Offense sharp despite poor red-zone attack

If the bane of every football team's existence is to finish drives for points in the red zone, the Tigers found a unique way around it: avoid the red zone almost entirely.

Thanks to the poise and quality of an offense that spread the ball around, Princeton earned the team's second win of the season in as many games.

In the end, it was solid, fluid, connected play by virtually every part of the team's maturing offense that gave the Tigers a devastating possession advantage and with it, a well-played victory.

"Obviously it's nice when we control the ball because it keeps our defense off the field," head coach Roger Hughes said. "What it shows is poise ... and patience — we're not making crazy plays."

Though the Tigers weren't held scoreless in the first half like last weekend, Princeton found itself caught short in the red zone on the team's first two scoring opportunities. Solid offensive play got the Tigers far downfield, but Princeton couldn't quite finish.

After junior defensive back Kevin Kelleher broke up a third-down pass to force the Leopards to punt, the Tigers went to work quickly. Senior quarterback Jeff Terrell found junior running back Rob Toresco to move his offense 24 yards to the 44-yard line; a play action fake brought the Tigers to the Lafayette 44 with the help of senior wide receiver Brian Brigham.

A few plays later, Terrell found Toresco on an option pitch to get into the red zone at the 19, but the Princeton offense stalled.

Unable to come up with even the first-and-goal, sophomore kicker Conner Louden found the uprights for the Tigers and a 3-0 lead — a hard-fought score for a long, 67-yard, five-minute drive.

After another shutdown of the Lafayette offense, the Tigers put together yet another marathon push toward the end zone. Thanks in part to a spectacular diving play over a would-be tackler by Terrell, Princeton advanced all the way to the Lafayette 13 before being repelled again. A few yards later, however, Terrell found himself scrambling for a receiver to connect with on third down.

The end result was similar: after advancing 70 yards in just under eight minutes, the Tigers had to settle for another field goal by Louden and a lead just shy of the seven points the team might otherwise have had.

It seemed as though those two failures to connect red zone with end zone might be fatal when Lafayette found the last 10 yards first and took a 7-6 lead with three minutes, eight seconds left in the half.

Terrell leads drive

But the poise of the Tiger offense that would end up winning Princeton the game came through quickly. Not to be outgunned by Lafayette's quarterback Brad Mauer, Terrell quickly slapped together an eight-play, 2:15 drive that covered a whopping 76 yards.

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The score came as Terrell dropped back in the pocket and launched a perfect throw to Brigham in the corner of the end zone, who brought the rock down for a 13-7 halftime lead with less than a minute to play before the half.

"That's where I'm most proud of the team, right there... to come back right there after them putting it in and for us to go down [and] score a touchdown too — we weren't just going to settle for a field goal," Terrell said.

But just as the Tigers were slow to get going in the first quarter last weekend, the third quarter was as much of a drag this weekend. Lafayette finally opened second-half scoring with a touchdown at 1:39 remaining in the third. The score was a go-ahead one, putting the Leopards up, 14-13.

What transpired from that point on showed that Princeton has achieved the kind of skill and composure necessary to control football games. Terrell and his offense came onto the field ready to engineer what would be the game-winning drive.

After completing four first downs, the Tiger offense held Lafayette's 14-yard line and faced yet another crucial red-zone test. And this time, Princeton didn't falter.

With a well-placed pass reminiscent of the last score, Terrell connected with sophomore wide receiver Will Thanheiser in the corner of the end zone on a 14-yard pass. Amazingly, the Tigers had driven down the field with perfection, covering 85 yards in only 2:31.

Interestingly, it was the team's only red-zone score — a fact which belied the way the Tigers played.

From there, it was a runaway win for Princeton as the Tigers went on to piece together another easy score.

Thanks to bad field position on a punt by Lafayette, Princeton started off at the Leopards' own 49. Sophomore tailback R.C. Lagomarsino made the first play, barely making it back to scrimmage on the rush.

The second play also went to Lagomarsino, who made up for the last one by breaking a tackle on his reception and two more as he weaved to the far side and then back to the near side en route to his first career touchdown — and the Tigers' 26-point total. Again, the score came without the Tigers first making it to the red zone.

But the red zone is only a number for reference, and one needs only to reference the team's whopping 370 yards of offense to know that Hughes, Terrell and company have done something right.

If Princeton keeps it up and puts together the kind of devastating possessions it did Saturday night, the Tigers will have opponents seeing all shades of red — just not the red zone.