Football: Mixed results meet Perry's new offense

A black jersey slips past several defenders before it is finally brought to the turf, safely clutching the ball as a whistle blows. He finds the referee and flips the ball, getting his bearings and quickly running to his spot at the line of scrimmage. Five linemen quickly march downfield and set up as junior quarterback Tommy Wornham barks out a play call. He looks over to the sideline, where backups senior Andrew Dixon and sophomore Tim Dondanville are side by side issuing identical signals, like a third-base coach standing by a mirror. Wornham reaches his position, flanked by a single running back. He gives one quick call and the ball is back in motion, mere seconds after the last play ended.

Repeat this sequence of organized chaos 60 times or so, and you have the football team’s offense. Last winter’s coaching change brought with it a new no-huddle system, featuring many talented Tigers at the skill positions. The show is led by one of the best quarterbacks in Ivy League history, offensive coordinator James Perry.

Perry has experienced quite a few different places in a short career: In less than a decade as a coach, Princeton is already his sixth program. He began as the assistant quarterbacks and wide receivers coach for Dartmouth in 2001 and worked at Williams for two seasons and part of a third before becoming a graduate assistant for Maryland. After earning a master’s degree there in 2006, he was the running backs coach at Delaware. In 2007, he took the position of quarterbacks coach at his alma mater, Brown, where he stayed until this year.

“That’s kind of the nature of coaching: When you see good opportunities, you take them,” Perry said. “But I have a young son and a wife, and I’ve settled here into Princeton quickly.”

One thing is for sure: Perry knows a little something about offense in the Ivy League. In three years as a starter at Brown, he threw for 9,294 yards and 53 touchdowns, both conference records. As the Bears’ quarterbacks coach, he helped Michael Dougherty complete a stellar career, ranking in the top 20 in most passing categories. Once Dougherty graduated, Perry worked his magic with Kyle Newhall-Caballero, who was named the first-team All-Ivy quarterback.

Wornham, who was far from a pure passer as a sophomore last season — he led the Tigers with 372 rushing yards but threw for only four touchdowns — has improved greatly in that department under Perry’s tutelage this season. He ranked second in the conference with 266 passing yards per game before suffering an injury last week and was named the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week after engineering a 36-33 victory over Lafayette.

“The biggest strides you can make as a quarterback are in how quickly you can see what’s happening on the field and react to it,” Perry said. “[Our] system highlights that and puts a lot of power in the quarterback’s hands. It helps his ability to develop and eventually control the game.”

Princeton tries to give its other playmakers space near the sidelines. More than two-thirds of its runs come outside the tackles, playing to the speed and vision of players like senior running back Jordan Culbreath. And quick receivers provide good targets on the outside as well. Senior wideout Trey Peacock led the nation with 124.8 receiving yards per game entering last week.

But despite some statistical excellence, the Tigers have recently failed to post impressive numbers in the most important place: the scoreboard. Over the past three weeks, Princeton has managed 14, 10 and 13 points, respectively, hindered by a number of injuries and by tough defensive foes.

When Princeton’s offense is firing on all cylinders, it can run an opponent’s defense to exhaustion. In the home opener, the Tigers scored in all five of their possessions after halftime to surmount an 11-point deficit against Lafayette. After settling for a field goal in the first overtime, Princeton marched down the field in the second, and Culbreath found the end zone to complete a thrilling victory.

But when the Tigers struggle to move the ball, the pace can backfire. A three-and-out series may last less than a minute in a no-huddle system. If a few of those are strung together, the defense has to play several possessions with little time to catch its breath.

Head coach Bob Surace ’90 is fond of saying, “the defense keeps the defense off the field [by getting stops].” He learned this lesson from Marvin Lewis, who coached the Baltimore Ravens team that did not score a single offensive touchdown in October yet eventually won the Super Bowl on the strength of a terrific defense.

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But the Tigers’ offensive struggles have clearly taken a toll at times on an already suspect defensive unit. After taking a 13-0 lead into the locker room against Brown last weekend, Princeton held the ball for just 7 minutes and 38 seconds on six second-half possessions, failing to convert a first down until the game’s final seconds. Meanwhile, the Bears rolled for 253 yards against the weary hosts for a comeback win.

By the end of the Brown game, Princeton was playing without Wornham, Culbreath and senior fullback Matt Zimmerman. The Tigers have already been ravaged by injuries this season, losing several key linemen and defensive players. With so many injuries, one wonders whether a fast-paced, no-huddle system is still a good fit for Princeton, which now has less depth to combat fatigue.

Perry has no plans to change the system. “Whatever we’re experiencing [with injuries], every team that has played football has dealt with that,” he said. “You hope to be on the lesser side of injuries, but everyone’s going to have similar situations.”