Princeton – Year four under Chris Pedigo proved to be a big one for the Princeton Tigers.
The one-win seasons were a thing of the past as they secured a playoff berth and advanced to the second round after a COVID forfeit.
Now that they’ve established themselves as a playoff program here comes the hard part – maintaining it.
That task is daunting when you look at the departures.
Gone is a talented receiving core led by last year’s Moss Award winner in Ethan Parsons. Gone are Josiah Honaker and Amir Powell.
Pedigo isn’t deterred. He and his team used the three-week period as an opportunity to try new things before practice officially opened on Monday.
“Those guys did a lot of things last year for us,” Pedigo said. “Probably 90 percent of our offense was what those guys did. But we have a lot of guys stepping up. We have some length and some guys that have paid their dues over the last few years and they’re going to get an opportunity to take advantage of it. We think we have three or four running backs that might give us a committee type of thing and then we’ve got some that could take the job in camp. But we feel like we’ve got some weapons.”
While the flash may have left, the Tigers return a lot of the meat and bones of their team – their quarterback and their offensive line, all of it.
It’s put a lot of leadership responsibility on that group, especially junior quarterback Grant Cochran. But they’ve handled it well.
“He’s really improved in his maturation process,” Pedigo said. “He’s going to keep bringing these guys along and we have some good seniors that are going to be around. We may not have the dynamic guys that can run straight down the field, but we have some guys that are going to catch the football and do some good things. It’s just not going to be a one-man show. You’re going to see a lot of guys on Friday nights that will see an opportunity to run and catch the football. Grant is the key cog in being able to run the offense and what we do.”
With different personnel available Pedigo anticipates more of a balanced attack. At times last season the Tigers would roll with 10 personnel (one running back, no tight ends) and air it out, taking advantage of their matchups in the passing game.
This season figures to play differently. With an experienced group up front, the days of throwing due to necessity are gone. But things won’t be completely different.
“I think you’ll see it change a little bit,” Pedigo said. “There were some things we wanted to do last year but we were so good in 10 personnel that we didn’t change up some things. We were really good with what we were doing with those guys. I think you’ll see some different looks, some different formations, but I think we are who we are. We like to be known as a football team that can throw the ball and now we’ve got more.
“We started this offense four or five years ago because we weren’t very good in the run game. We needed to get the ball out in space because we didn’t have a lot of linemen and now we’ve evolved to where we have a line that can compete with anybody and we have running backs that are going to give us the opportunity to run hard. We feel like we’ve evolved from a passing team to one that’s balanced and can put more emphasis on the run.”
Contact Tyler Jackson at tylerjackson@lootpress.com, call him at 304-731-5542 and follow on Twitter @tjack94