The football team held its annual spring game on Saturday at Princeton Stadium. Traditionally the last major practice of the offseason, the spring game provides an opportunity for the team to gauge its progress and set new goals for the months ahead so that it can be more prepared and in better shape for its summer training camp and the fall season.
Unlike in previous incarnations of the event, this year’s spring game was not scored. Instead, the team ran a series of competitive situations and drills mimicking in-game scenarios. These included third-down drills, two-minute drills, four-minute drills and red-zone drills.
When asked about his appraisal of the team’s improvement and performance over the course of its 12-practice offseason, head coach Bob Surace ’90 said he was generally pleased.
“It’s the kind of situation where you wish that you could have one more practice or one more week, because things looked better every single time we got out [on the field],” Surace said.
From an overarching standpoint, Surace’s Tigers are beginning to look wholly different from those of years past. Perhaps the most striking change — and the one that Surace and his coaching staff are trying to emphasize most — is the team’s pace of play. Since Surace took over at the helm of the program, one of his primary goals has been to make Princeton’s offense fast and aggressive so that opposing defenses have difficulty reading and stopping the Tigers’ drives.
Princeton certainly showed signs of its newfound speed on Saturday. During the situational drills, sophomore quarterbacks Tommy Wornham and Drew Ellis led their units with precision and purpose — a stark contrast to the sometimes dreary offense seen last season.
Though it has taken time for the players to adjust to Princeton’s new offensive style, they have slowly begun to settle into their new roles under the framework that Surace and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach James Perry have developed.
“We’ve made tremendous strides as an offense — getting into the playbook, learning Coach Perry’s system,” junior fullback and co-captain Matt Zimmerman said. “The big thing was that it was new for everyone. It wasn’t like the 11 starters [from last season] had a leg up on everyone else coming into the winter and then into the spring. This was a fresh start for everyone.”
With most of the Tigers’ starting offensive line from the 2009 season graduating, much of the team’s success will depend upon how well the players can continue to adapt to the changes that Surace and his coaching staff implement.
For his part, Surace has been impressed with the team’s attitude and its readiness to be open-minded to his new ideas.
“It’s been terrific,” Surace said. “The adaptability to all the changes and the willingness to work hard and be successful has been wonderful. It’s been good to see us really come together as a group that way. Any time there’s this much change in such a short period of time, there’s the worry that there will be dissent, but things have been great so far.”
Some of the team’s enthusiasm can be attributed to each player’s desire to make an impression on the new coaching staff and earn a spot on next fall’s starting lineup. As of Sunday morning, much of the depth chart was still incomplete, and the coaches were still mulling over who might be given the opportunity to start.
“Over the course of the next week, we’re going to really iron out a depth chart for when we go into August and our training camp,” Surace said. “There’s a good feel for the way we organized things at the spring game, and I think the competition that the spring game encouraged is good. It keeps people motivated when guys have to compete for spots.”
Junior inside linebacker and co-captain Steven Cody echoed Surace’s sentiments.
“The point of the spring game is to answer all the questions that the coaches have about who can play and who can’t play in the fall,” Cody said. “I think the guys really played hard and made that clear for the coaches today, so I’m happy [with how things went].”
As the Tigers move into their summer sessions, Surace’s focus is on improving the team’s overall strength and conditioning.
“In the spring, we went from being horrible [in terms of our strength and conditioning] to below average,” Surace said. “Now we have to go from being below average to excellent, and I think the guys know that. A lot of that conditioning work is going to revolve around guys doing what they need to do individually over the summer before our August camp. This offensive quickness that we’re trying to develop has a lot to do with taking advantage of our guys’ intelligence, but if they don’t have the conditioning, they’re not going to be able to have the endurance to keep up that kind of pace.”
Overall, Surace said, he was encouraged by the improvement that he saw during the offseason.
“We’ve come a long way since day one,” he said. “Come this fall, we’re going to be able to find 11 guys who can get on the field and play physical, strong football.”
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