Monday TigerBlog - DeNunzio Offense
September 08, 2025 | Tiger Blog
This weekend's award for honesty goes to Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin.
His Rebels had just held off Kentucky Saturday 30-23, and now Kiffin was being interviewed on ESPN. The question was what he thought of the way his defensive line had stopped Kentucky in the fourth quarter, and this is what he said:
"That's why we're paying them all that money."
It looked to TigerBlog as if Kiffin wasn't sure he should say that or not and that he briefly hesitated before he spoke. Either way, it was honest.
It was a great weekend to watch football and tennis on TV. TigerBlog certainly did Saturday. He saw South Florida come back to beat Florida for the first time ever — helped along considerably to 30 yards in penalties on the final drive, including one for spitting.
What the heck? Spitting? That happened in the Cowboys-Eagles game Thursday night too. Six seconds in, for that matter.
The New York Giants? Just put Jaxson Dart out there and don't look back.
The US Open tennis championships ended. This is unfortunate, because 1) it's a great event to watch for two-plus weeks and 2) because John McEnroe will not be broadcasting anything in the near future. McEnroe and his brother Patrick should be the broadcast team on every possible football game that they can fit into their schedules.
As for the tennis, there was the women's final Saturday, when Aryna Sabalenka defeated Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-6. TB was rooting for Sabalenka, because she's his favorite player on the women's side and also because Anisimova's sister played at Penn.
You do have to give Anisimova a ton of credit though. She lost the Wimbledon final 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Swiatek but then came back to beat her in the semifinal at the US Open, something that is just remarkable. Sabalenka was too much in the final, but Anisomova's day is coming.
And the men? They should have two tournaments, one for everyone else and then a separate one where Alcaraz and Sinner play a best-of-seven. Alcaraz won yesterday's final in four sets, meaning those two split the four Majors this year. And last year.
Meanwhile, back at Princeton, the men's water polo team started its season by going 5-0 at its own invitational at DeNunzio Pool.
The men's water polo team is one of three Princeton teams — along with the men's and women's lacrosse teams — that needs to replace its graduated all-time leading goal scorer. In the case of the men's water polo team, that means replacing Roko Pozaric, who finished his career with 281 goals, or 27 more than any other player in program history.
For good measure, Pozaric was also the 2025 Roper Trophy winner as the top senior male athlete.
The first weekend of the new season had Princeton take on Mount St. Mary's, Cal Baptist, Santa Clara, Bucknell and Wagner (as well as an exhibition game against European Cup champ Pro Recco). The five games against the U.S. college teams all went for Princeton, who put up big offensive numbers, even without Pozaric.
That's a really good sign, obviously.
Princeton scored 18, 18, 12, 19 and 14 goals. The only really close game was against Santa Clara, which was a 12-11 Tiger win. Finn LeSeur scored six goals, on six shots, in that one.
The first game of the weekend was an 18-10 win over the Mount, in which freshman Otto Stothart scored five times in his college debut. The Cal Baptist game? That was another 18-10 win, and this time Princeton had four players with three goals each.
That's how you replace your all-time leading goal scorer.
Next up for the Tigers will be another invitational, this one at Navy. A trip to Annapolis will always be special, or at least for as long as former Princeton head coach Luis Nicolao coaches the Mids.
Ahead will be not one but two trips to California, as well as the Northeast Water Polo Conference regular season. The league tournament will be held Nov. 21-23, at Brown.
Doesn't that seem so far away right now?
For the first weekend, it all went well for Princeton at DeNunzio. Even without Pozaric, there were still plenty of goals to go around.