Despite 361 yards, endzone elusive

It's generally safe to assume that the team that dominates the statistics sheet will also win the game. But as Mark Twain once said, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."

The football team's offensive statistics from Saturday's 27-6 loss to unbeaten Yale were a testament to Princeton's plucky performance, but costly mistakes in the red zone proved fatal for the Tigers in their last home game of the season.

In the first half, all seemed to be going according to Princeton's game plan. A stalwart Tiger defense limited the Bulldogs to a mere 51 yards on 21 plays and allowed Yale's star tailback Mike McLeod to gain only 36 rushing yards.

Princeton's offense held the ball for over 18 minutes, an incredible accomplishment considering time of possession has posed a problem for the Tigers all season and has been Yale's greatest strength. Princeton tallied nearly twice the Bulldogs' number of first downs, more than tripled their number of completed passes and out-gained Yale both on the run and in the air.

"If we look at the stats, we had 361 yards to [Yale's] 272," head coach Roger Hughes said. "While that looks great in your newspaper, the things we keep score of are the points."

But points were hard to come by for the Tigers due to a pair of turnovers deep in the Yale red zone that left Princeton empty-handed after two solid drives in the first half.

The opening Tiger drive saw Princeton advance from its own 26-yard line on the strength of consistent rushing by senior quarterback Bill Foran and junior tailback RC Lagomarsino. Lagomarsino's clutch run from the Yale 10-yard line to the two set the Tigers up to take the lead, but a fumbled transition from Foran to junior wide receiver Adam Berry dashed those hopes.

Two drives later, the Tigers took advantage of Foran's 20-yard completion to junior wide receiver Will Thanheiser and a seven-yard rush by sophomore wide receiver Jeb Heavenrich to move just outside the Bulldog goal line once again. But with the offense running on all cylinders behind a diversified attack, shaky ball protection once again proved Princeton's bugaboo, as a Foran fumble put possession back into Yale's hands.

"We had our opportunities in the first half," Hughes said. "[If you get] inside the five-yard line twice, you've got to score, and we turned it over twice or had miscues that ended up in us not getting any points."

One of the only two times the Tigers converted on scoring chances happened in the waning seconds of the first half. For the third time that afternoon the Tigers entered the red zone after driving the ball half the length of the field in less than two minutes. In this make-or-break series, the Tigers again failed to find their way into the end zone, settling for a 20-yard field goal by junior kicker Connor Louden.

Though the Tigers managed to put points on the board, the failure to come up with a touchdown was demoralizing. More significantly, it fired up a Yale defense that felt lucky to have escaped the first half with a tie.

"Obviously the difference in the game was the turnovers," Yale head coach Jack Siedlecki said. "We didn't have any. The two that they had absolutely killed them. In the first half, they drove the ball down the field and had a lot of yards, but they didn't get any points. [For it] to be 3-3 at halftime with the way we played offensively, we were in pretty good shape."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Any momentum the Tigers had entering the locker room was shattered during Yale's first drive of the second half, when quarterback Matt Polhemus connected with wide receiver Chris Denny-Brown on an 80-yard touchdown catch. Had the Tigers been able to capitalize on their scoring chances in the first half to earn three touchdowns rather than three points, this play might have been just a blip on the radar.

Despite the fact that the Tigers outperformed the Bulldogs on paper, the two first-half turnovers made all of Princeton's first downs, completed passes and earned yardage meaningless. Heading into their final game of the season next Saturday against Dartmouth, the Tigers can only hope they will be able to make their statistics match the final outcome.