Top 10 Games of the Decade #8: Lions get 1st Ivy win of Bagnoli Era

 

Oct. 31, 2015

Columbia 17 Yale 7

Head Coach Al Bagnoli took over a Columbia program in 2015 that had lost 21 straight games. They would stretch that to 24 before coasting over Wagner in week 4 in surprisingly easy fashion. 

But it just didn't feel like the Lions had turned a corner until they beat an Ivy team, and that finally happened at the Yale Bowl on a beautiful Halloween Day in week 7. 

Besides the significance of getting the Ivy losing streak monkey off their backs, the game was important for a number of other reasons.

First, it marked a changing of the guard from the talented, but oft-injured Skyler Mornhinweg at QB to then-sophomore Anders Hill. Mornhinweg had played decently in the 1st half, including ripping off a gutsy 29-yard run to set up the Lions only offensive TD of the game. But it was during this contest that Bagnoli and company seemed to first realize that Hill was possibly the answer to the team's scoring issues.

Hill took over in the 2nd half and led the two drives that would eventually end up netting the 10 points that were the difference in the final score. Hill and Mornhinweg 

Of course, the game mostly belonged to the Lion defense, who dominated the game and stuffed the Elis on the ground and through the air. Yale finished the day with negative-14 yards rushing and six sacks allowed. 

But perhaps the most definitive aspect of the game was the special teams and how they turned into the team's best unit during the course of that day alone. After giving up a punt return early the contest for Yale's only score, the Lions special teams made the difference first with a tricky 40 yard FG by Cameron Nizialek in the 3rd quarter and then with a fake FG turned into a scoring TD run by Nizialek a few minutes later. 

Pretty much since that day, Columbia's special teams have been difference makers in game after game.

The defensive star of the game was Chris Conway, a player who had his Yale commitment yanked away from him when Tony Reno took over. Conway had two sacks in the game on a day which must have felt extremely good for him.