Harvard 38 Columbia 24
Why Harvard Won
The Crimson shot out to a 17-0 lead thanks to some big plays on offense and special teams. Then Harvard's defense slowed down any chance of the game becoming a shootout with some key interceptions.
Why Columbia Lost
A huge mental error early in the game led to a long Harvard TD, and then another blocked punt for a TD put the Lions in an impossible hole. The defense never pressured the Harvard QBs and the offense woke up a bit too late to really threaten the Crimson.
Key Turning Points
-After both teams went three-and-out on their opening possessions, Harvard began its second possession at its own 17. On 2nd down and 10, TE Tim Dowd inexplicably got behind the entire defense and executed an 83-yard catch and run for a TD.
-After CU went three-and-out on the ensuing possession, the Lions failed to block a massive Crimson rush on the punt. The inevitable block was snatched up for another Harvard TD.
Columbia Positives
-There were some decent individual performances, especially a brilliant TD run by RB Joey Giorgi, some nice exhibitions of speed from WR Edan Stag, and great concentration on the TD grab by WR JJ Jenkins. PK Hugo Merry hit a very pretty looking 42-yard FG.
Columbia Negatives
-In addition to the mental mistakes that led to the first two Harvard TD's, the inexplicable soft zone coverage led to numerous wide open completions for the Crimson. The secondary allowed an incredible 14.1 yards per Harvard passing attempt.
-QB Joe Green had some good moments, but he made the same mistake twice by throwing deep balls into double coverage. Both passes ended in interceptions.
Columbia MVP
In addition to his amazing 23-yard TD run, Joey Giorgi finished the day with 92 yards rushing against the stingy Harvard run defense.
56 comments:
Always look forward to your terrific postings!
IMHO the two Green interceptions on long passes were the functional equivalent of punts. I don’t fault him for throwing 50/50 long passes when we needed to make something happen. He also suffered from mediocre pass protection and a few drops. Where I do lay blame is on the defensive lapse on the first Harvard TD and in not calling a TO to set the blocking when it wa obvious that Harvard was going all out on the blitz. Quiet game from Townsend, who does not seem as disruptive in the last few weeks as he was last year. Giorgi is an excellent back.
Throwing a 50-yard INT on 3rd down is one thing, but he's throwing them on first down.
This team was 6-4 last year and returned a ton of starters. It also got better as last season progressed and played its best game vs. Cornell in week 10. This year? A lot of experienced returners have regressed, especially the QBs and WRs, and it feels like nobody believes. Others may disagree, but after the blocked punt at Dartmouth, it felt to me like the team cumulatively gave up. Mental errors, bad body language and weak effort. I can't see any argument for retaining the HC or OC. Besides Giorgi, who has played as well or better this year as last year?
They played better Saturday after going down 17-0, but that's because nothing was at stake.
I just received another idiotic email message from the Columbia University Administration, this time from someone named Alversen, who says she is the Executive Director of the Alumni Association. Ms Alverson's email suggests that the Columbia Administration is still adhering to the same party line that has existed within the Columbia Administration since the horror of Nine Eleven, that minimizes the responsibility of Arab nations and their citizens for the loss of lives of innocent Christians, Muslim, Jews, Hindus and persons of other religious persuasions attacks in attacks by Islamic Terrorists. Forgetting everything else, this has to be hurting fundraising for our athletic programs.
Amelia Alverson
Give it a rest, pal. This is a blog about sports.
Why do we keep getting punts blocked? Who is coaching the special teams?
Paul Rice is in his second year as Special Teams Coordinator. He also coaches the Linebackers. Blocked punts are bad enough but when they are turned into touchdowns
they are game changers, as are blown assignments, and missed tackles. I was afraid of regression and here we are. The Brown game will tell us if we are capable of learning from mistakes and turning them into little steps back "into the light."
Browns passing offense is scary- every bit as good as anything we've seen all year. Will the real Lions please stand up ?
Those miscues are indeed game changers, Doctor Jellyfinger.
Peter, when will you make the necessary coaching changes for football and men’s basketball? We eagerly await your response.
Do we need to recall the special teams disasters from last season? Clearly Coach Paul Rice doesn’t have the mettle to handle LB and special teams coaching.
Let's hang him!!!
We need a D3 guy with more mettle!
that was another tough loss however I do see improvements on the offense, however too little too late. Special teams has become a pain point now.
Time for Bell!!
This stuff affects sports. You may think no one cares amd people
will still send their kids to Columbia but you are wrong. Especially in the world if football. No one will want their this for their players…bad press for the school, bad football and a lot of uncertainty in the city.
No, let’s just pretend everything is fine while we excoriate anyone who dares to suggest a change is in order.
Tough loss but we could be 4 and 4 right now going for 6 and 4 which was last years record so no need to make changes. I would stay the course if we win the next two we finish 4 and 6 not bad for a coach who took over 6 weeks before the season
For those who want to “stay the course”:
Through eight games, the offense has scored a total of 13 touchdowns; 9 rushing and 4 passing.
Of those 13, two were scored against Marist, and four against Georgetown.
We have scored seven touchdowns on offense against Ivy League teams.
Two of those touchdowns were scored with less than 30 seconds remaining in the game; against 2nd and 3rd string defensive players, with the game already entirely out of reach - Garbage Time.
We are really averaging one touchdown per Ivy League game. With the best of defenses, it is hard to win games generating one touchdown per game from your Offense.
On the season, we have made 20 trips into the Red Zone, seven have yielded no points.
Our Interim Head Caoch, aka “not bad for a coach who took over 6 weeks before the season”, is the architect of this offense, it is his playbook. He has run the Columbia Offense ever since arriving here. Let’s presume he is retained, do we honestly envision him firing all the current Offensive coaches and turning over the offense to someone new from the outside? Do we see him allowing someone new to scrap his philosophies? To do so, would be for him to admit failure. That is not in his makeup. Remember, this is the person who said that for 54 minutes last Saturday “we played Harvard even.”
Please, I am willing to be a believer in Mark Fabish, but can someone give me a solid reason he is the best option going forward.
So, after the season Bagnoli weighs in heavily for Fabish. The Football Committee is supine or holds a barbecue.
What does Pilling do?
Hoops only lost by 20 last night!
My wish list of applicants to be granted HC i'views ( in addition to Fabish) in no particular order:
Poppe
Larsen
Gilmore
Garrett
Chimera
What does he do? Hmmmm
Fabish is awful.
On October 29, I posted a list of at least 15 other very solid options for the next Head Coach.
There is no reason to stay with Fabish.
Enough of, he deserves a whole season.
Even if he beats Brown and Cornell, what has he shown us this year?
He cannot escape the fact that he is the former Offensive Coordinator, whose Offensive vastly underachieved this year.
The truth be known, his offenses were moribund for the last few years. Fortunately for him, the Head Coach was able to protect him.
Right now, the Emperor has no clothes on.
Bad night for both the Columbia men and women basketball teams. The men's team started out ok against a very strong Providence squad, but for whatever reason, our coach. a fellow named Engles, removed all his starters from the court very early in the game which allowed Providence to blow us out. The women lost their opener to a very good Stony Brook team, but our excellent women's coach made it into a learning experience. Unlike football, Coach G wasted no time in getting a freshman into action in the first game of the season and the newcomer was terrific. The analogy to football is important because our first and second string quarterbacks are both graduating.
Bob Surace in his first year at Princeton was deemed by people on this board to be a complete flop and “the worst coach in the Ivy League”, or words to that effect by one observer whose opinions on Ivy football are usually right on target. So do we really think it makes sense to start all over again without giving Mark a reason chance with a full offseason? The fact that his players are still playing hard means something to me—that they haven’t given up on the staff and want them to succeed.
Peter, where are you?
Meant reasonable chance
Easy Tiger, all pun intended.
Bob Surace went 18-3 as a head coach before he came to Princeton. He also had seven years working in the Cincinnati Bengals organization. At one point in his career, he worked for Forest Gregg.
Granted his first two years at Princeton were dismal, but look at what he inherited.
When he came aboard, the cupboard was bare.
Not so, Fabish. He was given a talented roster.
I am fine keeping him on, but I have no expectations.
He is not the person to take us to the Promised Land.
Let’s say Fabish stays, do you want to see the entire present coaching staff come back with him?
By everyone’s admission, we need a quarterback for next season.
Do you honestly see some stud recruit wanting be the quarterback in a Fabish offense?
13 touchdowns from the offense in eight games.
20 trips to the red zone.
We average less than 255 yards of total offense a game, and that includes two cupcake games.
Our average time of possession is 26:41 a game.
If you are a star passer, or star pass catcher, why come play for Fabish, particularly if any of the Ivies are knocking on your door?
We have additional QB talent on the team. It would be great to see what we have in next two games.
At the time, Surace's critics had a point. He took over a Princeton program that was at worst, mediocre and immediately produced two of the worst seasons in Tiger history. Kudos for him for turning it around and proving the critics wrong. But it did indeed look like an awful hire for a while...
The two years prior to Al taking the job, the Lions were 0-20. The two years prior to Fabish taking the job, the Lions were 13-7, and 7-7 Ivy including wins on the road v. league champ D in 2021 and a good H in 2022. The team is heavy with seniors who played a lot the past two years. Fabish was the OC for seven years, he didn't inherit someone else's mess. He is the architect of our, ahem, offense. I wanted him to succeed, but he hasn't. They are not playing better as the season progresses and for him to write that they played Harvard evenly for most of the game is delusional. It was 38-10 deep into the fourth quarter. He's not the guy, especially if he can't tell the truth about how they're playing. We don't need to go all the way back to 0-10 to learn this lesson.
I hope they play with fortitude the next two weeks and execute on offense in a way they have not all year.
YESSS!
A ludicrous Admin DOES affect sports! With our latest appointed
“University Professor” being
universal thief Hillary Clinton,
the empty cash box will force
our football players to perform
in their underwear
Roar is 100% correct. It’s also worth pointing out that many of us had this team in the running to win the league this year before Bags stepped down. Pretty sure most people weren’t saying the same thing about Princeton just before Surace was hired. Fabish, much like Engles, will never win an Ivy championship.
I think we will see that our President Shafik and new College Dean will continue to disappoint us. Why we didn’t line up the former President of Barnard, now the President at Dartmouth, is beyond me. Ever since Bill Campbell died we have had a board of trustees which looks like the student congress at a middling high school. That’s how we have permitted the free for all on campus to allow the inmates to run the asylum. Will this prevent us from recruiting the next Brackett to play QG, or the next Reese to play RB, or the next Worthman to play LB, or the next Wiley to play DE? Probably not, but it will not make it any easier.
How do we keep Bagnoli from advocating for Fabish? He's too young to run for president. Can't kick him upstairs like they did at Penn. We should be thankful for him but note that it's over.
A football team takes on the personality of its head coach.
What do you think Fabish represents? Toughness? Not a chance!
He preaches love in every speech. How do you think players react to those words?
I’ll tell you how they react - 0-5 in Ivy’s.
We need a Head Coach that talks and acts and bleeds and exudes…TOUGHNESS.
Interesting comment. Somehow you have managed to be part jagoff and part asshat. Or should it be ASSHAT
You're a tough guy. TOUGH!
TOUGH ASSHAT!
Maybe kidnap him? Any other ideas?
Sounds like someone struck a nerve, lol
You are assuming they have interest in coaching in the IL…
You're an idiot
What is a jagoff?
To what extent if any do we think that the poisonous atmosphere on campus right now has had an adverse effect on our team?
Not one bit, these guys are worried about school and Brown. In that order.
No doubt Coach Fabish will use the campus environment as an excuse for the team’s poor performance at season’s end.
Parents - let’s keep the commentary above board. Your son’s season is almost over. The Board can then go back to true fans/alums and the tone can go back to civility.
To true fans/alums - may you all have the program you so richly deserve once my son has moved on. Jake, like Elon seems to be another brilliant free speech absolutist so I for one will continue to call a jagoff a jagoff
Moronic statement about campus environment.
Let's give Fabish another chance. Ok I understand that we are last in the Ivies. We haven't won any Ivy games. If not for brilliant cup cake scheduling over the last 7 years,we would be sub .500. OK the offense has been soooo predictable and led by Fabish (One or two years excepted). But don't you see if we just hang on a few more years! Mangurian,Norries Wilson and Ray Tellier will look like geniuses!
Guys, do you think we can keep politics off this board? Like, really. Last time I checked, there were campus incidents and issues at Harvard, Penn, Cornell, etc. so Columbia is not unique. If you have an agenda under than discussing the team (or other CU sports), why don't you discuss them elsewhere.
Good call, Eddie! For optimal results, we might even consider a Fabish-Engles cross-sport collab.
Jagoff: a term of opprobrium unlikely to have been used by Lionel Trilling. Chicago or Pittsburgh in origination. My money's on Chicago. Chi-caahgoe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagoff
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