Tigers' dreams go up in smoke

There is something comforting about the sight of a few players flanking their coach as he arrives at the postgame press conference after a loss. Their presence seems to reassure the coach that the team is still behind him, that they share his pain in defeat as much as they share the responsibility to get things turned around the next week.

Following the football team's first two losses earlier this season, senior leaders like cornerback Jay McCareins and linebacker Justin Stull suffered alongside head coach Roger Hughes through every agonizing question about what went wrong.

But in the emotional aftermath of the third loss — a 21-14 stunner at the hands of Yale (4-5 overall, 4-2 Ivy League) on Saturday that denied the Tigers (6-3, 4-2) a bonfire and destroyed virtually all hope of an Ivy League title — asking one of those devastated seniors to face the media would have been downright cruel.

So, as Princeton Stadium's once-raucous crowd of 18,265 moved on to various homecoming-weekend festivities, Hughes was left to meet the press alone, looking dejected enough to strip a 10-mile radius of its joy.

"I just left a very sober locker room," Hughes said. "These kids are very disappointed."

Disappointed because, throughout the bulk of the first half, the Tigers' dominance on both sides of the ball reminded them of how deserving they were of the right to play for an Ivy League championship.

Disappointed because this game, which attracted by far the largest crowd of the season, was a chance to make the buzz surrounding Princeton football more than just a passing fancy. But most of all, the Tigers were disappointed by the fact that the 14-0 lead they built in the first half had been obliterated largely through their own doing.

"It makes it that much more difficult to swallow," McCareins said afterward, standing stunned in the concourse underneath the stadium. "If we'd have gotten beat by 30, we'd be unhappy, but we could at least say that they kicked our butts."

Instead, Princeton has to be kicking itself for ruining the final game at Princeton Stadium for seniors like McCareins and Stull.

"There's not a word being said," Hughes said of the locker room atmosphere. "There are a lot of kids just sitting at their lockers right now with their heads down. There are a lot of tears being shed."

Seven Princeton turnovers ensured that the slow-starting Bulldogs would have every chance they needed to gain momentum. Sure enough, Yale pulled to within one touchdown of the Tigers late in the third quarter, following the third of five interceptions thrown on the day by junior quarterback Jeff Terrell. Princeton managed to hold that lead for a full 17 minutes before Bulldog quarterback Jeff Mroz found wideout Todd Feiereisen — who torched the Tiger secondary for 115 receiving yards — for a 10-yard touchdown pass with one minute, 14 seconds remaining.

Its lead having crumbled, Princeton prepared for one final charge to win the game. But on the first play of the drive, junior wide receiver Brian Shields fumbled when battered from behind by Yale's Brendan Sponheimer. Bulldog linebacker Bobby Abare scooped up the loose ball and charged 27 yards to the one-yard line before he was forced out of bounds.

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Three plays later, the Bulldog offense scored on a Mroz rushing touchdown to go up 21-14 with 47 seconds remaining, and a final Terrell interception sealed the Tigers' fate soon thereafter.

"We brought our hoses out," Mroz said, referring to his team's role as spoiler of Princeton's celebratory plans. "We put their fire out."

Indeed, as they left the locker room Saturday, half an hour after Princeton's defeat, nothing seemed to be burning in the hearts of the Tigers. One by one, Princeton players marched through the doors and out of the stadium, separated by 30-second intervals, so that each could walk alone with his thoughts. Should those thoughts have turned to the Ivy League title race, the Tigers have surely realized just how dire their situation has become. With Brown's 24-14 comeback win over Dartmouth on Saturday, the only way Princeton can earn a share of the league title is with a road win over the Big Green next week and a Bears loss to a Columbia team that is winless in Ivy competition.

"What we're playing for [next week] is pride," Hughes said, admitting the unlikelihood of that scenario. "We're playing for sending these seniors out with a 7-3 record, which is a vastly improved record. I expect us to bounce back from this and come back and play well."

Hughes has earned every right to expect such play from his team, which has stuck by his side, for better or for worse, all season long. Even if the Tigers rebound, though, and finish the season on a high note, the enduring image of their season may well be the string of empty chairs next to Hughes at the press room table, a testament to their devastation on what was supposed to be a day of joy.