Thursday, September 28, 2017
The Original "Slash"
I've written a lot of articles about the very storied and dramatic history between Princeton and Columbia over the years. Over the 30 or so years I've been following the Lions and the Ivies, these two teams have played some incredibly dramatic games including many with shocking outcomes.
There was the 1988 game Columbia won 16-13 to end their then-record 44 game losing streak. It was my freshman year at CU. Not only was it surprising to see the Lions win, but to get that first win in five years over the team the experts predicted would win the Ivy title that year was really something.
There was the Princeton win in 2000 in OT after the Tigers came back from two scores down with less than two minutes to go. A last-second Hail Mary win for Columbia in 2003, and another OT comeback win for Princeton a year later.
But as far as their importance to overall Ivy standings, the three games the Lions and Tigers played from 1994-96 captured the most drama. And one player who played a key role in two of those three games, with his absence looming largely over the third, was Columbia QB Mike Cavanaugh '96.
Cavanaugh was John Lovett more than 20 years before John Lovett. He mostly played QB for the Lions, but often lined up as a RB or WR given the situation. He was also the lead punt returner.
Cavanaugh had his breakout season in 1994 when the Lions were on their way to their first winning season since 1971. Coming into the Homecoming game against Princeton that year, Columbia was 3-2-1, (they used to have ties in college football), and were facing a 5-1 Tiger squad that was 2-1 in Ivy play. A record crowd packed Wien Stadium to see if these new look Lions were for real.
Cavanaugh split time as QB with senior Jamie Schwalbe. He ran the ball 17 times for 82 yards, caught two passes for 33 more, and made key 1st down after 1st down with his option keepers and bootlegs. He was Mr. Everything for Columbia in an emotional 17-10 win.
A year later, Columbia came into Palmer Stadium with an identical 3-2-1 record, but a 3-0 mark in the Ivy League. Princeton was also 3-0 in the league and the week seven game was hyped across the league as the de facto Ivy championship game.
At that point, Schwalbe had graduated and Cavanaugh was carrying the QB duties on his own. He was still running quite a bit and also improving as a passer. Head Coach Ray Tellier and company decided to try to trick the Tigers and their improving defense by unleashing Cavanaugh as an aggressive passer early in the game.
The plan backfired in spectacular fashion. Cavanaugh was picked off five times in the 1st half alone, and eventually had his leg broken after a Princeton sack. His career was over just like that, and the Tigers routed Columbia 44-14. The Lions didn't win another game that season. It was one of the most devastating losses in modern CU history. Princeton went on to win an un-shared Ivy title for 1995.
The following year, Columbia struggled offensively without Cavanaugh but jumped out of the gate at 6-0 thanks to the return of Marcellus Wiley on defense after he took 1995 off. The Tigers were struggling much of that year, and the week 7 match up back at Wien Stadium looked like an easy win for Columbia.
But Cavanaugh's absence loomed large as the CU offense was stymied and the Princeton offense got just enough to eke out a 14-11 win. A deflated Columbia went on to get blasted the following week in another de facto championship game at Dartmouth, 40-0. They finished the season 8-2.
There was some measure of revenge the next year when Columbia shut Princeton out 17-0 in 1997, and the Lions best days against the Tigers came in 2009-10 when CU beat Princeton in back-to-back beat downs by a combined score of 80-14.
But none of those games were as crucial to either team as that stretch from 1994 to 1996. And with the schedule keeping the Columbia-Princeton tilt in week 3 for the time being, this rivalry will probably not reach that level of drama again.
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2 comments:
Columbia likes to make out that Princeton is its tradiiional rival. But the truth also is that Princeton likes to see Penn as its traditional rival.
This basically leaves Cornell as our true traditional rival. (Hence what they've taken to terming the "Empire State Bowl" Obviously Cornell feels this wayl every year they play CU in NYC, after all, they bring their entire high-stepping band with them and post-game march, triumphantly or no, down Fifth Avenue a few blocks to the Cornell Club in midtown.
T'was a time, of course, when Rutgers played both Princeton and Columbia during its own season. And my high school football coach, the great Ralph Borgesss, in fact had played himself under Lou Little for Columbia as a WWII vet of the Navy. Years when CU olayed at hime vs. Rurgers, he'd take us all to see the game and we'd sit in those ricke green wooden stands.
During those years, the Jets also once played an intrasquad game at Baker Field. So none other than Joe Namth once himself played at Baker Field, where his jersey matched the stands. Place was packed, too, as I recall, better than any Homecoming game I can ever remember. Ob-la-dim ob-la-da, you know?
One of the most exciting games I have ever seen since beginning to watch Columbia football in my freshman year in 1949, was the game in 2003, when Columbia won at Princeton for the first time since 1945. In the first quarter, Columbia trailed 20-0 and Princeton looked like they could easily quadruple the score. The defense held after that, and the offense gradually chipped away and actually took the lead early in the fourth quarter. Princeton began a long drive eating up the clock and scoring to tie the game with less than a minute left. The momentum had changed, the Lion defense was exhausted and it was unlikely they could prevail in overtime. After the ensuing kickoff, the Lions completed a pass to midfield with just 20 seconds left. With time for one more play, the quarterback, Jeff Otis was surrounded by would-be tacklers as he faded back into Columbia territory for a long Hail Mary. He got the pass off and time expired. The ball traveled into the end zone and into a crowd of white and orange jerseys, where it was caught, but by whom? After a pause, Columbia players began jumping and raising their fists. It had been caught by 6'5" Wade Fletcher, All-Ivy. Columbia 33-27!
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