A Bolt Out of the Blue

My most memorable Princeton football game is one I did not even attend — or see. I was in grad school in 1981, and I am not sure how I followed the game in those pre-internet days, but I still recall the drama of Bob Holly ’82 leading the Tigers to a last-minute win over Yale at Palmer Stadium, breaking a 14-game losing streak to the Bulldogs. Holly threw for 501 yards (278 of them to Derek Graham ’85) and scored the winning touchdown with four seconds left on a roll-out to the left. In my mind's eye, Holly’s game-winner always plays in slow motion, until a cathartic release when he crosses the goal line.

The team was not exactly a powerhouse during my undergraduate years (combined record of 12-22-2) — I remember an awful lot of handoffs up the middle to Bobby Isom ’78 and Chris Crissy ’81 — so the upset of Yale was like a bolt out of the blue.