Ignore this man at your peril...
Longtime readers of this blog and its predecessor may have noticed that I no longer make much of a deal about Columbia being picked lower in the preseason polls or Lion players not getting much preseason recognition.
The reasons for that are twofold: 1) I really didn't want to spend much more time whining about things like predictions that don't really matter for much... most of the time. 2) As the Lions have begun winning pretty consistently since 2017, why focus on predictions when there are so many more actual victories on the field to celebrate?
But the more I think about the Ivy preseason media poll that ranked Columbia 5th, and the preseason All Ivy teams that all failed to mention even ONE Lion offensive lineman to a 1st or 2nd team... the more I feel like there are some wrongs that need to be righted.
On the 5th place prediction: Columbia was 7-3 last year and is returning a very large number of key players from last season. That includes the reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year at QB. It also has the best coach this league has seen over the last 30 years. It's hard to understand why the Lions couldn't garner the votes to finish 3rd or at least 4th.
But it's the offensive line snub that is really egregious. Columbia is returning four of last year's five starters, a fifth player who may be the best of them all who started all of 2019, and a sixth player with significant starting experience on top of that. One of those players returning is 5th year senior Stew Newblatt, who was just chosen as Columbia's nominee for the Campbell Trophy.
But wait... there's more! These six returning players were the force behind an offensive line last year that put Columbia 2nd in the Ivies in rushing yards, and finished 2nd in the Ivies for fewest sacks allowed. I know this was all probably more of an oversight than a snub, but this is the best and most veteran offensive line the Lions have ever had. Overlooking them is a big miss.
Also snubbed was 5th year senior RB Ryan Young. Young has been an impact player since 2018, with a number of standout performances. His decision not to transfer and return to the team was probably the best news of the offseason for Columbia, and he too isn't on anyone's 1st or 2nd All Ivy preseason team. That's despite the fact he made Honorable Mention All Ivy last season.
Hopefully, these snubs will help motivate the Lions just a bit more this season.
8 comments:
Not even RYAN YOUNG? That is an abominable omission!
I personally think Young has been Columbia's best player during his career, which, as you, Jake, so cogently note, is not over.
Shame on these sham prognosticators!
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
This is the same attitude which leads to an unconscious bias on the part of the officials. As Al said in one of his recent videos, last year we were hit with some terrible officiating. Two games stand out:Yale and Princeton. In both games terrible calls turned the game against us. And a terrible call in the Dartmouth game could have turned that game around but for a tremendous effort by our defense. So the only time we were outplayed was in the first half of the Harvard game, when we were coming off a heartbreaking loss in the Yale game (you will remember that sequence when the refs turned a third and 2 to a third and 8 while we were driving). In fact, even though we thoroughly outplayed Dartmouth, we were picked for 5th and Dartmouth is seen by many as a first place team. I hope this snub infuriates our guys.
Omg. Quit whining about the officials please! Any coach or player would say officials calls even out over the course in f ever season
That is flat out not true in the Ivy League, and demonstrably not true with Columbia. We were hosed in both the Princeton and Yale games.
It’s a broken record. Every year whining about officials
I’m sure Princeton loves the officiating.
Those who express their opinions anonymously wear coward's clothes.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
But sometimes a nom de plume is appropriate and is hardly a cowardly act. While you (Tod) for example are prepared to go public, others might feel that doing so might lead to unwanted scrutiny. For example, if Lee Bollinger were an avid fan and wanted to expound on the team’s fortunes, he might think it inappropriate to do so publicly. Where I do agree with Tod is that mean-spirited postings have no place behind an anonymous and ugly rant. For example, the anonymous who posted about “whining about officials” could well be somebody from one of our rivals who bears ill will toward our program.
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