Princeton won't pose much of a threat to Sprint Football

It's been two weeks since Penn's sprint football team yawned its way to a 35-0 drubbing of Cornell. Tonight at 7:30, the Quakers will find out if they need to wake up as they welcome the Princeton Tigers to Franklin Field. "We had a bye last week so we've been looking forward to this for awhile," senior quarterback John Kernan said. While every Penn sports team wants to beat Princeton, the Tigers just don't pose that much of a threat in sprint football. The Quakers will face the real tests in the coming weeks as they defend their title against perennial CSFL powerhouses Army and Navy. "[Princeton's] a bigger rival than Cornell, but they're really more of a stepping stone," Kernan said. "We don't want to overlook them." But Princeton barely got past Cornell in a 12-7 squeaker last Friday. The Quakers (1-0, 0-0 Collegiate Sprint Football League) -- who play the Tigers twice a year -- have beaten Princeton eight straight times in the last four years. That makes it difficult to call this matchup a heated rivalry. While Princeton and Cornell are both members of the CSFL, the three Ivy teams in the league play each other twice each season, with only the final game of each season counting in league standings. The only question seems to be, how will the Red and Blue beat the Tigers tonight. "We should be able to dictate the pace of the game," Kernan said. "Last year, we ran the ball in the beginning to set up the play-action pass, and that's what we'll do tomorrow. "We played them twice last year and they usually came out hitting in the beginning but we wore them down in the end." The last time the Tigers visited Franklin Field, they were sent home with their collective tail between their legs. Princeton lost 34-6, as CSFL MVP running back Tim Ortman rushed for 152 yards on 20 carries, which was good for a 7.6 yards-per-carry average. That game also gave Ortman the all-time Penn rushing record. Oh by the way, Kernan, the CSFL's top-rated passer in 1998, threw for 129 yards and two touchdowns in leading the Quakers to the victory that allowed them to clinch a share of their first-ever CSFL title. The Tigers will probably be ecstatic that they are facing Ortman for the last time. All told, the co-captain rushed for 359 yards on 51 carries and five touchdowns against the Tigers in 1998. Apparently, the only thing that might prevent the Quakers from scoring early and often tomorrow is a little bye-week rust. "[The bye week] gives us time to get fresh, but it might be tough to be as sharp in the beginning [of the game]," Kernan said. "But, we worked hard in practice all week, so it shouldn't be too bad. We just might not be quite as crisp as we'd like to be at first." Hopefully, the Quakers will be crisp enough to last them through another bye week. They have next Friday off before they begin the CSFL season in earnest against the Army Cadets.