-Well, my prediction that Holy Cross would not get embarrassed last night proved to be 100% WRONG. Harvard just destroyed the Crusaders 52-3 last night. The Crimson just look scary good.
-The rain has stopped here in New York and we're looking at a beautiful day ahead for the Lions-Tigers game at Wien Stadium. I will be very interested to see how the attendance numbers turn and whether any decent numbers of Princeton fans will show up. In recent years, Tiger fans have probably been the worst about coming out to games against Columbia. This makes little sense given the proximity of NYC to their campus and the fact that the biggest chunk of PU alumni live here anyway.
-This will be the 125th Columbia football game I have attended in my lifetime, and the 17th against Princeton.
-Set your DVR's for the Penn-Dartmouth game, which kicks off at Memorial Field on NBC Sports Channel at noon Eastern Time. Penn and Dartmouth are our next two Ivy opponents, so this is a good scouting opportunity.
-The betting lines have gone nutty again with a lot of late changes. Princeton is now favored by 1 point, Penn-Dartmouth is now a pick 'em game, and Cornell is now a 9 1/2 point favorite over Bucknell. Go figure.
10 comments:
Its a beautiful day for football......LETS GO LIONS !!
Hugely embarrassing loss and frankly a game Mangurian has to win. We were outcwoached plain and simple. Very disappointing. Same ole samo
Yes. We were out coached. But I saw a few other things. We knew that they had good special teams yet seemed unprepared to cover the opening kick off, in which there was a wall of blockers and nobody was in position. Our pass defense was awful. Numerous breakdowns in coverage plus an idiotic unnecessary roughness penalty out of bounds by 41. The Princeton receivers on at least two plays had no defender within 20 yards. The fake field goal was something for which we were totally unprepared. But my most significant criticism has to be reserved for the offense, with the exception of Garrett, who ran hard, Wanamaker, who made two big time sideline catches, and the freshman guard, Ramljak, who was steady. The offense right now is a shambles. We had two drops by 84, two drops by 88, and a few other drops. But my biggest criticism goes to the pass protection and Brackett's poor play. In general, once we fell behind and had to throw, the Princeton DL just tee'd off, and we weren't strong enough or quick enough to do anything about it. Brackett I am afraid to say has regressed. He is not a good pocket passer. He locks in on the hot receiver and never checks off to his second or third option. I could see this from the stands. He is absurdly easy to read. And when he does have time to throw he never throws the sideline pattern or the deep ball. But what is most distressing is that he cannot avoid the sack. Either turn him back into an option passer where he can be effective or conclude that it is time to start giving Trevor McDonagh on the job training for next year. Harsh words, I know, since I have been a huge Brackett supporter, but he has had three bad games in a row.
I think we have to retire the myth of improved coaching and discipline after this game. Wilson's teams never looked this bad against such a week opponet. Mangurian's cliches aside, this was a step back to the Shoop period. Jake, shall we fire ths coach too?
Agree with everything you saw. I'll add one bit of strategic criticism regarding the use of the squib kickoffs after we failed to cover the opening one. Basically handed Princeton 40 yds of field position on two of them. The decision NOT to go for it on 4th down at the Princeton 32 in the first quarter yielded a net on the punt of 12yds when the punt went into the end zone, and spoke volumes about the coaching staff's confidence in our offense. Were we playing not to lose? The D was consistently unprepared for Princeton's no huddle game plan....Arghhhh !!
Time to get ready for 2013. Lets give the frosh a shot at QB.
Agree re the squib kick and the punt. But perhaps the most mystifying thing to me is, if we're starting O linemen who are 220 and 240, how can we expect to run a plain vanilla offense when the Pr D has tackles who go 300 and 280? Don't you need to run something unorthodox that keeps the D off balance? Am I missing something?
-Dr.V
Manurian only won one game his first year at Cornell. Then he put two very good seasons together. So let's not fire him quite yet. This is not his team. He has some first years with talent, but the rest of the team has less talent than the team that only won one game last year. Losing Abebayo and Chad Washington was huge. But I stand on my earlier comments that we were out coached today, that we should have been ready for the kick off return team, that our DBs were undresses by 20 yards or more, and that our game plan was pathetic. With a small OL run a spread offense. If Brackett has anyk chance to succeed do not try to make him into a pocket passer. And if a receiver cannot make the tough catch play somebody who can. We have a long way to go. Surface out coached our guy and has more good athletes.
" but the rest of the team has less talent ...."
Brackett does not have less talent than the talent that Brackett had ...
Will this coach, this year, relax the "system" in favor of the talent that he does have?
All the receivers dropped balls in cluding #80. 84 was most consistent. TE play was terrible. This is Mangurians team. When he accepted the job he inherited the team. The whole team, the good and the bad. Lame excuse! The OC was a late addition to the staff after an embarrassing departure and has to step up his game. His game plans have been weak. Unlike the Fordham game, our boys were never put in a position to win. We goat outcoached during the week. Finally QB play remains horrendous. We have a tough oponent next week. The coaches and players have to leave this game behind.
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