“The bottom line will be this,” Rackovan said. “Will the offensive line enable us to consistently run the football inside? This is something we haven’t been able to do even when we won the championship. We are hoping this transpires.”
The Tigers, picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League in a preseason media poll after their 4-6 finish last season, are certainly looking to improve on their overall offensive performance from last year. With such a huge task resting on the shoulders of the offensive line, it will be essential for the front five to respond to the challenge put forth by their coaches.
Head coach Roger Hughes and his staff place tremendous faith in a corps of linemen that returns several key starters after being labeled as inexperienced last year. These athletes will need to provide a solid wall of protection for a relatively untested presence in the pocket, senior quarterback and tri-captain Brian Anderson. In his one real test last season, Anderson showed tenacity and toughness, completing 16 of 21 passes for 186 yards while playing with a broken thumb against Dartmouth.
Junior tackles Mark Paski and J.P. Makrai have been strongholds on the offensive line since their freshman seasons. The team also returns other experienced linemen, including junior left guard Andrew Hauser and senior center Matt Reynolds.
Paski, who is the only offensive lineman in team history to start every game of his freshman season, said he feels the offensive line has grown as a unit over the past couple of years. This sense of togetherness should help it act as a solid force heading into this season.
“We were a young unit two years ago, but we have played together for two years now, and that combination has brought a sense of solidarity to the offensive line,” Paski said.
Rackovan noted that the offensive line has been plagued by a couple of injuries, leading to the possibility of playing time for freshmen Matt Allen and Kevin Mill.
The offensive line will certainly play a big role in an important change in the Tigers’ offense this season: the switch from an option to a spread offense. Last season, under the leadership of quarterbacks Bill Foran ’08 and Greg Mroz ’08, Princeton averaged 20.1 points per game running an option offense.
This year, Princeton will be running the new-look spread offense in hope of putting more points on the board. The Tigers will often run plays with four or more wide receivers on the line of scrimmage at a time. The spread offense also allows for situations utilizing multiple quarterbacks: Along with Anderson, junior Dan Kopolovich, who was a first-team all-state quarterback in high school but was converted to cornerback his freshman year, could also see playing time under center since being brought back to the opposite side of the line of scrimmage.
“If Brian is consistently getting us into the endzone, we’ve got to find a way to use Dan [Kopolovich’s] athletic ability [elsewhere],” Hughes said. “I can’t give you the plan right now. We could see a multi-quarterback situation on the field at the same time.”
Senior wide receiver Will Thanheiser is also encouraged by the potential of the spread offense.
“We’ve had most of these plays in our playbook, but we’re now doing them with more wide receiver formations where we’ve got four or five receivers out there at the same time,” Thanheiser said. “It really opens up the field so we can use our speed down field. I’m really excited about it.”
Thanheiser is part of a deep receiving corps that provides a lot of options for Anderson. Along with Thanheiser, whom Rackovan considers to be in the best shape of his career, senior tri-captain Adam Berry will see considerable playing time.
Anderson has confidence in the abilities of Thanheiser and Berry, along with some of his younger receivers.
“We have a lot of weapons,” Anderson said. “A lot of wide receivers can emerge as deep threats for me. Thanheiser, Berry, [sophomores] Trey Peacock, Matt Ransom and Andrew Kerr all give an equal shot of being successful.”
Princeton will certainly miss the presence of graduated wide receiver Brendan Circle ’08, one of only two offensive All-Ivy selections from last season and an integral part of the 2006 Ivy League championship squad.
While the deep receiving corps could provide go-to targets for Anderson, a huge question mark will be the players in the backfield. The coaching staff has great confidence that junior Jordan Culbreath — who had a breakout performance against Cornell last season, running for 145 yards and two touchdowns — can anchor the backfield and carry the ball the majority of the time.
Hughes complimented Culbreath’s strong sense of character as a player.
“You would have to cut his head off to get him off the field,” Hughes said. “He has the heart of a champion. We hope he materializes to become the horse we can ride.”
Culbreath will see a lot more playing time than originally expected since injury-plagued senior running back R.C. Lagomarsino will not be seen on the field this season. Also gone this year is fullback Rob Toresco ’08, who led all rushers last season with 346 yards and two visits to the endzone.
Taking Toresco’s place at fullback will most likely be sophomore Matt Zimmerman or freshman Jonathan Meyers. Rackovan describes Meyers, who is listed as a linebacker, as an extremely explosive player with great potential. Along with Meyers, Rackovan noted that freshman running back Eric Stoyanoff could see playing time to fill the void left by Lagomarsino.
The Tigers’ Achilles heel last season was turnovers — the team lost 12 fumbles, and the trio of quarterbacks threw a total of 18 interceptions. Reversing that trend will be critical to Princeton’s success this season. Hughes said he strongly believes that if his team can protect the ball, the Tigers can turn their 4-6 record from last season into a winning record this year.
On special teams, Princeton returns senior placekicker Connor Louden, who is approaching the school record for consecutive extra points. Louden’s longest field goal was a 36-yarder last year, but Hughes expects that with another year to strengthen Louden’s leg and recover from a 2007 offseason surgery, the senior will be able to convert longer distances. Also returning is veteran long snapper Ryan Pritchard, who has handled the football for all of the Tigers’ field goals and punts for the last two seasons.
Princeton’s ultimate success on offense will come down to three factors. The offensive line will need to give Anderson ample time to throw the ball to his targets in the new-look spread offense. The Paski-led unit will also need to create holes for Culbreath to run through. And the offense as a whole needs to do a better job of protecting the ball than it did last season. If these things come to fruition, the Tigers may be well on their way to a successful year on offense.
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