Secondary catching praise

Imagine a quarterback who is winless in six starts, having completed a mere 45 percent of his passes. He's thrown 11 interceptions, next to just five touchdowns. You'd think that no coach, however desperate, would run this guy out on the field for another week.

But for opponents of the No. 15 Princeton football team (6-0 overall, 3-0 Ivy League), reliance on such a signal-caller has been beyond their control. The above statistics represent the collective output of the quarterbacks unfortunate enough to have come up against the Tiger secondary so far this season.

Lehigh's Sedale Threatt, Brown's Joe DiGiacomo, Harvard's tandem of Chris Pizzotti and Liam O'Hagan — all are some of the best arms in Division-I AA, and all have been neutralized and defeated thanks largely to the efforts of Princeton's formidable defensive backs.

Worst of all for those opposing quarterbacks, their fate was one they had no way of anticipating. The Tiger secondary looked like a potentially vulnerable unit prior to the season, having graduated first-team All-American cornerback Jay McCareins '06, who led Division I-AA with nine interceptions last year.

On top of that, senior cornerback J.J. Artis — the leading candidate to replace McCareins as the team's lockdown corner — missed time in the preseason with the same injuries that have plagued him his entire career. Head coach Roger Hughes was forced to consider shifting standout senior safety Tim Strickland over to cornerback.

Six games into the season, though, Artis and Strickland have started every game at their usual positions and have anchored the league's stingiest secondary. Strickland, who leads the team with 16 solo tackles, is the Princeton player most likely to come out of nowhere and bring down a ball-carrier who has escaped through the first wave of tacklers. Artis, meanwhile, seems to make a play on every dangerous throw downfield, pacing the Tigers with five passes defended.

"J.J. and Tim, they're the two rare guys who are going to close out their careers having made close to 40 career starts [each]," junior safety Kevin Kelleher said. "They're our experienced guys, they've been there."

The pair set the tone for Princeton's season by winning back-to-back Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week awards to start 2006. Strickland posted two interceptions in the season-opener against Lehigh, and Artis matched that performance against Lafayette in Week 2, in front of the home crowd.

While no one could have predicted such a hot start — even for the two seniors — it was the third Tiger to post a multiple-interception performance this season who was easily the most surprising. Against Harvard this past Saturday, Kelleher came off the bench for two picks, both in the fourth quarter of a 31-28 comeback win. The second interception came with one minute and nine seconds remaining in the game, allowing Princeton to run out the clock for the win.

"[Defensive backs] coach [Eric] Jackson puts a lot of confidence in us that we can play anybody in the league man-to-man," Kelleher said after the game. "And it really helps when you have a [defensive line] that can get pressure like ours can and get in the quarterback's face."

Kelleher's game-sealing interception came after senior nose guard Jake Marshall tipped O'Hagan's pass at the line of scrimmage, sending it high in the air. The sequence underscored the fact that, as solid as the Princeton secondary has been this season, the job of shutting down opposing quarterbacks is a team effort.

"Kevin came in and made a couple big picks, but the neat thing is that we had pressure and we got a tip," Hughes said of the play. "I'm not taking anything away from Kevin, that's just how we play, that's how we win. I think our kids actually thrive on the fact that there are no stars on this team, we just find ways to do it."

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Indeed, the Tigers have benefited from the emergence of a group of less experienced players in substantial roles around Artis and Strickland in the secondary. Senior Rob Anderson has started all six games at strong safety after filling a reserve role last year, while Kelleher has seen significant time at both safety positions.

At the cornerback spot opposite Artis, sophomore Tom Hurley got the starting nod, splitting time with freshman Dan Koplovich. Recruited as a scrambling quarterback, Koplovich has made a remarkably smooth transition to defense, with 12 tackles and two pass breakups. Hurley ranks among Princeton's leaders with 20 tackles, has broken up three passes and notched his first career interception in the first quarter against Harvard.

"Six games into the season, we know what's going on, we know how to play, we've seen a lot," Kelleher said of his fellow defensive backs. "The veterans on the team do a real great job of making some of the younger guys feel like veterans, too."

Together, they're making opposing quarterbacks throughout the Ivy League feel more and more like rookies.