The Players
-WR Kaleb Pitts, (raise your hand if you had him on your radar before Saturday), got most of the throws that probably would have otherwise gone to the injured Ronald Smith. He finished with 7 catches for 86 yards, including a nifty 40 yarder on a deep ball down the sideline. And it's only fair to note that the fumble he lost came after a punishing hit from the Dartmouth defender.
-But don't forget WR Christian Everett who made perhaps the most acrobatic catch in coverage along the other sideline later in the game. His 34 yard reception with Big Green CB Isaiah Swann really all over him was probably the best play of the game. Everett finished with 3 receptions for 56 yards.
-QB Anders Hill deserves more of the credit for the win, despite the costly interception in the end zone that gave Dartmouth new life in the 4th quarter. With the help of some of his best protection all year, he completed 17 of his first 20 passes and spread the ball around to seven different receivers.
-Hill is now 8-5 as a starter, and is riding a personal seven-game winning streak.
-Did anyone watching the Eleven Sports Network coverage of the game note the special mention and graphic they put up on Hill's 3rd down passing stats? Yeah, someone over there clearly reads this blog. Anyway, on 3rd downs against Dartmouth Hill was 5 for 6 for 54 yards, two 1st downs, and no TDs, INTs, or sacks. His full season totals on 3rd down are now 33 for 42, 377 yards, 21 1st downs, 5 TDs, 2 INTs, and 6 sacks.
-When was the last time Columbia beat a team without forcing a turnover? Answer: Week one of this season against Wagner.
The Sack
-An astute former Lions player tells me it's a good chance DL Mike Hinton's game-ending sack was not a missed assignment by any Dartmouth OL, but a very good call by the coaches to make the Big Green believe linebacker blitz was coming to the inside and forcing the Dartmouth LT to collapse his blocking movement away from the blindside corner where Hinton flew in untouched. This was all made possible by Dartmouth's use of a double twins WR formation with no TE. Also, this probably wouldn't have been possible without the time outs the Lions called on that last series to call that defensive play.
The Coach
-Speaking of the coaching, Head Coach Al Bagnoli is now 11-15 at Columbia. He's reached 11 wins 13 games faster than Norries Wilson and 30 games faster than Ray Tellier.
-Bagnoli has secured the Lions first winning season in 21 years.
-Dartmouth's hard luck issue with the refs not spotting the ball quickly enough at the end of the game may not have been about back luck entirely. Bagnoli's rightful protests against the refs at the end of 1st half for not letting the clock run out as it should have probably planted the seed in their heads not to mess with him again. The Big Green did get a gift extra play at the end of the 2nd quarter, only to squander it with a missed chip shot field goal. Previous Columbia coaches would have hooted and hollered too, but would the refs had respected them enough to worry about it?
-The staff needs to do something about sealing off the edge on PATs. K Oren Milstein really didn't have a chance on his two blocked extra point tries.
The Refs
-Speaking of the refs, the game featured too many bad calls that hurt both teams. But they were questionable penalties for the most part and none of them were the kind that could have been fixed by instant replay anyway.
The Crowd
-I know the Dartmouth faithful are bummed about a clash of unbeatens on a beautiful day only drawing 5,300 or so fans. But I can promise you the crowd still was a factor. When the Big Green got back into it in the 2nd half that crowd got LOUD.
-There was a decent number of fans for both teams on the visitor side where I was sitting. But I'm wondering if midterms this week or this coming week played a role in Columbia not sending a fan bus to Hanover. I suspect there will be one for the game at Yale this Saturday, but I am not sure.
-I hadn't been to Memorial Field since 2013, and it's even nicer than the last time. I got a chance to visit the new press box and it's a major step up from what Dartmouth had in the past.
-The weather got consistently hotter as the game wore on. By the last quarter, it was really toasty in the stands and on the field. When was the last time anyone could say that about a game in Hanover in late October?
The Other Guys
-I have no explanation for why Dartmouth starts out slow every week and finishes so strong. I do think they should beat Harvard next week and of course Brown and Cornell. Can they beat Princeton at home in week 10? Not if they keep starting out so lifelessly on offense.
And Now...
-The stakes continue to rise as the Lions now travel to Yale to face a 5-1 Eli team that has also performed better than most expected this season. Yale eked out a 24-19 win at Penn Saturday. Will this game produce the large home crowd that Dartmouth was hoping for against Columbia?
11 comments:
Good further analysis Jake. I did think that we were the superior team, even without Smith and a few others, but I still do not understand why we go into that soft zone when the other team goes into its two minute hurry up offense. Our defense is best when it is attacking and not sitting back and giving up big chunks of yardage.
I kind of thought that Dartmouth's not getting one last chance to spike the ball and run one last play was mainly their own fault, a result of maybe their lack of discipline. They were slow in lining up, perhaps out of shock over the sack. But they, to borrow from my sainted mother, dilly-dallied and shilly-shallied when they should have histled. Tough luck guys. Columbia is better coached than that.
regarding the bus. I contacted ad pilling about this last week. He said they had looked into it but it was too late. He did say they were going to do their best to get something going for the Yale game.
There were a number of Dartmouth fans in the visitor stands this last Saturday. But they were outnumbered by our folks. I don't know why they were there because there was plenty of room in the home stands.
To follow up on my blitz comment, attached to Sunday's post, on the final play each Dartmouth O-lineman was fully and effectively engaged with a Columbia player, but there were two Columbia players, DE Mike Hinton and LB Mike Murphy on their LTackle. The Tackle handled Murphy reasonably well, but that gave Hinton a direct line to the QB untouched. If the LT had picked up Hinton, that probably would have freed up Murphy for the sack. In addition, LB Sean White was coming in on the right side, but the Dartmouth back who lined up to the left of his QB crossed over and blocked White, freeing up Hinton for the more dangerous blind-side hit. Columbia had pure man-to-man coverage on the 4 Dartmouth receivers, and everyone else was pushing in toward the QB. And, contrary to what the "astute former Lions player" may have seen, on replay you can see that Hinton, Murphy and White were headed full speed to the QB from the moment the ball was snapped -- there was no delay. That's why I say it was a called blitz, and credit Bagnoli, and his defensive time-outs, with the sack.
To follow up on Richard's point -- if you watch the video of Hinton's sack, you'll see that as soon as the play ends he heads straight back to his position. No celebrating, no disorganization. Great discipline, likely helped by great coaching.
Howie, that was my bad. The "astute former player" made the same observation you did and a little more. I summarized it wrong at first, but have now updated.
I was there and agree with Jake.
Three continuing concerns:
1-Our prevent(?) defense needs re-evaluation. Princeton drove length of field to score with 1:30 left; Penn did same thing; Dartmouth had 2 such drives in last few minutes but failed from inside our 10. We look like the Lions of old during these episodes. We're making it too easy.
2-Running the ball up middle on 1st down far too often. Check the stats. The result is We are left with far too many 2nd and 9 and 2nd and 8s. And this was against defense which was geared to stop pass and whose LBs played deep. When you take into account the many times their DBs played 10 yds off our WRs, we could've thrown quick passes all day on 1st down with great success.
3-We don't get big pass rush with just DL. The D QB had too much time. More targeted blitzing is needed. My recollection is that when we blitzed good things happen.
Re Peter Stevens comments: agree with #1, we are at our best when we play an attacking defense and our soft zone isn't working in prevent situations; as far as #2, we need to work Lynnard Rose into our running game since he has the speed to run outside; as far as #3, an occasional safety blitz might work with Baty or Gilbert. As far as Yale, to beat tehm we will need 7 or 8 in the box because they are a big run first team. Roane can take away whoever is their top WR by himself.
Interesting note, Kaleb Pitts and Dartmouth CB Isiah Swann played at rival high schools in the same town in Arizona. I don't know if it mattered, but there was some built-in familiarity for KP in this game. With that said, he made the long catch against McManus.
Geeze guys. Lighten up. Some of these comments remind me of what we all commented after we lost all those games before AB came to town! His two timeouts were perfect in setting up our guys to defend the Dartmouth attack at the end of the game . The last time out directly preceded the sack! AB's football intelligence is way over the heads of all of us commenters. So enjoy the victory and support the new CU football regime!
See you at Yale on Saturday.
Echo Unknown. Why the emphasis on all the negative? At least be balanced.....and be happy. Feels like a Woody Allen neurotic-can't-handle-all-the-winning thing pointing out all our flaws.
I for one am elated with our team and coaching staff. My friends and classmates and even my ex wife have messaged me with happy messages because they know what a crazy supporter I have been for three decades....a Facebook friend group has formed on this with 30+ Active posters.
Enjoy the moment.
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