Title on the line in final game

Tonight, hundreds upon hundreds of copies of this paper will no doubt be reduced to ashes — free fuel for the first Princeton bonfire since 1994.

Before that happens, let it be known that the football team will have one final game to play after the flames die down. The Tigers (8-1 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) host Dartmouth (2-7, 2-4) at 1 p.m. tomorrow with an Ivy League title in their sights and every reason to get fired back up again. (Live blogging of the game begins Saturday afternoon on our sports blog,

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"I know the Yale game was a big deal for the University — and it was to us and we're excited to have that win — but ultimately winning that game wasn't the goal we've been talking about since we started this season," senior linebacker and co-captain Luke Steckel said. "The only goal we've ever had is winning an Ivy League championship."

For that to happen, Princeton needn't necessarily defeat the Big Green. Sometime during the second half tomorrow, the final score of Yale's matchup with Harvard — scheduled to start one hour before Princeton-Dartmouth — will be announced over the Princeton Stadium public address system.

If the Crimson (7-2, 4-2) defeats the Bulldogs (7-2, 5-1), the Tigers would clinch their first Ivy League title since 1995. Princeton could lose to the Big Green and still share the crown with Harvard and Yale. But if the Tigers win in that scenario, they will claim the Ivy title outright.

On the other hand, if the Bulldogs triumph tomorrow, the Tigers would need to defeat Dartmouth in order to share the league crown with Yale. A Princeton loss would leave the title solely in the hands of the Elis.

"As far as we're concerned," Steckel said, "our mission hasn't been accomplished yet."

With that, Steckel echoed the sentiments of his head coach Roger Hughes. And it's games like tomorrow's when a team needs an on-field coach like Steckel more than ever.

After tonight's bonfire, the Tigers' season will already have climaxed in the realm of public opinion — labeled a success before it reaches an end. All the assurances in the world of Princeton's continued commitment to a championship can't take away from that. Dartmouth, meanwhile, will arrive at Princeton Stadium with nothing left to lose in a lost season and every reason to relish its role as potential spoiler.

Princeton stormed into Hanover, N.H., for the final game of last season still raging from a painful, 21-14 loss to Yale the week before. That game had effectively dashed the Tigers' hopes of a league title, and Princeton took out its frustrations on the Big Green, posting its first shutout since 1999 in a 30-0 win.

Now, Dartmouth is in position for payback. What remains to be seen is whether or not they have the assets necessary to complete the exchange.

The Big Green ranks in the bottom half of the Ivy League in all but three of the 30 major statistical categories. The only area in which Dartmouth can claim to excel is the avoidance of yellow flags, as the Big Green has been called for the fewest penalties in the Ancient Eight.

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Individually, Dartmouth boasts a bright spot in quarterback Mike Fritz, whose 62 percent pass-completion mark is far and away the best in the Ivies. Fritz is also the leader of the Big Green ground game, checking in at seventh in the league with 401 rushing yards on the season.

"Their quarterback, Fritz, does things that have hurt us in the past couple weeks," Hughes said. "He's a very athletic quarterback, he's their leading rusher and he does a great job of scrambling when protection breaks down."

In that sense, Fritz is much like Cornell's Nathan Ford or Yale's Matt Polhemus, mobile signal-callers who have tortured the Princeton defense in recent weeks with their running ability. Ford engineered the only defeat of the Tigers this season — a 14-7 Big Red win on Oct. 28 — while Polhemus ran for 79 yards last week before Princeton staged its remarkable comeback to triumph, 34-31.

"We need to do all the things we did in the second half of the Yale game and be disciplined in our pass rushes and make sure we have all the gaps covered," Hughes said.

If Fritz can be stopped and senior quarterback Jeff Terrell can build on what has already become a legendary season, there may well be no stopping the Tigers. The date circled on the student body's calendar has come, but the team already has a new kind of celebration in mind.

"It'd be crazy not to enjoy the festivities of the week and the excitement of the bonfire," Steckel said, "but in the same breath we do have to stay focused on this Saturday, because our one goal since the day I got here has been to win an Ivy League championship. There's no bonfire for that because it hasn't been accomplished yet."

Should all that change tomorrow — and the call for flames rise up again — there's always Monday's edition to throw into the fire.