Al Bagnoli
Overview
First, last, and always we have to remember how rare and precious winning seasons are for Columbia. I have been following the team for 34 seasons and this was only the fifth winning year I've experienced. It was only the sixth of the last 50 seasons. It was also only the fourth Ivy conference winning season over those 50 seasons.
The team showed some incredible resilience in a lot of games. Five of the seven wins were come-from-behind efforts, and three saw the Lions overcome deficits of two scores. Adjustments on both sides of the ball were evident in every game; the best part of the overall coaching job this year.
The team's emotional strength was very evident in the final two weeks of the season; making sure Columbia finished strong and didn't pack things in like they appeared to do in bad losses to Brown and Cornell to finish out 2019.
There was an embarrassment of riches of highlight reel entries, even from the games CU lost. Columbia games were entertaining to the last.
There is no doubt this season will provide an overall boost to the Lion recruiting efforts this off season and beyond. The cliche "this is a program on the rise" is actually not a cliche in Columbia's case.
Head Coach Al Bagnoli and Athletic Director Peter Piling, (who pulled off an amazing Hail Mary to get Bagnoli here), deserve the credit for this.
Bagnoli's W-L record at Columbia is now 29-31. The last CU head coach to coach 60 games was Norries Wilson, who went 17-43.
Bagnoli now has three winning seasons at CU. The last Columbia head coach to have at least three winning seasons was Lou Little, who coached his last game 65 years ago.
If the Lions win an Ivy title under Bagnoli, or even if they win it with the players he recruits, there needs to be a statue built in his honor at the Baker Athletic Complex.
The 5th year seniors who were a part of this team from 2017 through 2021 went 24-16 in their careers. That's the best record for a graduating class since 1948; 73 years ago.
The recruited talent is better and is being developed better than in the past.
There is still some work to do to get the Lions into championship caliber. But it is not an impossible dream anymore.
Best Surprises and Improvements
When asked by other Ivy football insiders about Columbia's chances this season, my quick answer this summer was: "If you believe football games are won in the trenches, then the Lions are probably going 5-5 at best." That assessment was based on the fact that Columbia had a little more than the usual number of questions about the offensive line and an enormous amount of doubts about the defensive line coming into this season.
As it turned out, both lines outperformed. The Lions may not get a big number of All Ivy honorees from either line, but the numbers tell the story. Columbia's OL gave up the second fewest sacks in the league and came in second in the league in rushing with the league's overall top rushing yardage gainer (Dante Miller). Goal line offense was very strong all year and despite working with a brand new QB they never saw in person until this summer, that new QB was never consistently harassed by opposing defenses. The defense ended up pressuring opposing QB's extremely well and performing well enough on run defense to force those opponents to pass regularly if they wanted to beat the Lions. Paul Akere was the best new starter on the D-line, but there were other standouts in the large rotation of players up front. It's true that the D-line play was very augmented by Columbia's premiere linebacking crew, but the linemen still held their own and had to be effective to give those linebackers the chance to pass rush effectively.
Of course, the play of Joe Green at QB was just as important as the upgrade in line play. Green was a huge question mark for all the reasons many have noted, including not playing in any games since 2018 in high school, not working out with the team until training camp, and coming off an injury. But also we must remember that the coaches were pretty committed to Ty Lenhart coming into this season, and Green clearly changed their minds. Since Green's best quality this season was ball protection, (he threw just three INTs all season long and just one per every 88 passes and no lost fumbles), and ball security was Lenhart's biggest problem, the difference was striking. Green's arm seems very good, and his rollout ability is excellent. One can only hope more time with the coaches will result in Columbia milking his talent for more excellent results going forward. As it is, the seven wins he already has under his belt as a starter put him on track to finish as one of the most successful Lion QB's of all time.
Dante Miller rose from being just an occasional threat to a leading RB with game breaking abilities in every game. His long TD runs made key differences in the wins over CCSU, Penn, and Cornell. And it's been ages since a Lion RB led the league in total rushing yards. Fellow RB Ryan Young also had an upgrade of a season, even if he was sometimes overshadowed by Miller's highlight reel heroics. Young's best game was against Yale in a losing effort, but he was stellar in the wins over Marist, Georgetown, and Brown.
It took awhile, but Columbia's wide receiving corps finished the season looking just about as dangerous as it did during the all-to-brief period when both Josh Wainwright and Ronald Smith were healthy and on the field together. Sophomore Wils Meyer missed a number of games, but seemed like he was Green's favorite target when he was healthy. Marcus Libman did yeoman's work as the possession receiver in almost every game. And Bryson Canty emerged as a star at the very end of the season. All of this came to be while the expected leader of the WR crew, Mike Roussos, missed the first two games and never got heavily targeted in the passing game as we all expected. He did make two key TD catches, with one each in the wins against Dartmouth and Brown, but if he chooses to return next season he will be part of a much more stacked group of receivers than Columbia could be assured of having last year at this time. With E.J. Perry graduating at Brown and Derek Kyler graduating at Dartmouth, it's really not a stretch to consider Green and his wide receivers the best returning talent in that category in the Ivies.
Columbia's linebackers were supposed to be a super unit, and they were. But they did better than expected despite losing Scott Valentas for more than three games and Justin Woodley for more than two. Cam Dillon emerged as a fierce pass rusher and CJ Brown had a truly excellent debut, showcasing his amazing speed. The often forgotten senior John Harris was a little less forgotten this season, as he had multiple stellar games and made the losses of Valentas and Woodley a lot less painful at times. Valentas and Brown are back for 2022, but the rest are graduating.
The Lion secondary had an inconsistent year, but also some great games. They were at their best against Dartmouth and very good at Princeton as well. 5th year seniors Ben Mathiasmeier and Will Allen finished their college careers with very good seasons. Mathiasmeier is a potential team MVP and will go down as one of the best team captains in CU history. Allen also filled in well for Roussos as the team's kick returner in the first two games, and finally got a kick return for a TD in the Georgetown game after coming so close so many times in the past. Jordan Colbert was a revelation in his final season, especially as a hard hitter in addition to his pass defense and pick off abilities. Seth Parker was banged up too often, but looked good in limited duty. He, Brian Bell-Anderson, and Mason Tomlin are the key returnees on a unit that needs to find replacements and consistency in 2022.
Disappointments
Columbia basically played to the level of the competition week after week, letting the opponents set the tone in every game except the win over Dartmouth. The Lions don't need to make each of their games look the same, but they need to act like they're doing more than following the other coaches' script.
The secondary's inconsistent play was probably heavily the result of injury, but it was shocking to see a unit that played so well one week and then falter the next.
It took too long for Columbia to get a real WR threat for Green to hook up with consistently. It's great to spread the ball around, but all QB's need to have that target they trust in a tough situation. I'm not sure Green had that this year. It didn't help that big TE Luke Painton often had trouble with drops. More consistent grabs from him could have made a difference this season.
The play calling on offense was clearly more imaginative this year, but not enough. The horizontal pass plays and fruitless runs up the middle were still too plentiful in 2021.
It didn't seem like Gabriel Hollingsworth was used as effectively as possible during much of the season. If the Lions want him to develop into some reasonable version of Princeton's former dual threat John Lovett, they need to get more plays together where his runs are less obvious and his passes look crisper. His one long run against Cornell in the final game was an example of how that could work, as it came after a decent fake to Young. But his insertion into games, often after Green had just gotten into a groove on a drive, often seemed to take away from Columbia's offensive threat as much as it added to it. Hollingsworth can be a real difference maker that hopefully will emerge next season after more practice time.
The kicking game was inconsistent. Alex Felkins clearly still has the leg strength, but his accuracy waned at key moments. This particularly cost Columbia in the Princeton game. He finished very strong in the Cornell win, but I know the Columbia coaches thought Felkins would make the difference in a positive way in 1-2 games each year.
This wasn't Columbia's fault, but the officiating this season was the worst I've seen in those 34 years of following the Ivies. Surely, the Harvard fans will back me up on that. It wasn't just the bad calls or lack of them, but there were multiple occasions where the refs really seemed to be stumped about what the rules were in some crucial situations. The safety of the players was becoming a concern at different points of several games where the officials really lost control of the games.
Final Thoughts
I'll have my choices for individual team awards in the coming days, but the bottom line is this was the kind of season Columbia can really build off of in its quest to finally win an Ivy championship. They come off of this season looking stronger than the Lions did even after the 8-2 2017 season, because that 2018 team was facing the graduation of QB Anders Hill. This crew brings back its starting QB, receivers, a good chunk of its O-line, and some good talent on all three lines of the defense. No one should be saying Columbia should be favored to win the Ivy title in 2022 at this point, but this is a team most should expect to contend for the crown.
In the coming weeks, I'll be looking at the prospects for next season. That will start with a focus on the top 10 new faces on the team for this season
