Behind Enemy Lines with Princeton sophomore cornerback Anthony Gaffney

In this edition of Behind Enemy Lines, I spoke with Princeton sophomore cornerback Anthony Gaffney. Gaffney was first-team All-Ivy last season as a kickoff returner and put up strong numbers defensively as a freshman. Now, as a sophomore, Gaffney is part of a resurgent Princeton squad that heads into Franklin Field this weekend looking to keep sole possession of first place in the Ivies. In this interview, Gaffney discusses Princeton’s recent rise up the Ivies and the Princeton-Penn matchup for Homecoming.

Daily Pennsylvanian: You and I both went to the Pennington School (N.J.), which is about 10 minutes from Princeton’s campus. How important was it for you to go to school close to home?

Anthony Gaffney: I’d say it was a pretty big deciding factor when it comes down to it. With Pennington 10 minutes away, I have a lot of connections in the area. And when I really thought about it, it came down to [Princeton] being one of the best schools in the country and the birthplace of college football. So really, when it came down to it, that’s what I thought about. I had the opportunity to go to a great school close to home where my family can come to every game and I can be around my sibling [as they’re] growing up.

DP: What was it like to come to school last season and having individual success right away?

AG: It was a great feeling. It was a bit overwhelming at first. I pretty much came to [training] camp expecting to play. Where was a question but the coaches knew I was going to end up doing something somewhere, making an impact. So being able to come into a team on the upswing and starting to turn it around, and then make an impact, [it] felt great.

DP: You speak of that turn around. Just a few years ago, Princeton is at the bottom of the Ivy League. You come in last year as the team gets to a tie for third place and now you in sole possession of first. What does it mean to be part of a program on the rise and back to the top of the conference?

AG: When I was getting recruited, the coaches were telling me, “We’ve been 1-9 two seasons in a row.” Most people wouldn’t want to go to a school with a 2-18 record over two seasons but with the coaches, I could definitely feel when I was talking with them and talking with other players that the program was turning around. It took a little time but it was definitely great to be a part of it because we feel that some magic is happening. We feel like we took our lumps over the last few years but now it’s our time to finally breakthrough and return to the top of the Ivy League. We feel like we have a bit of lasting power. Who knows, but with the team with have now and the [recruiting] class we have coming up, we’re gonna be a pretty formidable force the next couple of years.

DP: Last year, your team was in the thick of the race going into the Penn game at Princeton Stadium and the Quakers pull out the close victory. What kind of motivation does that give your team going into the season but also facing Penn for its homecoming?

AG: In the beginning of the year, we have a bunch of goals that we set out as a team. They were the same last year. One is to win the Big Three, which is Harvard, Princeton and Yale due to legacy and all that, and also to beat Penn. Penn, regardless of what year it is, is a big game just because of the relationship we have. We’re fairly close so you figure that a lot of the guys we recruit, they do as well.

And last year, they beat us. We had all the opportunities to win that game but they took it from us. They beat us. So this year, we’re looking to exact revenge but at the same time, we don’t think they got away with one. They outplayed us and deserved the win, and they got it. This year, we’re trying to right that of course and we’re obviously trying to win on their Homecoming, which is great. Someone’s got to be [the opponent] on Homecoming, why not have it be us?

DP: This year, you personally have fewer interceptions. Have teams been avoiding throws your way and how have you been doing overall in your sophomore season?

AG: Overall, I think if you look at it statistically, you might be saying it is a sophomore slump but a lot of teams haven’t been coming my way. The first three games or so, I can count on one hand all the balls that were thrown my way when I was in man-to-man coverage. It happens that I had a great year last year so teams are preparing more for me. Last year, it was “ok, pick on the freshman. He’s a freshman starter so you want to go after him.”

But this year’s different. I’ve got a season under my belt so people know what I can do so people are trying to place kicks short or kick it to guys on the front line or try and kick it out of bounds. And defense have been throwing the ball away from me and things like that. I expected it coming into the season but overall, I’d say I’m playing just as well if not better this year, and when the time comes and the ball is thrown my way, I’m still there making the plays.

DP: With your team as a whole, you’ve been holding teams to very few points defensively and, at the same time, your offense has been hanging 40 or 50 points on teams like Cornell, Columbia and Harvard. How does it change your job defensively when the offense is able to put up a ton of points and force the opposing offense to be playing catchup?

AG: With the offense, they have the ability to score at will and they have some really fast guys and they are going no-huddle, up-tempo on teams and wearing out defenses. If we get up early on teams, a lot of times that changes what they have to do. For example, a team may want to primarily run the ball a little bit more but if we’re up 14, 17 points, they don’t have time to run the ball. They have to spread out a little bit more, throw the ball a little bit more, so as a defensive back personally, I know we enjoy that a lot more.

It puts us in position to make plays on the ball a lot more than if a team is running draws and plays like that. It definitely puts a little more pressure on us because teams are trying to attack us but we have our defensive line and our defensive schemes, and we just want to get the ball back for the offense. We want to get off the field as quickly as possible because no matter how much we are up on a team, we’re not going to let a team drive down the field on us. We want to stop a team or force them to a field goal or force a turnover and get the ball back in scoring position for the offense, things like that.

DP: Going into the year, your team was picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League. The team goes out and wins its first few Ivy games and then you have the Harvard game where you win in triple overtime. What was it like to go up to Harvard and take a three-OT thriller like that?

AG: It was magical. Building off of what happened last year, us scoring 29-straight points in the fourth quarter and getting that victory, so going into Harvard, we knew that was on their mind. They felt that we didn’t deserve that win and we went up there like, “we’re going to prove to you guys we deserved to win that game and we deserve to win this game.” Going into the game, we were up early and they come back and then it’s back and forth, back and forth. People start to get tighter in the fourth quarter and we knew defensively we had to stick together.

And we go into overtime and overtime is always scary because it is about who gets the ball first. You’re in the red zone and it’s like, “do we go for it? Do we kick a field goal?” It’s so tight. You just want to do everything you can to stop that ball from crossing the goal line. We were able to hold them in the third overtime and allow our offense to get the ball back and score. It was crazy, it was unbelievable. The emotion in the locker room afterwards and on the bus ride home was one of the best feelings in the world.

DP: So now you guys face Penn. What have you been doing in practice this week to prepare for either Billy Ragone or Ryan Becker – you don’t know exactly who’s going to start – and Penn’s offense in general? What are you guys seeing from them on either on tape or in scouting reports this week?

AG: Traditionally, Penn is known for being a tough, physical team. They like to be real big up front. They have big running backs. Ragone is a pretty big quarterback. So we’re just preparing as we normally do, just making sure we’re really physical this week. The kind of stigma going around is that Penn is more physical than we are. They’ve been able to beat up on us the last couple of years so we definitely want to prove to Penn and even the whole Ivy League that we were down a couple years ago, but we are a new team. We’re physical, we’re fast. You want to come at us a little physical, we’re going to match their physicality. It’s just the mindset is different around here. We want to prove that we belong.