Image provided by the Harvard PR machine, the best money can buy
Draft Update
The NFL draft finally happens at the end of this week and most of this weekend's ink about Ivy prospects was devoted to Harvard DL Josue Ortiz.
Ortiz certainly is deserving, but he's actually less likely to be drafted than Columbia's LT Jeff Adams.
But the Harvard PR machine is strong, and even Long Island's Newsday newspaper did a major article on Ortiz yesterday without even one mention of the local college product Adams. That's even though Adams is likely to be drafted by one of the two local teams here in New York, the Giants and the Jets!
Sheesh!
More Spring Game Analysis
I want to focus on two aspects of the "game" today: the offensive line and the play of Nick Gerst.
Gerst may indeed be that "Wes Welker" rle player the coaches are looking for in this offense. His pass catching skills out of the backfield are quite stellar and we know about his speed. Plus, the fact that he was playing so well so soon after his hamstring surgery is very encouraging.
The problem with a player Gerst's size is that he needs a lot of help from the offensive line to be most effective. And while the OL's overall size is good, it's clearly suffering from the graduation of guys like Adams and Bob Hauschildt.
The OL's overall ability to move and work in sync was a problem and may take the longest time to develop compared to the other units on the team. This is not unusual, but Columbia needs to break this trend to be competitive this season.
Gerst's newly demonstrated ability to be a lethal second or third option receiver won't fool any defenses if he doesn't run the ball at times at well. And running Gerst behind this line as it is would be fruitless at best and dangerous at worst.
Quick Kudos and Concerns
More on all of these guys later but gold stars go to WR Connor Nelligan, who looked very, very sharp all night and I would be very surprised if he's not a starter this fall. Impressive for a sophomore.
QB Sean Brackett ran well, but ran too much. He needs to make us his mind faster one way or another.
Paul Delaney's punts were BOOMING.
The field goal drill was poor in general. Still not good enough blocking on kicks.
Much more to come...
6 comments:
While the Harvard "pr machine" seems to have been effectice, is Columbia's? Coverage of Lion sports in local papers is almost non existent.
Of course, we don't know what efforts are being made but the results are all-too-obvious.
Except for the Fairway electronic billboard on the West Side Highway, our PR is awful. Fairway is great for us.
The Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper that is providing decent coverage of Columbia athletics including that very nice recent article on our freshman tennis sensation Winston Linn. The New York Times has not covered any local college or high school sports for the past thirty to 40 years. There is no question that the Times coverage of local college or high school sports is the worst of any daily newspaper in the United States. Don't expect any improvement of Times coverage. It is not going to happen. Columbia Athletics has to publish its own weekly newspaper/magazine if it wants to improve its print coverage. The newspaper/magazine should be distributed locally in Manhattan and on-line. Until then, print coverage of Columbia Athletics will continue to be awful. Eventually, the Columbia Athletics Department will realize what has to be done, and will publish a daily newspaper/magazine.
At least on line, the NYT has had stories on some local colleges' basketball games (e.g., St. John's, Fordham).
Perhaps next year's Lion basketball team will "merit" its attention.
If the football team starts to turn things around...
The suburban papers, like the Westchester Journal-News, Newsday,
rarely run reports, despite covering other NYC games.
I was at the Spring game. There still remain major concens on BOTH sides of the ball; mostly depth. There were some good runns but nobody really hit the hole hard with any explosion (except Gerst).
We LACK speed on KO returns and Punt returns. noboddy can stretch the field for Brackett, so the opposing defenses can put more bodies on the line. Glad to see Nelligan mature. STILL missing a TE (or two, for double TE slots, like the Patriots)
Liked to see how Coach M. run the show. Very disciplined and well organized.
Not sure if anybody was there for pre-game drills? There were these 1-on-1s offense versus defense. I'm all for enthusiasm, but this dancing around when the defense made a stop was (is) embarrassing! Enough already! You were 1-9 last year, dance on that. This would not have happened in the Des Werthman era, or before that. EARN the right to do something. For those of you who remember the Garrett brothers... If the scored, they JUST handed the ball to the refs and went on to cheer on the defense fpor the next play. We need to be more HUMBLE!!!
We're in the media capital of the world and we're HORRIBLE about promoting our athletes. It's a joke! Diane and her minions should be on this!
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