Thursday, August 9, 2012

Meet the Leading Lions: Brian East




Brian East in his high school days


Backstory

Tall linebacker came from a top state football power in Indiana and looked like one of the best recruits in the class of 2014. It turned out he was ready to play early on.

On a side note, his maternal grandfather recently became a Nobel laureate! (We'll just have to forgive the fact that he went to Penn).


Career Highlights

-Made his varsity debut in the 2011 season opener and made a good tackle against Fordham's Darryl Whiting holding him to just a one yard gain.

-Finished the season with 15 tackles working as a one of the top LB backups and a special teams cover man. 


Scouting Report

-Has good fundamentals and drive. Needs to use his height to become more of a factor defending the pass. 


Jake's Take

-Columbia is uncharacteristically deep at the LB position, and it doesn't look like East will start this season. But he will need to play an even more vital role this year than last year as a backup and in situations when Columbia needs to jam the box with extra players to defend the run. I see East and incoming freshman sensation Alec Davison as the top two backup LB's who will get an enormous amount of playing time when the dust settles. 


Trouble in the League

Yale defenseman Will McHale has given up his team captaincy after news came to light that he punched a fellow student back in May. 

But considering the fact that the victim in this assault had to get 17 STITCHES, I can't believe this incident will only result in a suspension of his captaincy.

And up at Dartmouth, presumptive starting QB Alex Park was recently busted for being underage with alcohol. It's not clear how he will be punished, but when former Green QB Connor Kempe was found with marijuana last year, I don't believe he missed any games. 

4 comments:

oldlion said...

McHale is the reason why at so many Ivy campuses football has a bad rap. He threw a glass of beer in the face of a woman and then decked a civilian, sending him to the hospital with major injuries. And this is the guy who his teammates elected as Captain? This is Reno's guy? I think that Yale football is out of control and will give the rest of us a black eye unless this thug is thrown off the team. Coach Mangurian would never tolerate that type of guy.

Anonymous said...

IIRC, Kempe was busted in either late winter or early spring. Teevens suspended him for spring practice (which was only a few weeks away). Turned out to be a pretty significant punishment, considering how poorly Kempe played early in the season and the passing game didn't really click until midseason. Had he been busted in the Fall, he might have had to sit out a game. We will see what happens to Park (if anything), but the timing of his arrest appears convenient.

RedTiger61 said...

Interesting note .... Steele's Ivy League preseaon All-Ivy team had 5 Columbia players picked for the 1st or 2nd Defensive Teams ...

DOC said...

The defense will need to keep us in games if the OL cant sustain drives. Frankly am worried about their stamina because they may be spending an inordinate amount of time on the field. Steele's player analyses in the past have proven fairly true so those numbers are heartening !