If the football team were playing with rules from 1911 — when the forward pass was legal but restricted and few teams used it as an offensive weapon — it might be near the top of the Ivy League. The Tigers lead the league in rushing yards and rank second to conference champion Harvard in run defense. But after a 33-24 loss to Yale, in which Princeton outgained the Bulldogs 277-121 on the ground with only eight more attempts, the Tigers (1-8 overall, 1-5 Ivy League) have just one win heading into Saturday’s season finale at Dartmouth.
“There’s a toughness factor that we’re getting; there’s an ability to run the ball and stop the run that’s good,” head coach Bob Surace ’90 said after last week’s game. “But you also have to make plays ... You have to make your own breaks.”
A week after setting the Ivy League record for rushing yards as a true freshman, running back Chuck Dibilio turned in his best performance of the year, rolling for three touchdowns and 178 yards against Yale while edging his season total over 1,000. After playing sporadically early in the season, Dibilio has topped 130 yards in five of his last six games, becoming the feature point of Princeton’s offense with 92 carries over the past three contests.
Dibilio was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week for a sixth time on Monday, tying a conference record that he could break with another 100-yard performance at Dartmouth (4-5, 3-3).
“He does everything right — everything from being accountable to being humble,” Surace said. “When you’re a freshman and you’re taking spots from upperclassmen, it is important that you’re not an arrogant guy.”
Dibilio will also be at the center of an interesting subplot in Hanover, N.H., as he enters the game 17 yards behind Dartmouth running back Nick Schwieger on the Ivy League rushing leaderboard, which only counts conference games.
“I’m going to take my best shot, because I know that he will too, and we’ll see what happens,” Dibilio said.
Schwieger, last year’s top running back, already holds the Dartmouth program record for career rushing yards and is a virtual lock to hit the 3,000 mark early on Saturday. The senior will get plenty of carries in his final game, but keeping up with Dibilio may be a challenge against a Princeton defense that finally gets a good matchup.
The rebuilt Tigers’ unit looked relatively strong in the first half of the season after an injury-plagued 2010; however, Princeton has surrendered an average of 36.8 points over the past five games. Most of the team’s struggles have come in pass coverage — the Tigers have allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete more than 70 percent of their throws for nearly 300 yards per game this season, including 22 touchdowns against only three interceptions.
Princeton’s run defense, on the other hand, has been strong, allowing only 3.2 yards per attempt and 116 per game. On 40 carries at Princeton Stadium last week, Yale gained only 121 yards — more than half of which came on one long play.
“We’re getting closer. I don’t believe that we’re staying in the same place or getting worse — we’re advancing,” junior defensive lineman Caraun Reid said of the defense. “The younger guys are getting better; they’re getting more opportunities to make more plays.”
In a conference filled with experienced and talented quarterbacks, the Tigers’ secondary may finally get a break this weekend — Dartmouth has thrown for significantly fewer yards than any other Ivy League team.
Princeton will also face the league’s worst run defense, as teams have gained five yards per carry against the Big Green. Dibilio will benefit from the matchup advantage in his race against Schwieger, and the Tigers hope to benefit even more, as they need every possible edge to end a streak of six straight losses, and 16 of 17.
The Big Green can notch its first winning season in Ivy League play since 2003 with a victory. For Princeton, the goal is much smaller — to avoid matching the program’s worst winning percentage with a second consecutive 1-9 season. A loss in the final game would drop the Class of 2012 to 10-30 for its career, tying the least successful four-year run in Princeton football history (from 1929-1932, the Tigers went a combined 6-18-5).
“For the senior class, you can talk about record and everything else, but then you talk about who they are as people. They’re fun to coach — I enjoy going out there,” Surace said. “I apologized to the seniors in the locker room, because I haven’t been able to find whatever it is to fix the little areas.”
The future is brighter than the present, as several other rookies from Surace’s first full recruiting class — including wide receiver Matt Costello, whose 341 receiving yards are the most for a true freshman in Princeton history — have joined Dibilio as major contributors.
But that future is at least nine months away, and the present is too low of a standard for a program with rich tradition. A season-ending victory for Princeton — which has won three straight at Dartmouth — could get the young Tigers moving in the right direction and send the older ones off on a happy note.
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