quickly.
On the second play of the second drive, Terrell faked a handoff to Kirkland. With the Lions biting on the play, he found himself with all the time in the world to complete a 41-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Brendan Circle. "I thought Jeff was in the zone today," Hughes said. "His passes were crisp; they were on the money."
And seven plays later, Terrell had moved Princeton to the Columbia one-yard line. There, the offensive line opened up a hole big enough for Kirkland to score standing up.
Following two more Javarone field goals — including a career-long score from 43 yards out — Terrell added a one-yard touchdown run of his own. He leapt over his lineman and across the plane of the goal line to put the Tigers up 23 points.
With 42 seconds remaining in the half, the Lions finally got on the board with a 47-yard field goal by Jon Rocholl. While the points turned out to be Columbia's only three of the game, they were enough to keep Hughes uneasy.
After all, Princeton had previously been outscored 35-10 in the second half this season, while the Lions' 43-14 scoring advantage after halftime had given them a reputation as fast finishers.
"I didn't feel comfortable until towards the end," Hughes said. "One of the things we're trying to strive for as a team is to find the knockout punch, and today I think we were able to do that." The big play Hughes was referring to in this game was a 16-yard Terrell touchdown run that ended Princeton's first drive of the third quarter. Capping a 71-yard drive, Terrell darted unscathed into the end zone for his second rushing touchdown of the afternoon.
Javarone then made it 33-3 with a field goal midway through the quarter, and his Columbia counterpart Rocholl saw his subsequent attempt blocked by Williams. Freshman defensive back Barry Newell was the recipient of the fortunate tip, and he returned the ball into Lion territory.
From there, the game turned into a chance for a couple of Tigers to reach milestones. For the first time in his career, Kirkland surpassed 100 yards rushing. With a 14-yard scoring run less than two minutes into the fourth quarter, he put together his first multi-touchdown game as well. Finally, near the midway point of the final quarter, Javarone booted his fifth field goal of the game, tying his own Ivy League record and putting Princeton up by 40 points.
"It's kind of hard to really tell yourself it's a tie game when the score is what it was," Kirkland said later.
In games like these, thank goodness, there are always numbers other than the score to keep things interesting.
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