It took 100 years for Princeton to make its way to a state semifinal in football. The return to the penultimate game of the season took just a year. But whereas a run to the semis would’ve been satisfactory before, it’s not enough to quench the hunger resulting from a loss in last year’s Class AAA title game.
To do that the Tigers need to win twice more in what would be their most difficult contests of the season. But before peeking ahead to a potential berth in this year’s Class AAA title game, the Tigers will need to first dispatch of another unbeaten team when No. 4 Herbert Hoover (13-0) roams into Hunnicutt Stadium Friday at 7 p.m.
As their record suggests, the Huskies are no slouch and haven’t been. They were the No. 1 seed in Class AA in 2021, made a run to the Class AA title game as the No. 9 seed in 2022, fell in the quarterfinals to Class AA runner-up North Marion last year and now they’re back aiming to close the deal in Class AAA.
Their style, give them options as they can run or throw the ball and still be effective.
“They’re just a well-rounded and great football team,” Princeton coach Keith Taylor said. “Coach (Joey) Fields does a great job with those guys. They’re accustomed to winning and they’ve been there before. You know they’re used to being in that spot and you can watch them on tape know that they’re led by No. 13 (Dane Hatfield) the quarterback. He’s been doing it since he was a freshman so anytime that you have a kid like that in a leadership role ever since he’s a freshman, the team goes with him. He’s their leader and you can tell that. They rally behind him and he’s an incredible football player. He’s a dual-threat guy that can throw, but you know he’s also one of these quarterbacks that runs downhill. He’s not the typical guy that just one arm tackle is gonna bring him down because he’s a physical runner.
“They big upfront too. They got a good offensive line with some athletes up there too guys that can actually move. They pull a lot and they want to get downhill. They’ve got great wide receivers, great running backs and just overall a great football team. They’re very well-rounded defensively and they fly around to the football. They got guys everywhere. They do a great job of disguising coverages. They’re gonna bring multiple packages and they’re gonna bring blitzes from everywhere. We’ve got a tough task ahead.”
Hatfield has rushed for 1,885 yards and 33 touchdowns and added 1,663 yards and 17 passing touchdowns through the air. He’s not the only lethal threat as running back Blake Fisher has 911 yards rushing and 19 touchdowns on the ground, adding another 691 yards and five scores through the air. The two form a lethal one-two punch that will challenge the Tigers.
Dating back to their regular season finale against Parkersburg South where they lost starting linebacker Marquel Lowe, the Tigers have yielded an eye-popping 198.7 rushing yards per game, allowing opposing offenses to cross the 200 mark twice. It’s been their glaring weakness, so much so that they’ve shuffled their defense in an attempt to find a solution.
“We’ve talked about it ever since the end of the regular season and the playoffs started, teams that run the ball and can establish the run in the playoffs most of the time win the football game,” Taylor said. “We know that they’re coming in and they’ve got all of our tapes. They’ve seen us play against similar styles and they’ve seen us not do very well. When you see that quarterback counter and a regular counter – you know that downhill running style off-tackle we know we got our work cut out for us. That’s been a point of emphasis since the Parkersburg South game. We’ve not been defensively sound when it comes to the run but our guys have taken that challenge on.
“We feel like we we’ve prepared them and those guys are ready to go. We feel really good about our defensive game plan that Coach (Eric) McClanahan’s drawn up. We’re excited to get after it. We know if we completely stopped their run game they can pass it still too, but that’s not the game plan that they wanna have going into it. You talk about the elements and it’s just the time of the year where the team that’s able to run the ball is gonna end up coming out on top.”
The elements may play a factor Friday night. The temperature is supposed to be 22 degrees at kickoff and feel like 15 throughout the evening. That may neutralize the passing games for both teams to an extent. That hurts Princeton, an offense with a QB in Chance Barker that’s thrown 35 touchdown passes and a receiver that has 1,200 yards receiving in Brad Mossor.
The positive news is running back Daniel Jennings has rushed for 442 yards and nine touchdowns in two playoff games. The hope is that trio can help the Tigers avoid a slow start and force the Huskies to play from behind. Princeton fell in a 20-7 hole in the second half last week against North Marion and overcame that start for a 34-20 victory.
“Any football team wants to get off to a good start,” Taylor said. “When you get you get to this point of the season when you’re in the semifinal you can’t start slow. I am happy that it’s on a Friday night. We’ve talked about it but since the season started I’m pretty sure this is the third Friday night football game we played this year at home and it’s weird to play an entire season where you only have three home games on a Friday and you hosted throughout the playoff. We hope that kind of changes it you know, but it’s just one of those things you always wanna start fast. Last week we didn’t and we were able to overcome that, but we can take it as a point of pride that we felt like we didn’t play our best football game and we were still able to come out on top. We just hope that we can put four quarters together and make a little easier on our self.”
