Football Finishes 2023 Season at Penn Saturday

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By Craig Sachson
PrincetonTigersFootball.com

Both Penn and Princeton found the perfect way to focus following an excruciating weekend that left both on the outside of the Ivy League championship race. They found each other.

The 114th meeting between the two local Ivy League rivals will take place Saturday at 1 pm when Princeton travels to Franklin Field to take on Penn in the 2023 season finale. Both teams were a successful overtime away last weekend from turning this into a championship game, but each suffered heartbreaking losses.

Princeton has had enough of overtime in 2023. The Tigers are 4-2 in games that end in regulation this season, but they dropped their third overtime contest against Yale when a double-overtime pass to Tyler Picinic was knocked away just short of the goal line. Penn missed a potential game-winning field goal against Ivy leader Harvard in the second overtime and missed its two-point conversion attempt to fall in the third session.

Missing out on the championship race hurt, but teams don't train all year for 10 games and then lose interest in one of them, especially when it's such a historical rival, and such a historic venue. Princeton has the slimmest of edges at Franklin Field in the all-time series (21-20-1), an advantage gained by winning both the 2019 (28-7) and 2021 (34-14) contests. The teams have split the last 10 meetings overall; prior to that, Penn had won 13 of 15 in the series.

Pride will be more than enough of a motivator this weekend, though both teams would also love to send their seniors out with one final win. The Princeton Class of 2024 entered either just before or in the heart off the COVID pandemic, and they helped guide the program through it. They faced plenty of adversity over four years — and the last 12 months — and despite a season packed with narrow defeats, the energy within the locker room has never waned.

That legacy will serve this program well for years to come, and it would be a fitting way for the 17 Princeton seniors if they could celebrate it with one final victory together.

Week 10 Game Notes

History Lesson • Princeton leads the all-time series 69-43-1 against Penn in a rivalry that dates back to Nov. 1, 1876. Penn had been the dominant power in this rivalry early this century, having won 13 of 15 between 1998-2012, but Princeton enters this weekend having won six of the last nine meetings. The road team has won each of the last three games.

What Could Have Been • Princeton and Penn have combined to lose eight games this season, and each one was a one-possession game. Princeton has lost games by 3 (OT), 3, 1 (OT), 2 and 8 (double-OT), while Penn has lost by 3 (OT), 4, and 2 (triple-OT).

Wizard of Oz • Senior linebacker Ozzie Nicholas leads the Ivy League and ranks 12th nationally with 10.7 tackles per game. He posted a career performance last weekend against Yale; he recorded 15 tackles and a sack in the double-overtime loss. Nicholas has 96 tackles this season; only one other Ivy League player has more than 80 (Columbia's Anthony Roussos, 86).

It's Been A While • No Ivy League player has recorded 100 tackles in a season since 2017, when Penn's Nick Miller had 104. Nicholas needs 4 stops this weekend to reach 100, 8 to match Miller's total in 2017, and 12 to match the 2016 leading total of 108 for Gianmarco Rea (Columbia). No other player has had more than Rea in the last decade.

Getting Defensive • Princeton has the top-ranked scoring (16.8 points/game), total (280.1 yards/game), and rushing (91.4 yards/game) defense, and it has the second-ranked passing (188.7 yards/game) defense to Cornell (182.9). The last team to lead the Ivy League in three of four defensive categories was Dartmouth (2019).

Tackling The Issue • The senior linebacking duo of Ozzie Nicholas and Liam Johnson have combined for 339 tackles over the last two seasons (Nicholas 171, Johnson 168). They both ranked in the Top 6 in total tackles last season, and both currently rank in the Top 4 this season. Over that same span, only two other players in the league ranked in the Top 10 the last two years, Dartmouth's Macklin Ayers (147) and Penn's Jack Fairman (135).

Moving Up • Senior quarterback Blake Stenstrom is currently in fourth place on Princeton's all-time passing list with 4,878 yards. He needs to throw for 122 yards this Saturday to become the 31st Ivy League quarterback with at least 5,000 passing yards, and he needs to 324 yards to tie Matt Verbit '05 — son of Princeton defensive coordinator Steve Verbit — for third on the Tigers' all-time list.

Catching On • It was natural to wonder who would be Princeton's receiving threats following the graduations of NFL-bound Andrei Iosivas and Dylan Classi last season, but juniors Luke Colella and AJ Barber have made their mark this season. Colella ranks second in the Ivy League in TDs (6), and sixth in both receptions (43) and receiving yards (582), while AJ Barber ranks seventh in the league in receiving yards (543).

Cool Hand Luke • Luke Colella had a career performance against Yale last weekend, catching seven passes for 121 yards and two touchdowns.

First Time's A Charm • Sophomore quarterback Blaine Hipa completed his first collegiate pass last weekend for a three-yard touchdown to Luke Colella, which sent the game to overtime. Earlier in the game, Hipa scored his first career touchdown on a one-yard run.

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AJ Barber

Dylan Classi

Luke Colella

Blaine Hipa

Andrei Iosivas

Liam Johnson

Ozzie Nicholas

Tyler Picinic

Blake Stenstrom

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