Fisher Stadium
Columbia Lions (0-0) at Lafayette Leopards (1-1)
September 16, 2023
Kickoff Time: 12:30pm ET
Game Time Weather Forecast: 75 degrees and sunny
The Line: Columbia is favored by 4 points
TV/RADIO: The game is available on ESPN+ and their is also audio available on the Columbia Athletics website
Leading Story Lines
1) Columbia begins the post-Al Bagnoli era under the guidance of longtime assistant coach and now Interim Head Coach Mark Fabish. While he's working in a system he's obviously comfortable with and helped build, there is no substitute for head coaching experience and Fabish is about to get his first bit of it.
2) 5th year senior QB Caden Bell must prove he earned the starting job after a competition with 2021 Ivy Rookie of the Year Joe Green. Bell commands an offense with multiple returning All Ivy skill players, but a revamped offensive line.
3) Lafayette looked good for much of its mismatch against top 25 ranked Duke last weekend, and now must live up to that performance against a much more evenly matched opponent. This is Lafayette's home opener, which adds to the team's excitement.
3 Columbia Players to Watch
-Caden Bell won't just naturally be in the spotlight because he is the starting QB, but so will his style of play under center. Will he use more of his running ability than he was allowed to do last year? Will he test the Lafayette secondary with long bombs early? etc.
-Senior WR Bryson Canty looks to prove he is the top receiver in the Ivies this season, and would most likely be the target of any early deep balls from Bell. Canty will also be tasked with drawing defenders away from Columbia's other talented receivers.
-Senior MLB Anthony Roussos has the tough job of having to replace now-graduated unanimous 1st Team All Ivy LB Scott Valentas '23. Roussos will face a strong Leopard running attack and a rejuvenated offensive line.
3 Lafayette Players to Watch
-Sophomore Jamar Curtis is having a monsters season so far, with 221 yards on 29 carries for a ridiculous 7.6 yards per carry average and one TD.
-Sophomore QB Dean DeNobile appears to have won the starting job after starting the Duke game because of an injury to season opener starter Ryan Schuster. The jury is still out on DeNobile as a passer, but he looked good as a runner vs. Duke and netted 56 yards on eight carries.
-Junior DB Saiku White is touted as one of the best defenders in the Patriot League and he is the Leopards leading tackler. But he will be tasked with leading the secondary against Columbia's best-ever receiving corps.
History
Columbia and Lafayette used to play almost every year in the 70s and 80s, but the two programs haven't faced off in football since 2010.
As I documented on the original Roar Lions Blog, Columbia won that game 42-28 thanks to super performances from QB Sean Brackett '13 and LB Alex Gross '11. Gross' big game coincidentally came on the same day that he was featured in an article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Columbia has never won at Lafayette, but did eke out a tie in 1995 and the last meeting in Easton was a 24-21 Leopard victory aided greatly by a flurry of questionable penalty calls and non-calls. I titled my report on that game: "Pennsylvania Penal Colony."
This game will begin a series of games vs. Lafayette over the next few years. I suspect that the Columbia coaches and administrators will be watching how these games go to decided if scheduling out of conference games against old Patriot League rivals should take priority in the future, or if focusing more on more local opponents like Marist, Wagner, and perhaps newer programs like Long Island University (LIU) makes more sense.
37 comments:
Jake, how many games do you think the Lions have to win at the beginning of the season before the "interim coach" moniker is lifted. My guess is three.
I think Jake's original take is the right one - it'll be a full season with the Interim title. If they get to 7+ wins he'll be full time... 4/5/6 wins and it'll be an interview process. 3 or less wins and Fabish isn't the guy
Baby Gronk is the key to Columbia’s season. Mark my words
The updated Columbia game info Pdf has the game starting at 1 pm and on both ESPN+ and NBCSN. Is that all correct?
Our OL —starting 5-averages a little over 300; Painton is huge.
Halftime and the good ship “Lion Offense” has been hijacked by pirates !
We look slow and are being pushed around up front.
Better team won
Why no Green?
We were awful in all aspects, except for our kicker. Some of his punts were great. Otherwise we showed nothing. Classy move by Lafayette to take a knee as time ran out.
Who were the line backers today? Better question, where were they?
a very poor start
Strange look for linebackers today with one so isolated outside. I guess to stop the outside run. But most of the action was inside the tackles
Disappointing start of the season. Lafayette was better than expected, but we were awful in nearly all aspects of the game. Back to the drawing board.
Amen
I think except for the first few minutes of the game that we were not as strong up from on either side of the ball as Lafayette. We were also slower across rather board. We never got a pass rush going. Bell could not create any offense and missed some throws. And the little Lafayette RB just killed us. Combine that with poor tackling and the result was awful. I don’t know why our game plan didn’t consist of giving both Green and Bell a half, unless Green’s shoulder is still not 100%. I think that Green might have completed some of the throws that Bell just missed.
Meant up front
And across the board
How did you like the play calling? Better but a long way to go
Let's start with the play calling. It was terrible. One imaginative plan in the entire game. More than that, we stopped throwing the ball deep in the first quarter, thereby wasting our talented wide receivers. We did nothing on the running game to free up our running backs. Over and over again we sent Giorgi up the middle. Nothing tricky, no motion, no trickery, nuttin. D- would be a generous grade. Next, what about the quarterback situation. Prior to today's game, Columbia fans were led to believe that we had two outstanding quarterbacks in Caden Bell and Joe Green. However, the only quarterback we saw today was Caden Bell, so where was Green? And, if Green was injured or whatever, where were our back-up qbs. I will leave it to others to analyze what happened with the offensive and defensive lines and the linebackers. The special teams were the only group that played well.
There is too much talent on this Columbia Football Team to allow this to happen again. The coaching staff has to sit down together, analyze what went wrong and fix the problem quickly. Not having a skilled back-up quarterback ready to step in today was a huge mistake.
I think it’s pretty simple — while the DL was mediocre, the OL was just terrible. Bell had no time and when he did he missed receivers. The OL could not sustain blocks, and it was somewhat surprising that Giorgi was able to pick his way through for 70-75 yards on the ground. Our WRs could not get separation and when they did Bell threw the ball out of bounds. And our defensive play makers like Townsend were pretty much neutralized. I just thought that their lines were stronger than ours.
Baby Gronk??
It takes more than one game to turn a lifelong TE, even one who is 6’6” and 310, into a good tackle. As the LT, he was supposed to protect Bell’s blind side. Bell was running for his life for most of the game.
Other than Brown, did you hear any other linebackers called for a tackle?
Well said about the O line. Good at times but couldn't handle the continuous pressure. I would have rolled out the QB and the pocket at times. Not a strong start for the OC but Lafayette had superior talent.
Better luck next week. Hopefully we will still have a winning season
They will get better. As for Townsend - 2 sacks, blocked pass and a TFL. Not a bad day for the Defensive End.
in addition tolacklusterplay, we were badly outcoached all game. our O was entirely predictable, except for one double reverse that was so slow developing no one was fooled. bell's long oasses were prayers and either off-target orto well-covered players, L kept our D on its heels the whole game. very disappointing game across the board, with the exception of apecil teams which lookedin mid-season form.
Roussos had 12 tackles—most were 5 yards past the line if scrimmage; McDonald had 14; also well beyond the line of scrimmage. #7 had a decent game for us.
given how much blitzing L was doing, why no screen passes or counters to make them pay for overcommitting? and why allthe endless hurry up and then slow way down at the line of scrimmage, letting the D get set?
Hugh Merry looked great. That’s about it.
We started off ok; stopped Lafayette twice in the opening quarter and had a nice drive but one of our RBs put us 5 yards back when we were ready to punch it in. While we salvaged a FG, we gave KLafayette a gift and then blew out our badly overmatched DL for an 85 yard drive.
Sooooo disappointed. Our boys didn’t seem prepared. Ouch
This was one of the worst games for CUFB in a long while. OL gets an F. DL gets a C. Only guy on D who played well was Townsend. LB’S were making tackles 6-7yds down field. That’s not gettting the job done.
In terms of the QB Bell, he played awful. Poor decision making. Bad throws. How does this happen when he “wins the job” in camp.
My guess is we play better against Georgetown at home next wk but it will be closer than we’d like.
This is going to be a long year…
The Hurry Up and Wait Offense lives another year! If Fabish is the answer, what's the question ❓
The thing that surprised me was our WR were not getting any separation. Baffling
Post a Comment