COOL HAND LUKE: Princeton University star receiver Luke Colella races upfield in recent action. Last Saturday, junior Colella made three receptions for 44 yards with a 33-yard touchdown catch to help Princeton defeat Cornell 14-3. The Tigers are now 4-3 overall and 3-1 Ivy League and tied with Harvard atop the league standings. They will look to stay in first place when they play at Dartmouth (3-4 overall, 2-2 Ivy) on November 3. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Bill Alden

Coming into its matchup last Saturday at Cornell, the Princeton University football team sensed that it could produce some big plays against a stingy Big Red defense.

“They really have a high volume of different things that they do, it puts an onus on you,” said Princeton head coach Bob Surace. “You just have to give them a lot of stuff as well. We went into the game thinking if we do that, we may have a few opportunities.”

Sure enough, Princeton seized opportunity as quarterback Blake Stenstrom hit wide receiver Tamatoa Falatea with a 77-yard touchdown pass late in the first quarter as the Tigers went ahead 7-0. After the Big Red narrowed the gap to 7-3 with a second quarter field goal, Stenstrom rifled a 33-yard scoring strike to Luke Colella in the waning seconds of the half to put Princeton ahead 14-3 at intermission.

The stifling Tiger defense took over from there, smothering Cornell on the way to a 14-3 win as Princeton improved to 4-3 overall and 3-1 Ivy League, moving into a first place tie with Harvard in the league standings.

In reflecting on the offense’s explosive plays, Surace credited senior quarterback Stenstrom with triggering the offense.

“Blake is playing really well; we are young around him and he has just got such poise,” said Surace of Stenstrom, who connected on 20-of-32 passes for 299 yards and two touchdowns in the win over Cornell. “He is making good decisions. When it is a throw away, he throws it away. When it is short pass and they don’t have a deep read, he throws it short. When there are opportunities down the field, which we had a few, he gets it down the field.”

Junior receivers Falatea and Colella have been taking advantage of their opportunities. Falatea enjoyed a breakout game against Cornell with five catches for 105 yards and one TD while Colella is establishing himself as a clutch receiver, making three receptions for 44 yards and his TD.

“Tamatoa really had a great training camp and then got hurt right before the opener; he has been working his way back … slowly getting more reps,” said Surace. “It was awesome to see him play his best game. Luke trains hard and has such a good edge to him. He has really developed a lot of trust with the quarterback coaches. We are trying to find ways to get him the ball. AJ [Barber] has had a lot of catches, but he is starting to get in that mix and we have a little more balance. It has really helped to have him step up that way.”

The return of senior star offensive tackle Jalen Travis from injury against Cornell also helped the Tiger offense step up.

“It just settles everybody; we have had to move some guys around and they are young and they are getting better,” said Surace. “We have some young guys who you would love to be in a 15-20 play a game type thing and now they are getting 60 or 70 reps. Jalen eating 60 reps off the other guys was really, really good.”

The Tiger defense was really, really good once again, limiting the Big Red to a field goal after a week after Cornell had defeated Brown 36-14.

“We have been really disciplined; they have a lot of explosive players, they hit a couple of explosives on us which we haven’t given up,” said Surace, whose defense came into the game ranked No. 1 in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) in rushing defense (72.2 yards/game) and total defense (257.7 yards/game) and fourth in scoring defense (14.8 points/game).

“We minimized them from what they were doing. We have had a run of dual-threat quarterbacks and their QB (Jameson Wang) is a really good player. He is playing at such a high level. We contained some of his out of pocket things — we did a good job with  that. We forced two turnovers, those were really huge plays. We did a really good job on the drives where they were getting around the 50, containing that piece. They are a team that really controls the clock. On that first drive, it was about nine or 10 minutes. But after that first drive, we really settled in and did well in getting the ball back.”

Princeton boasted four players with nine tackles in linebacker Marco Scarano, defensive back Nasir Hill, defensive lineman Jack DelGarbino, and linebacker Ozzie Nicholas.

“It is usually Liam [Johnson] and Ozzie there, but it was Nasir Hill, Marco — it is different guys who are doing a good job with that,” said Surace. “I thought one of the things we did was that we played really well up front at the line of scrimmage. Ryan Ives had one tackle, he played a terrific game. Jack DelGarbino had nine tackles. They are not always going to get a lot of credit for what they are doing. That was a very big o-line, I think they average 305-310 pounds, so the interior group they are going against is really big. We really did a good job holding the line of scrimmage, allowing other guys to make plays.”

With Princeton having posted two straight wins after a 28-27 overtime loss at Brown, Surace believes his squad is playing better and better.

“Even in the losses we took small steps, I felt in the Harvard game (a 21-14 win on October 21) we made a leap,” said Surace. “That was the biggest step and we took a small step again this week. As we go down the stretch, that is going to be really important because you hope that young players as they get experience, it is going to go one of two ways. They are either going to run out of fuel or they are going to get better. We have to make sure that we fill up their gas tank and keep them going that way.”

With Princeton heading north to play at Dartmouth (3-4 overall, 2-2 Ivy) under the lights this Friday night, the Tigers will need to make another leap to come away with a win over the Big Green.

“It is sobering watching Dartmouth, they have played really well,” said Surace. “They are going to play multiple quarterbacks. Nick Howard presents just physical play and he is throwing the ball better. They play two other quarterbacks who are still dual threats but with different type of options. They will run more outside. I was looking at their roster, on their d-line, three of the four guys they play primarily there are fifth-year seniors. Their linebackers are seniors. Their secondary is a fifth year senior and two other seniors, They are a very experienced team and they play really physical. There are going to be some big challenges — we are going to have to take a big step. This will be a big week.”