Princeton Tigers football
Encyclopedia
The Princeton Tigers football program represents Princeton University
college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Princeton’s football program is the oldest in the world, having devised the sport along with Rutgers University
in 1869
, and has a legacy that includes the most national championships
of any college or university.
on November 6, 1869 to play Rutgers College
(now Rutgers University
) in a new variant of rugby called football. Rutgers won the inaugural game 6 runs to 4 runs. A week later, Rutgers students traveled to Princeton, New Jersey
for a rematch, which Princeton won. Since the teams split the two games series, they were both retroactively awarded a share of the national championship
for the 1869 season.
and Yale’s
Walter Camp
and more schools began competing, Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League
slowly faded out of national championship contention. The Tigers won their last national championship in 1950 when Dick Kazmaier, the 1951 Heisman Trophy
winner, was a junior.
, Columbia
, Cornell
, Harvard University
, Princeton
, and Yale
Universities, Dartmouth College, and the University of Pennsylvania formed the Ivy League athletic conference in 1955, conference rules prohibited post-season play in football. Princeton had always abstained from post-season play, but other future member schools had participated in bowls
. The new policy further insulated Princeton and the Ivy League from the national spotlight. Despite an undefeated season in 1964, Princeton was not among the top 10 teams in the season-ending AP
Poll.
assistant offensive line coach Bob Surace. Surace played center at Princeton and graduated in 1990.
had with its stadium
in 1984.
at Giants Stadium
in 1997. Princeton University Stadium
opened on September 19, 1998 and seats 27,773. After eight years of natural grass fields, FieldTurf
artificial playing surface was installed for the 2006 football season and named "Powers Field" in honor of William C. Powers, Princeton class of 1979, who was an All-Ivy punter for the Tigers and donated $10 million to the football program that year.
.
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Princeton’s football program is the oldest in the world, having devised the sport along with Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
in 1869
1869 college football season
The 1869 college football season was the first season of intercollegiate football. It is considered the inaugural college football season, and consisted of only two total games, both of which occurred between the and ; The first was played on November 6 at Rutgers' campus, and the second was...
, and has a legacy that includes the most national championships
NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship
A college football national championship in the highest level of collegiate play in the United States, currently the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , is a designation awarded annually by various third-party organizations to their selection of the best...
of any college or university.
First football game
Students from The College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) traveled to New Brunswick, New JerseyNew Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
on November 6, 1869 to play Rutgers College
Rutgers Scarlet Knights football
The Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team represents Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision play...
(now Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
) in a new variant of rugby called football. Rutgers won the inaugural game 6 runs to 4 runs. A week later, Rutgers students traveled to Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
for a rematch, which Princeton won. Since the teams split the two games series, they were both retroactively awarded a share of the national championship
NCAA Division I FBS National Football Championship
A college football national championship in the highest level of collegiate play in the United States, currently the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , is a designation awarded annually by various third-party organizations to their selection of the best...
for the 1869 season.
Early history
Due in part to their invention of the sport, the Tigers were one of the dominant forces in the early days of intercollegiate football, winning 22 of the first 40 national titles (between 1869 and 1909). As the sport transformed at the hands of figures like John HeismanJohn Heisman
John William Heisman was an American player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College , Buchtel College, now known as the University of Akron , Auburn University , Clemson University , Georgia Tech , the...
and Yale’s
Yale Bulldogs
The Yale Bulldogs are the athletic teams of the Yale University. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in men's swimming and diving, and twenty one in men's golf.-Men's baseball:...
Walter Camp
Walter Camp
Walter Chauncey Camp was an American football player, coach, and sports writer known as the "Father of American Football". With John Heisman, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Pop Warner, Fielding H. Yost, and George Halas, Camp was one of the most accomplished persons in the early history of American football...
and more schools began competing, Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
slowly faded out of national championship contention. The Tigers won their last national championship in 1950 when Dick Kazmaier, the 1951 Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
winner, was a junior.
Formation of the Ivy League
When BrownBrown Bears
The Brown Bears is a name shared by all sports teams at Brown University, a university located in Providence, Rhode Island in the United States. The Bears are part of the Ivy League conference. Brown's mascot is Bruno. Both the men's and women's teams share the name, competing in 37 National...
, Columbia
Columbia Lions
The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is M...
, Cornell
Cornell Big Red
The Cornell Big Red is the informal name of the sports teams, and other competitive teams, at Cornell University. The university sponsors 36 varsity sports, as well as numerous intramural and club teams. Cornell participates in NCAA Division I as part of the Ivy League.The men's and women's hockey...
, Harvard University
Harvard Crimson
The Harvard Crimson are the athletic teams of Harvard University. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2006, there were 41 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country...
, Princeton
Princeton Tigers
The Princeton Tigers are the athletic teams of Princeton University. The school sponsors 31 varsity sports. The school has won several NCAA national championships, including one in men's fencing, six in men's lacrosse, three in women's lacrosse, and eight in men's golf...
, and Yale
Yale Bulldogs
The Yale Bulldogs are the athletic teams of the Yale University. The school sponsors 35 varsity sports. The school has won two NCAA national championships in women's fencing, four in men's swimming and diving, and twenty one in men's golf.-Men's baseball:...
Universities, Dartmouth College, and the University of Pennsylvania formed the Ivy League athletic conference in 1955, conference rules prohibited post-season play in football. Princeton had always abstained from post-season play, but other future member schools had participated in bowls
Bowl game
In North America, a bowl game is commonly considered to refer to one of a number of post-season college football games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals and the games were mostly considered to be exhibition games involving a payout to participating...
. The new policy further insulated Princeton and the Ivy League from the national spotlight. Despite an undefeated season in 1964, Princeton was not among the top 10 teams in the season-ending AP
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
Poll.
NCAA Division I subdivision split
The NCAA split Division I collegiate football into two subdivisions in 1978, then called I-A for larger schools, and I-AA for the smaller ones. The NCAA had devised the split, in part, with the Ivy League in mind, but the conference did not move down for 4 seasons. Unable to play competitively against long-time rival Rutgers anymore, Princeton stopped scheduling them as a football opponent after 1980. Then in 1982 the NCAA created a rule that stated a program’s average attendance must be at least 15,000 to qualify for I-A membership. This forced the conference’s hand, as only some of the member schools met the attendance qualification. Choosing to stay together rather than stand their ground separately in the increasingly competitive I-A subdivision, the Ivy League moved down into I-AA starting with the 1982 season. Despite often finishing its seasons ranked in the championship subdivision, Princeton cannot play in the NCAA Football Tournament per Ivy League rules.Recent history
Since the formation of the Ivy League, Princeton has achieved only moderate success on the gridiron, with nine Ivy League championships and 10 Big Three championships since 1955. Most recently, Princeton instituted a head coaching change as ten-year coach Roger Hughes was replaced by Cincinnati BengalsCincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional football team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the AFC's North Division in the National Football League . The Bengals began play in 1968 as an expansion team in the American Football League , and joined the NFL in 1970 in the AFL-NFL...
assistant offensive line coach Bob Surace. Surace played center at Princeton and graduated in 1990.
Palmer Stadium
In 1914, Princeton built Palmer Stadium, the third college football stadium ever built and what was the second oldest standing college stadium until its demolition in 1996. Palmer Stadium was modeled after the Greek Olympic stadium and seated 45,750 spectators. In the 1990s the university decided to demolish it for a new stadium rather than undertake a long and expensive renovation process, as HarvardHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
had with its stadium
Harvard Stadium
Harvard Stadium is a horseshoe-shaped football stadium in the Allston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Built in 1903, the stadium seats 30,323. The stadium seated up to 57,166 in the past, as permanent steel stands were installed in the north end of the stadium in 1929...
in 1984.
Princeton University Stadium
During the construction of the new stadium, the Tigers played a season of nine away games, plus a homecoming game against YaleYale Bulldogs football
The Yale Bulldogs football program represents Yale University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision . Yale's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun competing in the sport in 1872...
at Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium
Giants Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Maximum seating capacity was 80,242. The building itself was 230.5 m long, 180.5 m wide and 44 m high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 54 m high to...
in 1997. Princeton University Stadium
Princeton University Stadium
Princeton University Stadium is a stadium in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Princeton Tigers...
opened on September 19, 1998 and seats 27,773. After eight years of natural grass fields, FieldTurf
FieldTurf
FieldTurf is a brand of artificial turf playing surface. It is manufactured and installed by the FieldTurf Tarkett division of Tarkett Inc., based in Calhoun, Georgia, USA. In the late 1990s, the artificial surface changed the industry with a design intended to replicate real grass...
artificial playing surface was installed for the 2006 football season and named "Powers Field" in honor of William C. Powers, Princeton class of 1979, who was an All-Ivy punter for the Tigers and donated $10 million to the football program that year.
Practice facilities
The Finney-Campbell practice fields to the east of Princeton University Stadium have been outfitted with FieldTurf. They consist of nearly 1600 square feet (148.6 m²) of playing surface, with two full football fields and lines for men’s and women’s lacrosseLacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
.
See also
- Princeton Tigers men's lacrossePrinceton Tigers men's lacrosseThe Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse team represents Princeton University in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I men's lacrosse...
- Princeton Tigers women's ice hockeyPrinceton Tigers women's ice hockeyThe Princeton Tigers women's ice hockey team represents Princeton University.-History:On November 24, 1979, the Princeton Tigers played their first varsity game against the University of Pennsylvania. In winter of 1982, Princeton would snap the Cornell Big Red women's ice hockey program's string of...
- Princeton Tigers men's basketballPrinceton Tigers men's basketballThe Princeton Tigers men's basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program representing Princeton University. The school competes in the Ivy League in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association . The Tigers play home basketball games at the Jadwin Gymnasium in...