.png&width=24&type=webp)
Princeton University Athletics
Not Bad, For Starters
November 27, 2000 | Football
Nov. 27, 2000
Phil Jackman, the least likely free safety in Princeton football history, knocked the last pass harmlessly away, and a lifetime of memories were born.
For the 2000 Princeton football team, this was almost as good as a championship. Certainly you couldn't tell the difference in the locker room when it was over.
For one glorious November afternoon at a chilly Yale Bowl, the Princeton Tigers might have well have been champions. And when the thoughts of a bunch of middle-aged men in orange-striped jackets at Reunions to come turn back to their 2000 football season, it is going to be that one game that they think of first.
How Princeton came from 14-3 down at halftime. How Marty Cheatham couldn't get out-of-bounds to kill the clock and ended up going 44 yards down the sideline to set up the winning score. How Jon Blevins found Chisom Opara from 32 yards away, giving Princeton its win. Princeton 19, Yale 14. It was the signature day of the 2000 Princeton season, which, by the way, was itself an odd season. More than that, there wasn't a soul in Orange and Black who didn't think that the 2000 win over Yale marked the beginning of the Princeton football turnaround under head coach Roger Hughes.
Princeton finished the 2000 season at 3-7 overall, 3-4 and in fifth place in the Ivy League. Along the way Princeton defeated 7-3 Yale and 7-3 Brown while losing to 2-9 Lafayette and 2-8 Dartmouth. The Tigers lost by two to Lehigh, the sixth-ranked team in the nation, in the closest game the Mountain Hawks had all year.
Of Princeton's 10 games, six were decided in the final minute, including three in the final 16 seconds and one in overtime.
Just for good measure, Princeton had four different quarterbacks start a game, four different quarterbacks throw a touchdown pass and five different quarterbacks rush for a touchdown. For the record, it looked like this: Jon Blevins took over for Brian Danielewicz, who took over for Blevins (elbow injury), who took over for David Splithoff (broken jaw), who took over for Blevins (sprained ankle), who took over for Tommy Crenshaw (broken wrist).
Princeton started six freshmen at various times, and that group didn't even include Jackman, who seemingly wandered over from the basketball team, asked to try to play football (which he had never done before) and ended up in almost no time as one of the team's best pass rushers (and for one play, the final one against Yale, a free safety).
If nothing else, Princeton football in 2000 was very entertaining. And a little snake-bitten.
Princeton's 2000 season actually began in January, when Hughes became the Tiger head coach. His first game was Sept. 16 at Lafayette, where the first touchdown of this wacky year was scored by, who else, linebacker Chris Roser-Jones. Princeton trailed Lafayette in the fourth quarter before Crenshaw, the first junior returning starter at quarterback in nearly two decades, scored the tying touchdown in the final minute. Lafayette, though, used a 60-yard bomb to set up the winning score, a touchdown pass with three seconds remaining.
The next week saw Lehigh travel to Princeton, and the Tigers again came from behind in the final seconds, only to fall short. This time, Princeton scored a touchdown to make it a 20-18 game, but the two-point conversion attempt failed and the Mountain Hawks had escaped.
Week 3 was the biggest of the first four weeks, as Princeton opened the Ivy season at Columbia. It looked like a certain loss when Crenshaw went out with a broken wrist and the Tigers down 24-14 midway through the fourth quarter, but the team rallied behind Blevins and placekicker Taylor Northrop, who kicked a field goal and then made a perfect onsides-kick to get the ball back. A touchdown tied it, another Northrop field goal in overtime won it.
The next week saw Blevins get hurt with the Tigers down 34-0 at Colgate, and into the game stepped Splithoff, a freshman quarterback who became the biggest story of the year for Princeton.
Splithoff began by taking the Tigers 80 yards for a touchdown. His next drive started at his one and ended at the Colgate one, going 98 yards before a fourth-and-goal was stopped.
The next week against Brown, in his first start, Splithoff first broke the school record for consecutive completions with 14 and then threw for 289 yards and three touchdowns in a 55-28 rout. Splithoff, who was brilliant, became the first freshman ever named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week, and he added the ECAC Offensive Player of the Week award as well.
Princeton was now 2-0 in the league, and Splithoff was already being anointed as the next Jay Fiedler, the Miami Dolphins' quarterback whom Hughes had coached at Dartmouth. But Splithoff would be gone the next week, breaking his jaw on the final play of the Harvard game after rushing for three touchdowns in a 35-21 Crimson win.
Princeton was without Splithoff or Crenshaw, but the Tigers were very much in the Ivy race as they traveled to Ithaca to take on Cornell, one of five teams tied for first at 2-1. Princeton and Cornell went back and forth before the Big Red took a 25-18 lead late in the fourth quarter. With 1:12 remaining and 63 yards to travel, Hughes inserted Danielewicz for Blevins, and the junior, who had exactly three career passes before that, calmly put together a 6-for-7, 78-yard march that ended with a touchdown pass to Opara with 11 seconds remaining. All that stood between Princeton and overtime was the extra point by the nearly perfect Northrop, who slipped as he planted on the icy field and had his kick never get in the air. Final: Cornell 25, Princeton 24. This one hurt.
The next challenge was Penn, with Danielewicz now at the controls. Princeton led 24-6 with six seconds left in the half, but a Hail Mary pass for a touchdown gave the Quakers all the momentum. Penn, which would win the title, won 40-24 with a dominating second half performance.
That set the stage for the classic win over Yale and an 11-catch, 164-yard performance from Cheatham that earned him Ivy Offensive Player of the Week honors, not to mention a 12 for 19, 201-yard, two touchdown performance in the second half by Blevins.
The season then ended a week later with an entertaining 42-37 loss to Dartmouth.
Princeton had two first-team All-Ivy selections, including Dennis Norman, the offensive tackle who became the fourth player in the history of the program to be a three-time first-team selection. Marty Cheatham, who started his career as a too-slow free safety, ended up as a unanimous first-team selection at fullback.
Offensive guard Ross Tucker, linebackers Roser-Jones and Mike Higgins, defensive end Nathan Podsakoff and punter/placekicker Northrop were all second-team picks, while safety Kevin Kongslie and offensive tackle John Raveche were honorable mention.
Cheatham and Higgins were first-team Verizon District II Academic All-Americas, while Tucker was named to the second team.