Under the close tutelage of the now-departed defensive
coordinator Kevin Lempa, (he’s gone to work at Boston College), the Columbia
defense improved overall in 2012. And the secondary was especially better, in
no small part because Lempa himself took the double duty of being the overall coordinator
and the secondary coach.
The Lions finished third in the Ivies in pass defense, and
while that finish was a bit inflated, (I don’t think Columbia was REALLY the
third-best pass defense in the leagues), the team was solid against the pass
and much, much better than it was in that category than it was in 2011.
That’s why what happened with 13:30 left in the week three
game against Princeton was so out of the ordinary for the 2012 Columbia season.
With Columbia trailing 20-6 at that point and still with a
slim chance to win, the Tigers put the game away when QB Quinn Epperly easily
found a wide open Roman Wilson streaking down the west side of the field into
the south end zone.
It’s possible the fact that the broken coverage was
partially a result of S Marquel Carter
leaving the game a play earlier with a minor injury but there’s never any way
to know that for sure.
Opposing QB’s threw for a total of 20 TD passes against
Columbia in 2012, but none were as embarrassing as this one.
Wilson went on to have a spectacular sophomore season, highlighted by his big TD catch in Princeton's unbelievable comeback win over Harvard. You can see that catch here:
OUR Blast from the Past
But you didn't think I was going to leave you with just some Princeton highlight, did you?
I recently found the video below of the ENTIRE game between Columbia and Princeton at Wien Stadium in 1997.
Columbia shutout the Tigers that day, 17-0.
Enjoy:
5 comments:
20 seems a little high. 2 per game means you need 14 to tie. If you can stop the run and the FG.
The defense should be deeper with the new guys.
Love the blue with blue jerseys!!
Yeah the jerseys look great, maybe worth returning to! Those jerseys gave us our best record in years, did they not?
Random fun fact: Harvard gave up 29 uninterrupted points in the last 12 minutes of its loss to Princeton. That was 16.7%, fully one-sixth of all the points the Crimson gave up on the year, in 12 minutes, or 2% of game time.
It's the black stripes on the pants and helmets that really makes the difference. I hope the new uniforms have some variation of that.
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