The last time Princeton won a football game on Soldiers Field was back in 1934, when Eddie Casey's gridiron machine succumbed 19 to 0 the autumn before the advent of Dick Harlow. Since then the Tigers have triumphed over the Crimson just once, in 1939 down in New Jersey.
All in all, Princeton has a six game advantage in the win column after 39 meetings between these two rivals, but their past eight games do not show it. Two were tied, one settled by a single point, one by two points, one by three, one by five, and only two by the margin of more than a touchdown.
Some will remember Princeton's 9 to 6 victory in Palmer Stadium in 1939 when coffin corner punts stifled the Crimson offensive; some will recall Franny Loe's 88-yard run through the rain and mud in 1941, also in Palmer Stadium, to give the visitors a 6 to 4 victory; others will remember last fall's 13 to 12 triumph for the Crimson at Nassau, as Harlow's team withstood a frantic Tiger assault and Carl Libert's passes in the final minutes of play.
1942 Hair Raiser
But outranking all these must be the 1942 game on Soldiers Field, Picture the complete hopelessness, from a Crimson point of view, of a two-point Princeton lead, loss than a minute to play, and the men form Nassau in possession of the ball, first down, on the Harvard 35 yard line.
A recovered fumble and Jack Comeford's 60-yard touchdown pass to substitute end Gordy Lyle, gave the Crimson a 19 to 14 victory. Lyle, who came racing onto the field for the final offensive play of the game, caught the ball on the Princeton 20 and outran two defenders to score. Bob Perina, now with the Brooklyn Dogers, had led the highly favored visitors to a 14 to 0 lead at the half with a crushing passing attack.
Eight-Year Layoff
This will be the fortieth meeting of these teams, although they first played in the spring of 1877. Competition was suspended during both World Wars and for eight years from 1926 to 1934 when the concept of friendly rivalry was strained by the professional manner in which Fritz Crisler's "phenomenals" disported themselves on the gridiron.
Said one editorial writer in 1926, "Open hostility glowed warmly on both sides... Undergraduates and older men alike girded their loins for battle. . . Old friendships were cast aside and tradition forgotten. . . The result could be but one, and that the obvious."
Play was also halted for 15 years after 1896 when financial difficulties harassed the team and a pair, of games each with Yale and Dartmouth were deemed a rugged enough schedule for any squad.
Deplorable Situation
The first Harvard-Princeton game, played on April 28, 1877, provoked the following CRIMSON editorial: "There are several circumstances in connection with the foot-ball game of last Saturday which deserve notice.
"The police arrangements were the worst we have ever seen at any match game in Cambridge; many rowdies and other persons without tickets entered the grounds and took seats before play had begun, and the scene at the end of the first half of the game, when the 'muckers,' unrestrained in the least degree by the police, rushed in and covered the grounds, was highly discreditable to all those who had the management of the game.
"The view of the ladies on the lower benches was obstructed for some time, and general discomfort resulted to all who had tickets. . . . As far as arrangements for receiving the Princeton team are concerned, they are above criticism, from the fact that there were non at all. . . . The game itself was one of the poorest which our team has yet played, a fact in a great measure due, as we may sagely say, to an ill-judged an improper favoritism on the part of the Captain in selecting the team."
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