Hampton U. thwarts Princeton's second-half surge for 28-23 victory

Hampton, Virginia -- Dyrri McCain had seen enough. Hampton's senior wide receiver and his Pirate teammates had watched an 11-point halftime lead evaporate after a pair of field goals and back-to-back safeties in less than six minutes, and they'd just escaped losing their suddenly slim edge altogether when Princeton missed a field goal.

It was time to get down to business.  HU mounted an 11-play, 80-yard drive, kept alive when a defender tipped a 15-yard pass on third-and-10 into Javaris Brown's arms, to take a 28-20 lead on McCain's 1-yard touchdown reception, then held off the Tigers 28-23 with a goal-line stand in the final two minutes.

"We didn't play the same type of football that we played in the first half," said McCain, who caught 123 of quarterback David Legree's 302 passing yards and both his passing TDs. "When it got down to where it was like, 'This is it, we have to make a play,' we drove it all the way down. Our tempo picked up. Everybody had it in their mind, 'We've got to turn this around. It's getting too out of hand. "

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Princeton will take on Hampton in historic matchup

By Roscoe Nance, USA TODAY

Princeton traditionally fills its non-conference football dates with opponents from the Patriot League, the same as other Ivy League members, because of geography and similar academic philosophy.

Saturday the Tigers will set tradition aside when they host Hampton, the defending champ of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. It will be Princeton's first game against a historically black college or university and only the second time for an Ivy League school to play an HBCU. Yale defeated Morgan State 41-0 in 1984.

The historic meeting between Princeton (2-1) and Hampton (3-1) is part of Tigers athletics director Gary Walters' effort to add "some flavoring" to the defending Ivy League champ's non-conference schedule.

"In the Ivy League, we don't play in the postseason," Walters says. "As a result, we would like our student-athletes to have at least one game during their four years that takes place outside the region. That provides players with a cultural education experience they wouldn't have. We think that compensates for no postseason."

Princeton played San Diego in 2004 and 2005 and will play The Citadel next season. The Tigers play at Hampton in 2011.

Walters says the idea of playing an HBCU came to him during his tenure as chairman of the Division I men's basketball tournament committee. Hampton was one of the two or three HBCUs that he considered and the first he called because of quality of the university.

Hampton President William Harvey says the game is a natural, given the schools' academic and athletic reputations.

"Hampton is objectively recognized as having an outstanding academic program," Harvey says. "Princeton and other Ivy League schools are objectively recognized as having outstanding academic programs. Hampton is known in the last couple of decades as having an outstanding athletic program."