Saturday, November 4, 2017

Recovery Run

Harvard Crimson (4-3) at Columbia Lions (6-1)

November 4, 2017

Robert K. Kraft Field at Wien Stadium, Baker Athletics Complex

Kickoff Time: 1:00pm

Game Time Weather Forecast: 54 degrees, mix of sun and clouds

The Line: Columbia is favored by 3 points.

TV/Radio: The game is on national TV on the Eleven Sports Network with Bill Spaulding and Jack Ford doing play-by-play and color commentary, respectively. The broadcast will also be available on the Eleven Sports Twitter feed. Lance Medow and Ted Gregory '74 will handle the audio broadcast available through the Columbia Athletics website.

Leading Storylines

1) The Ivy League race remains wide open with every team but Brown and Penn with a shot to win it. Yale's expected blowout win over Brown last night, puts the pressure on everyone else to keep up.

2) The Lions first loss of the season last week has many pundits expecting the bleeding to continue now that the shine on the team is somewhat worn off. Harvard seems resurgent with after the Crimson's comeback win over Dartmouth. Will their be another momentum change for one of these teams today?

3) For Columbia to get its first win over Harvard since 2003, the Lions will need to contain the shifty running of Crimson freshman QB Jake Smith. Smith has been a shifty scrambler and Columbia has had trouble with running QB's for some time. Also, the Lions will need to contain RB Charlier Booker. Booker has seemed like he's on the verge of a breakout performance for weeks now. On offense, CU QB Anders Hill must regain the accuracy he lost last week at Yale for Columbia to have a chance to win.

15 comments:

DOC said...

Just wanted to say how proud I was, that despite a number of mistakes , this team fought back in the 4th quarter to the point that one tipped pass might have resulted in a tie ballgame after going down by 14 points !
We are playing with house money people !
Enjoy this season for what it is - a winning season. All else is gravy . Cornell will be a tougher opponent than originally anticipated but I like our moxy. Would anyone on this board NOT signed up for 6 wins at the start of this season ? Yes , disappointment today, but there’s
no quit , and that bodes well for the entire program .

Chen1982 said...

once again, defense played well enough to put us in a position to win. Offense almost did it

I am also proud...and not gonna second guess any plays or anyone

we can still share the title if we take care of business in last two games and if Harvard beats Yale in the Game

florida lion said...

The Lions played tough, and were the better team for 58 minutes of the game. Good to see the running game work. But I’m concerned about injuries. Smith is obviously out for the season, as is Murphy. A couple others left the game yesterday. And Hill must be hurting with the hits he took. This will make the away game with Cornell that much tougher. But we still have a chance if we win out!

Chick said...

I noticed no shifty running by Harvard's Smith, just a lot of shifty throwing (swap a T for the F in shifty} that CU failed to take advantage of, a nice FG nullified by some ridiculous penalty, a passing game that seemed out of whack and an offense overbalanced on the first big career game of RB Schroer who did nice work but wasn't about to win the game by himself.

Bagnoli continues to disappoint with inconsistent offense. Hill was trying to pass between defenders instead of over them.
All in all a winnable game that probably blows Ivy title chances.

I remain, very truly yours, Richard Szathmary said...

Four interceptions should result in ore than 7 points,. I;ll confine my disappointment to that observation.

For the rest of it, I await Professor Peter Stevens' (inevitable, I hope) analysis of what went wrong and what we should have done.

That noted, it was an exciting game to see, which went down to the very last few seconds. And if we can finish out against a tough Cornell and a probably-not-very-good Brown, I'll be reasonably happy.

Praise, too, to whomever does the game announcing for th Lions. Clearly abd crisply delivered (unlike the guys at Princeton and Yale, who were notably short on details) , and he always made very clear for both teams what had just happened and how nuch yardage had been gained or lost.

Peter Stevens said...

Rich, you goaded me out of retirement. I was hoping my previous venting would be it for season After all, 6-2 with chance to do better was a wonderful autumn present for us. Having said this, I thought that the OC was the biggest factor in the loss-- just like Yale. Here are just a few of his boneheaded moves:

1--In 1st half, H could not stop our running game. (And what a delight and surprise to see our ground game actually click). All of a sudden midway thru 2Q the ground game is abandoned and we start to throw. The result were some bad throws, 3 and outs, and interceptions giving H great Field position leading to scores. There's the element of surprise in the OC's shifting gears but that was outmatched by the element of stupidity. It would be one thing if H had made adjustments and started to shut down the run, but that wasn't the case. We should've kept pounding the ball on the ground till H stopped us;


2-The ridiculously risky and stupid lateral pass to Waibright Presumably to set up option throw. For Waibright even to get into position to make throw he had to catch a 20-25 yd pass while a double team awaited. There are much better ways to try an option. And in this regard, we have Kastner a converted college QB who is better suited to making such a play. Plus, that killed our Drive. We should've just kept running.

3-Runing ball for 0 yds on 1st down on final drive at around 30 was also stupid. Even if we had gained some yards, we used up about 20 additional seconds which had we still had on 1st and goal, we could have easily run off another play or two;

4-Spiking ball on 2nd down with 26 sec left. I thought I saw Hill turn to bench and then spike it ( meaning the OC called it). The result was that we lost a play which could have brought us back into the game. Hill should gave lined the guys up, called an automatic and take a shot into end zone. We still would have had enough time to run 2 more plays;

5-Failure to throw quick short passes over middle in face of fierce pass rush. The long game only works if you have protection. We didn't for the most part; and we don't have Smith.

6-Hill can run, but doesn't. Sure there's a risk in having your QB run, but it was the 7 th game and we're battling for title. Plus, Hill continued to get creamed as a pocket passer as he has the last three games. If he's injured it's the result of sacks and not runs. His ability to run could be difference up at Cornell, especially if conditions are bad for passing.

7-Every Ivy team throws to tight end. Why we don't makes no sense. Short hooks and drags to TEs are valuable weapons to use. We do throw to 21 coming out of backfield which is good. But why we don't line 21 as a TE-- he's 215- occasionally and throw to him I don't know. Our other TEs are invisible sin passing game.

On the other hand, our DC deserves high marks. The D- injuries and all- played very tough. If they continue to play like they did against Cornell and Brown we should be fine whatever the OC does.

I remain, very truly yours, Richard Szathmary said...

What I like best about your post above besides my general agreement with it, Professor Pigskin Peter, is that my goading apparently also "goaded: you ito posting aat length. Please do keep the fine analysis coming, other words.

Don B said...

CU's historically entrenched athletic problem is that it has not learned how to win. Football is just the poster child for that situation. Learning how to win is unique for each team, players and staff, each year. (It is the same at every level in all sports.) This is only Bags' third year. He doesn't even have a full complement of his own recruiting classes. Alongside Bolling and Pilling he has instituted a professional, mature approach to an athletic program that previously lived off a diet of one-off, non-professional, ad hoc attempts. In essence he and Pilling are teaching the entire university how to achieve excellence where it never has previously.

The OC is fine. Smith's loss was a crippling blow. It severely restricts the OC's options and significantly improves the opposing team's ability to game plan. In fact the coaching staff is learning how to win as are the players down the depth chart, again a significant problem because Bags doesn't have a full four years of recruiting, in part to provide a lot of depth. (My brother loves to say great players make great coaches, as in where is Bill Belichick without Tom Brady or Red Auerbach without Bill Russell.) Play calling is a function of the players you and the opposition have, not what you would like to have. Give some credit to Harvard's D. You can't run tight end pass patterns if you need the TE to pass block. The players aren't little robots that play mistake free football, especially if they haven't been getting the reps on the first team.

We are 7-3 or 8-2 on the season. Even as everyone is still learning how to win. Thank your lucky stars for seasons like this. I do.

Sincerely,

Don B

oldlion said...

I fully agree with Don B.

Chick said...

I doubt the OC is "fine." That looo-nngg lateral pass to Wainwright on the sideline is ridiculous, By the time it gets there. there are three tacklers waiting plus the sideline hemming him in. CU throws forward to the sideline too much also. It's like gloving the other team an extra defender or two.

I also doubt Smith's loss is "crippling." Castner, Kabus, Everett, Pitts may not have his speed but they can catch.

Every healthy player should be ready to contribute. That's the responsibility of both players and coaches.

We've gone from hoping for 10-0 to hoping for Ivy title to hoping for title tie to hoping for 7-3.

Don B said...

Smith's loss was crippling. The entire passing game had to change mid-season. CU spent all off season preparing a Wainwright/Smith passing game. Now, rather than two terrific receivers the opposing team really can't double team because it leaves so many other pass options open to CU (including the TE in the middle of the field), the loss of Smith means an easy double team on Wainwright leading to a longer time necessary for Hill to find the other receivers and a commensurately longer time for the line to pass protect Hill. With injuries on the Oline and an injury replacement depth issue, there will be an in-game learning curve for healthy replacements not quite at the starter level but playing against starters with much more experience on the defense. As I noted above the players/coaches have to learn how to win under those difficult circumstances. Columbia has never been able to do that in its football history. They were close on Saturday and kudos to them for that. Throw in a defensive line overload or a blitz against Hill and the Oline and there is no time to find an open receiver. The CU run game isn't strong enough to control a game against a Harvard or a Yale because of the players involved on both sides, and it hasn't been strong enough to allow a complimentary passing game to evolve out of it and to keep the Dline and LBs off Hill. The OC and the Oline coach (and Bags who has to approve the game plan and any changes to it at halftime) did a masterful first half job with the running game and Schroer but it was only a matter of time before the Harvard D adjusted to CU's run game and all CU had left was a Smithless, Wainwright double-teamed passing game. Sans Smith the OC has radically fewer options. And Harvard knew that. Cornell is game-planning exactly as Harvard did, the template being given by Yale, which will make the Cornell game truly exciting.

Maybe the Wainwright call was bad, but if I am the OC I want Wainwright with the ball in open space where he is most dangerous. I suspect that was the rationale behind the call/play. Sometimes the call just doesn't work.

I don't hope for anything. I believe we will be 8-2 because all players and members of the coaching staff are doing an excellent job, and CU football is finally learning how to win.

Sincerely,
Don B

Don B said...

Just as an addendum, with Wainwright being double teamed he has no open space beyond the line of scrimmage, so to get him space one has to go behind the line of scrimmage. Were it me, I would have made the play to Wainwright (or even Will Allen) at least fifteen yards behind the line of scrimmage and in effect turned the play into a punt or kick-off return. Wainwright and Allen are really good in that situation. The play wasn't bad (and obviously they would have planned and practiced for it) and in hindsight a pretty good tactical move to free up Wainwright. They just needed more space.

Sincerely,
Don B

Chen1982 said...

Chick....listen to yourself....very disappointed sounding in a team we should be.applauding. If "all we do" is go 7~3, that's pretty freakin spectacular in my book.

Reasonable armchair coaching is fine and what this site is about, but such negative comments about the OC on a 6 and 2 team scoring well....not so much

Losing Smith was very tough. He was a.difference maker equal to Wainwright.

Big Dawg said...

Bottom line for me is simple, and a two-edged blade.
7-3 or 8-2 is absolutely spectacular for FB 2017. A credit to Bags and the team, and something for all of us to savor.
The other side is what might have been, and that lays out congruently with the will to win, or the knowledge of winning previously discussed.
Yale was actually doable. I was there, and until they scored the final TD, we had a shot. Harvard was inexcusable. That's where winning instinct gets into the equation. That's why Cornell will be a real character test.

Don B said...

I don't see it as a character test at all. All the players and coaches have tremendous character. For starters they would have to have great character to play and coach football successfully at Columbia. It's more an intelligence and adaption test, key components of learning to win. They already know what Cornell is going to throw at them defensively. Can they adapt and implement a strategy to counteract that? E.g. can they develop Mr. Stevens' (above) desired short field (5 yards) passing attack with non Wainwright receivers to keep LBs away from plugging the running holes immediately so the team can get to 2d and five, 3d and three situations with doubt on Cornell's side about whether a run or pass is coming. Does Hill have enough practice time with replacement receivers for receivers and him to develop that touch, trust, and understanding in crucial situations? More than anything else adaption of that kind will win them the game on the offensive side. It's going to be a great game and potentially a defining win by CU if it can take the next winning (adaption and intelligence) step. Really looking forward to it. (My cousin played for Cornell and I CU, so there are significant bragging rights going on here.)