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Princeton University Athletics
Back and Forth
October 20, 2000 | Football
It's the year 2150, and Princeton Stadium is being torn down after a century and a half as the home of Tiger football.
Before its state-of-the-22nd-century-art replacement is built, it's time to say goodbye to the old place, which at one time must have seemed like a palace but now is worn beyond renovating.
The Princeton Athletic News, volume 217, number six, fills itself completely with memories of the building, or at least as much as can be discerned from the record books. How long ago it seems, back in the olden days of Ivy League football, back in the middle of the 21st century and even before that. Hey, it's suggested, how about a story on the first guy ever to carry the ball in Princeton Stadium. It was all the way back in 1998. Let's see. What was his name? Here it is. Kyle Brandt. And look at that picture. Look at what they used to look like back then. It doesn't even look like modern football.
Oh well. Let's see what we can find out about this Brandt guy. Here's a Princeton Athletic News from all those years ago, volume 67, number two, to be exact. Hey. This is pretty interesting. Wow. This Brandt guy went through a lot. It's the year 2000. Princeton Stadium is still basically in its infancy, and Kyle Brandt is what modern Princeton football looks like.
And he loves it.
You see, he's been through a lot, and he's all the better for it.
"It's been a crazy ride here," says Brandt, a senior tailback. "I don't think you could have scripted what's happened to me here."
Brandt came to Princeton at a time when the Tigers had a big pile of rubble where the football stadium used to be. His freshman year saw Princeton take to the road 10 times before moving into the new stadium the following year.
While the Tigers were busing all over the Northeast, Brandt was busy establishing himself as a return man on special teams and as a running back with potential. By the time he was a sophomore, he had apparently earned the No. 1 tailback spot. He responded by returning the opening kickoff of the first game and then getting the first carry from scrimmage in the new building. When the afternoon was over, he had run for 119 yards on 26 carries, forever etching himself as the first 100-yard man in the stadium.
"Going into first game in the new stadium, I was thinking about all that historical stuff," Brandt says. "I was thinking that it'll be 2150 before they tear this place down, and someone would say Kyle Brandt was the first guy to gain 100 yards in that stadium. Maybe I'll get my picture in the 2151 media guide."
It was all looking up for Brandt. And then he entered a rather odd portion of his career. First, there was the four-man tailback rotation that led to a successful rushing attack but made it difficult to know where each player stood from week to week or even quarter to quarter. After the opener Brandt would carry 75 more times for 277 yards in the final nine weeks.
"When you were on field you thought you had to play perfectly or you'd be yanked out," Brandt says. "We were using four guys, and that's not usually how it was run."
Still, Brandt was back as the starter for the Cornell opener his junior year, and he carried 13 times for 83 yards against the Big Red. It seemed like he was ready for a solid year, but it quickly turned into a nightmare.
"I thought I had a pretty good game against Cornell," he says. "I made some mistakes, but I thought I played pretty well. The next week, against Lehigh, I didn't get on the field for one snap. And then it got really bizarre."
Princeton found itself once again with an abundance of tailbacks. When injuries devastated the Tiger secondary, the idea was raised to move Brandt to defensive back, a position he had never played on the competitive level.
"We were so banged up in the secondary, and we thought we were solid at tailback," says defensive coordinator Steve Verbit, who worked with the secondary last year before moving to the defensive line this year. "We thought he was athletic enough to play defense, and Kyle's always been a very, very hard worker. He's always wanted to do whatever we've asked him to do and whatever he could do to get on the field. He's a true team player. A lot of guys you ask to move from offense to defense or defense to offense say no. He did it, no questions. And to be honest, with the way he was progressing, he was ready to be a steady contributor. He would have been the nickelback."
Brandt spent three weeks on defense. Progress aside, it was not his favorite place to be.
"A lot of people thought my career was over," Brandt says. "I think they had the best intentions, trying to get as many of the best people on the field. It just didn't go well. But I didn't let myself get down. I just figured that I only had so much time to play college football, and whatever was going to happen, I was going to enjoy it."
Then, just when it seemed like his biggest contributions were behind him, the depth that Princeton had a tailback disappeared. Once again Brandt crossed the line, this time going back to offense.
He finished the season with back-to-back 100-yard games against Yale and Dartmouth, and he was Princeton's leading rusher for the year with 466 yards, despite spending almost as much time as a defensive back as he did a running back.
"It was so sweet to come back and play like I did at the end of the season," he says. "Here I was, the team's leading rusher, and just a few weeks earlier I had been defensive back-up. It was an adventure."
The final chapter in the wild career of not just Brandt but also Princeton's entire senior class began when Roger Hughes was named head coach in January. He brought with him Dave Rackovan to work as the offensive coordinator and the running backs coach.
"One of the first things I did was look at Kyle on tape, and I thought he was a good running back," Rackovan says. "He's played very hard for us, and he's played well. He hasn't missed a practice. He finishes his runs. He's what we like, a very physical tailback."
Brandt is on pace to have almost as many carries this year as he did the last two combined. The win over Columbia, a game he helped send into overtime with a last-minute touchdown, has also put the Tigers in position to play meaningful games in the second half of the season.
"It seems like every year when we've gotten to the end of the season, we've been playing consolation games," he says. "We'd always say we were playing for the seniors or something like that. We'd also say that we were always a play or two away from winning this game or that game. This year we've shown a spark in the fourth quarter that I've never seen before."
If Brandt isn't intimidated by playing such a leading role for the Tigers, it's because he's played several leading roles on the campus. Brandt is a veteran actor who has appeared in numerous campus productions, and he is considering a career either as an actor or in production, following in the footsteps of Princeton football alums-turned-Hollywood Dean Cain '88 and Michael Carr '95.
"I've been in five plays at Princeton," Brandt says. "I've done things over the summer with film academies and film schools. If I brought some of that stuff into locker room, my teammates would probably die laughing. Straddling the line between being a football player and a theater person has given me a lot of culture, and a lot of ribbing from my teammates. Last year, during spring practice, I had to take off my football equipment, shower and run up campus to the theater. It was very unusual."
And part of what separates the Ivy League.
"He's a very multi-dimensional kid," Rackovan says. "You can set your own agenda at a place like this. You can play football and still do all the things you want to do. Kyle has very much established football as a priority, and he has done everything we've needed him to do."
As has been the case in the past. Brandt's come through it all, and now he sees the best days still in front of him.
"I've really settled in my niche," Brandt says. "I'm really happy right now."
Save this story. It may be needed in 150 years or so.
Kyle Brandt is already a piece of Princeton football history. He's trying to make some more of it in the next few weeks.
by Jerry Price