Delaware, Bryant, Merrimack, Sacred Heart (2020-21)

I have procrastinated enough! Time to get the last four teams of spring 2021 out of the way before the fall 2021 season starts.

If you don't think times are a-changin', just check out Delaware's uniforms. In eight games, the Hens wore five different styles -- and not once did they wear the traditional blue shirt-yellow pants combo. I'll admit to liking the Color Rush-esque all-back uniform, but I'd limit it to once a year. (Delaware wore it twice this spring.) 

As for the three NEC teams that played this spring (Central Connecticut, like the Ivy League, sat out), no one made any significant changes from 2019. Bryant stuck with the black pants during its limited slate (the Bulldogs also wore gold and white pants in '19), Merrimack wore the same combo from '19 and NEC champion Sacred Heart (the Pioneers actually finished second, but beat Duquesne in the title game for the NCAA FCS tourney berth) squeezed in four styles in five games after using seven designs in 2019.

Princeton Tigers (1960)

In my post on the 1960 Yale team, I promised a follow-up on the Princeton squad from that year. So without further ado …

The Team: Princeton went 7-2 overall and 6-1 in Ivy League play, dropping only the season opener to Rutgers (when the Knights were a glorified FCS team) and Yale. The Tigers outscored their opponents 232-133, and the defense delivered three shutouts.

You know it's old-school football when a players
is listed as a "wingback."

The Players: End Jim Blair and tailback Hugh Scott were all-Ivy first-team selections. Scott ran for 760 yards and five TDs, and also threw for 367 yards and five scores. (As noted in the last post, Princeton ran a single-wing offense, where it wasn’t unusual for running backs to throw for a few yards here and run for a few yards there.) Another running back, the wonderfully named John “Silky” Sullivan, ran for 695 yards and five TDs and was a second-team all-Ivy selection. Tackle Stan Baldwin and guard Matt Tobriner also made the second team.

John "Jack" "Silky" Sullivan can't slip through a swarm of
Yale defenders on Nov. 12, 1960. The Tigers fell to the Bulldogs, 43-22,
for its only Ivy League loss that year,

The Coach: Dick Colman guided the Tigers from 1957-68, going 75-33 overall and 61-23 in Ivy play with four Ancient Eight championships. According to Wikipedia, he was the last mayor coach to employ the single wing, which was retired by his successor, Jake McCandless. He was indicted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Dick Colman gets a victory ride after the Tigers' 
season-ending 7-0 win over Dartmouth.

The Uniforms: I have written about these before, and they are classics. Orange helmet with numbers on the side, black jerseys with oodles of orange stripes and gray pants. If you wanted even more stripes, the socks were happy to oblige. 

 

The Aftermath: Princeton slipped to 5-4 each of the next two seasons before winning three out of four Ivy titles from 1963-66, with a second-place finish in ’65. After leaving Princeton, Colman was the athletic director at Middlebury College in Vermont from 1969-77.