“It’s hard to digest. It’s awesome,” coach Bob Surace ’90 said afterward. “We’ve worked so hard to accomplish this, you wish you could keep playing because you wish you could continue to stay out there with the guys.”
The Tigers surged ahead with a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter before fending off a strong push from Penn midway through the game. They were led by wide receiver Jesper Horsted ’19, who scored four touchdowns and produced over 170 yards of rushing and receiving yards. In the second quarter, he caught his 193rd career pass — the most in program history. A double-reverse to Horsted early in the second quarter also made the Tigers the highest scoring offense in Ivy League history.
Princeton Football 2018,
By the Numbers470 points scored (modern school record)
130 points allowed (second in Ivy League)
72 receptions, 13 receiving touchdowns by Jesper Horsted ’19 (most in Ivy League)
14 rushing touchdowns by Charlie Volker ’19 (most in Ivy League)
18 passing touchdowns by John Lovett ’19 (most in Ivy League)
Immediately before and after halftime, the Quakers scored twice, bringing the score to 21-14, but their efforts were stymied by a key stop from Tom Johnson ’19 on Penn’s the next drive. The Tigers continued to widen their lead in the fourth, with touchdown runs from Charlie Volker ’19 and John Lovett ’19, who set a new Ivy League record when he rushed for a touchdown in his 20th straight game.
“We had to fight. They’re a good team, a competitive team,” Surace said. “Coming into today, I was excited. We practiced so well this week. If we weren’t good enough, it wasn’t going to be because we weren’t ready.”
After Lovett’s last quarterback kneel, fans rushed the field to celebrate the players and their historic season. The players in this year’s graduating class finished their careers with 28 wins, more than any Princeton class in more than two decades. The Class of 2019 was also the first to win two titles in three years since the mid-1960s.
Wins over Harvard (29-21 Oct. 20) and Yale (59-43 Nov. 10) earned the Tigers a Big Three bonfire, the first since 2013. The celebration, coming to Cannon Green on Sunday night, now will mark an undefeated season as well.
“Coming into the season, it was all about how we do things. Do we handle all the accountability things right? Do we work hard to practice?” said Surace. “This team is a joy to coach. They do things right. They’re fun to be around.”
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1 Response
Henry R. Lord ’60
5 Years AgoHonoring Dan Sachs ’60
Your story on the Tiger football team’s remarkable undefeated season (Sports, Dec. 5) brought to mind the team’s 1957 season and the bonfire celebrating its having won the newly formed Ivy League’s championship.
The clincher was the team’s 34–14 devastation of then-undefeated Dartmouth at Palmer Stadium before 46,000 in a snowstorm in the last game of the season. Sophomore Dan Sachs was the single-wing tailback; he scored three touchdowns and passed for a fourth. He was named to the All-Ivy team by the league coaches.
Dan majored in the Special Program in European Civilization, wrote his thesis on Montaigne, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. At graduation he was given the Roper Trophy and the Poe Cup.
Dan was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and earned his law degree from Harvard. He won a coveted Blue award for his rugby football play against Cambridge. Focused upon a career in national politics, Dan had his eye firmly fixed upon a Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat.
After a valiant, long fight with bone cancer, Dan succumbed in 1967.
For nearly a half-century, a scholarship in Dan’s honor and memory, sponsored by his friends, supported by his class and then by a cadre of former scholars, has been awarded each year to a graduating senior to study at Oxford’s Worcester College, as Dan did. In recent years, a Sachs Global Scholarship and one to a Worcester graduate for study at Princeton’s Graduate School have been added. (See page 16 for this year’s winners.) The Sachs Scholarship lays special emphasis upon leadership and public service and is comparable in all respects to the Rhodes and Marshall in its selectivity and prestige.
When the idea was proposed to Dan for his approval shortly before his death, he smiled and said, “That has scope.” He was right.