Archive For The “Bob Surace” Category

Game 3 Breakdown: Lehigh at Princeton, 9/21/2013

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Game 3 Breakdown: Lehigh at Princeton, 9/21/2013

(Photo Credit: Keith A. Muccilli/Trenton Times)

We break down the Princeton game – and we give our fearless prediction below the flip.

Though I didn’t get much help from the Ivy League website, doing the Princeton preview is always pleasant because I have a network of people that make it that way.

The Big Green Alert and Roar Lions writers gave me a huge assist in making this week’s preview.  They are always huge assets when it comes to anything about the Ivy League, and neither disappointed.

And Princeton’s game notes themselves are also, as expected, top notch.  It’s a pleasure to read lead-ins like this:

There is a reason why mid-terms are in October and finals are at the end of the semester. Students do the work class after class, week after week, and then get challenged afterwards. 

Imagine getting your syllabus, having a couple weeks to do some reading, and then taking a major test during your first class. 

That’s what you, as well as a nationwide audience on the NBC Sports Network, will see Saturday night at 6 pm. The Princeton football team is walking into the classroom for the first time, and it may see the highest-ranked opponent it will see in all of 2013. 

But that is the way head coach Bob Surace wants it. After a big step forward last season, he wants to see just how far his team has come in nine months. After all, the next 10 weeks have the potential to be something pretty special. 

Princeton has waited long enough. So have you. Let’s go.

Indeed.  Let’s go.
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Game Preview: Lehigh at Princeton, 9/21/2013

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Game Preview: Lehigh at Princeton, 9/21/2013

(Photo Credit: Keith A. Muccilli/Trenton Times)

“Once you have some positive things going, you start saying, ‘Wow, I know Lehigh is a great team’.  We started playing football, and it was nice to see.  After this game, there’s going to be some ‘attaboys’, ‘good efforts’ and everything else, but for us to improve as a team it’s got to go beyond the great effort, the good effort, the hanging in there.  It’s not enough.  It can’t be the case.  It needs to be winning a game that we gave ourselves an opportunity to win.”

That was Princeton head football coach Bob Surace last year after his Tigers came close to beating the Mountain Hawks at Murray Goodman last season, but coming up just a bit short, 17-14.

Princeton’s strong effort that Saturday last season was an indicator that the Tigers, who were 1-9 in 2011, were poised to be a much better team in 2012.

They were.

After a 5-5 season, where the Tigers beat Harvard and Yale – their two biggest rivals – they enter 2013 with goals a lot bigger than a “good effort against Lehigh”.  Their goal is re-establishing themselves atop the Ivy League, with their first stop hosting a nationally-ranked Mountain Hawks team on national television.

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Know Your 2013 Opponents: Princeton

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Know Your 2013 Opponents: Princeton

Last season, as he does for the Sports Network every year, Craig Haley gave his predictions for the Ivy League.

Haley, who used to work for Princeton, made a bold prediction: that the Tigers would climb out of the Ivy League cellar after a 1-9 season, saying, for good measure, that  “it seems time for the Tigers program to win more often. At least that’s what everybody thinks.”

Like some people, I chuckled to myself.  Princeton?  Out of the cellar?  Really?  (Jake Novak, of the Roar Lions blog, noted about his prediction: “Actually, NO ONE thinks that. Princeton is picked last in every other poll.”)

As it turns out, Haley’s prediction came out looking pretty good, making me very glad that I didn’t put my own reservations about Princeton’s chances in writing.  (Or put Haley’s face with the caption, “What’s he smoking?” underneath it, like Roar Lions did.)

The Tigers confounded their last-place expectations and instead finished with an extremely satisfying 5-5 record, showing, for the first time, glimmers of hope that the Prince Town Tigers will finally be back in competition for the Ivy League title in 2013.
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Lehigh 17, Princeton 14, Final

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Lehigh 17, Princeton 14, Final

(Photo Credit: Image By Hugo) It's an old saw, but one of the ancient adages of football is that the difference between winning and losing comes down to one play, one caught pass, one first down made or denied.In football specifically, no matter wh…

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Game 3 Breakdown: Princeton at Lehigh, 9/15/2012

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Game 3 Breakdown: Princeton at Lehigh, 9/15/2012

We break down the Princeton game, and we give our fearless prediction, below the flip.So how, exactly, do you preview a team with so many unknowns at key positions?  So many potential changes in offense, defense, and special teams?  The answer is you…

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Game Preview: Princeton at Lehigh, 9/15/2012

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Game Preview: Princeton at Lehigh, 9/15/2012

(Photo Credit: Princeton Athletics)Remember Week 1?There is no better feeling as a football fan, coach, or player.  After a long, long offseason for the players and coaches, there is finally the opportunity to show the world of what stuff you're m…

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