The 299-day wait for Columbia football is finally just about over.
You can even buy all single game tickets now on the athletic dept.website. (But I recommend getting season tickets if you can).
You also know we're getting close now that the Columbia Spectator has a new story about Head Coach Pete Mangurian's use of social media.
Did we get that tired?
How Will it Work?
Just some guesses on what Coach Mangurian may be thinking as he goes with a much lighter O-line this fall:
1) As some readers have pointed out, this could be a stamina thing. Columbia takes the most advantage of a lighter lineup with better stamina if it uses a no huddle offense and tires out the heavier opponents faster without giving them a chance to substitute very often.
2) Short passes can be lethal. They give the lighter and speedier linemen more of a chance to act as blockers down field or at least to run some kind of interference as the ball is being thrown.
3) Spread the offense out even more than the last few years and really make the defense work to get to the play.
4) Second half strength is a key. Columbia's second half collapses were all too frequent last year. A fresher, better conditioned team could stem that tide.
It's thought #4 that gives me the most pause. It's true that Columbia was absolutely TROUNCED in the second half last season. But about 90% of that negative point differential occurred in the THIRD quarter, not the fourth.
Check out the scores by quarter for the entire season:
1 2 3 4 OT Total
Columbia | 44 | 62 | 20 | 71 | 14 | 211 |
| Opponents | 57 | 89 | 117 | 58 | 7 | 328 |
The Lions were actually outscored more in the 1st and 2nd quarters than they were in the 4th.
And anyone watching a lot of Lions football knows that fatigue wasn't the issue in the third quarter as much as it was about poor adjustments, or lack thereof, by the coaching staff.
Now, Mangurian is much more of an expert at looking at and analyzing game film than I'll ever be. But I'm worried he may have gotten the wrong idea about where the second half collapses came from in this one instance. Hopefully, his better overall coaching experience will solve that probably automatically with or without any conditioning improvements by the team.
The one real fear we all have, whether we have the nerve to say so or not, is the nagging fear that Columbia will be faced with a lot of 3rd and 1 or 4th and 1 type situations where big boys with a lot of bulk are going to be needed more than some swift and light guys to get the job done.
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