The 1981 Princeton Tigers football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

during the

1981 NCAA Division I-A football season The 1981 NCAA Division I-A football season ended with the Clemson Tigers, unbeaten and untied, claiming the national championship after a victory over Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. This was also the first year of the California Bowl, played in Fres ...

. Princeton finished third in the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

. In their fourth year under head coach

Frank Navarro Frank F. Navarro (February 15, 1930 – May 30, 2021) was an American college football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Williams College from 1963 to 1967, Columbia University from 1968 to 1973, Wabash College from 1974 ...

, the Tigers compiled a 5–4–1 record but were outscored 323 to 233. Jonathon D. Helmerich and Lawrence D. Van Pelt were the team captains. Princeton's 5–1–1 conference record placed third in the Ivy League standings. The Tigers outscored Ivy opponents 181 to 155. This would be Princeton's last season in the NCAA's top level of football competition. Shortly after the season ended, the NCAA reassigned all of the Ivy League teams to the second-tier Division I-AA, which would later be renamed the Football Championship Subdivision. Princeton played its home games at Palmer Stadium on the university campus in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

Schedule

Roster

References

{{Princeton Tigers football navbox

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...

Princeton Tigers football seasons

Princeton Tigers football The Princeton Tigers football program represents Princeton University and competes at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I Football Championship, Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level as a member ...