In eyes of the Tigers, nothing but agony

One by one, the members of the football team emerged from the Tigers' locker room and trudged out of Princeton Stadium late Saturday afternoon.

Most didn't say a word. There were no words, really, to describe what they were feeling, not at a moment like this.

But though the Tigers' mouths were silent, their eyes spoke volumes, each pair telling a different story of dejection and misery.

Junior quarterback Jeff Terrell's looked shocked, as if he was struggling to comprehend how a game that had started off so well ended up going so, so wrong.

Senior offensive lineman Ben Brielmaier's were full of anger and rage, as if he needed to go spend a few hours pummeling a punching bag.

Senior linebacker Justin Stull's were glazed over and empty, as if his mind were on another planet. He ambled slowly and stared straight ahead, oblivious to anything but the pain.

Many of the Tigers' eyes — especially the seniors' — were still red and bleary from crying, full of devastation and heartache. Who could blame them?

It's hard to imagine a more devastating combination: the magnitude of the game, the expectations on their shoulders, the manner in which they lost. Princeton wanted this victory more than anything — you could see that in the players' eyes, too.

But eyes don't fill newspapers, so someone had to talk to the media. Senior Jay McCareins was offered up as the sacrificial lamb, and the first question asked was whether it was OK to cry on a day like this.

He nodded.

"When something means this much to you ..." he said, his voice nearly breaking. "It was our job to win the game, and we didn't do it. It makes it that much more difficult to swallow."

He was right: the Tigers could only blame themselves, knowing a winnable game — a winnable bonfire, a winnable Ivy League title — had slipped through their paws.

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There was no pointing of fingers, though, only discussions of "we." They had come this far together, and they would share the burden together. Each Princeton player was just as culpable as the next.

It took a remarkable, almost unthinkable, confluence of miscues and unlucky breaks for the Tigers to lose. There was no single play that doomed Princeton, no single player solely responsible.

You can't just blame McCareins, even if it was his interception that left the Tigers with the atrocious field position that played a large role in their ultimate demise. Catching that ball was the right decision: his primary responsibility was to make sure a Bulldog didn't come down with the pass, and the only way to ensure that was to grab it himself.

"The only way I know how to play," McCareins said, "is to go get the ball."

You can't just blame Terrell, even if it was his five interceptions that stood out on the stat sheet. It was Terrell's brilliant first half that gave Princeton the lead in the first place, after all. Two of the interceptions were flukes — passes that happened to be batted into the air by Yale lineman Brandon Dyches and happened to land in the fortuitously positioned hands of Lee Driftmier — and the final one was a throw of desperation, a victim of circumstance.

You can't just blame junior wide receiver Brian Shields, even if it was his fumble that led to the Bulldogs' winning touchdown. The way he got drilled by Brendan Spoonheimer, Shields is lucky to still be walking.

You can't just blame head coach Roger Hughes, even if it was his decision to try to win the game in regulation that backfired. His aggressive moves have paid off all year, and this was no time to suddenly lose guts. It would have been far worse to sit on the ball and then lose in overtime, leaving the Tigers forever to wonder what might have been.

So who can the disappointed fan and player blame? Everyone and everything. If you believe Yale quarterback Jeff Mroz, maybe you should even blame us, the media.

"We were reading articles all week about a huge bonfire," he said in the postgame press conference. "We brought our hoses out, and we put their fire out."

Or maybe it was just fate. All year, fate had been on Princeton's side. A win over Yale, a bonfire and Ivy League title — they all seemed like destiny.

And then, with no warning, a tipped pass began the Tigers' hasty descent from Cloud Nine to the lowest depths of Hell.

Fate works like that: no explanation offered, no consolation provided.

"I can't believe it happened," McCareins said, his eyes forlorn. "There's nothing you can say."