There's not much "news" I can report from preseason training camp, so I'll do the smart thing and look at how Columbia's out of conference opponents have done so far in their *regular season games.
Week one opponent Lafayette lost at Buffalo 30-13 last week in a game that was notable as Pete Lembo's debut as the Buffalo Bulls head coach.
But while the Leopards were clear underdogs going into the game and the loss was not a surprise, the total bottling up of Lafayette star RB Jamar Curtis was surprising. Curtis was held to just 12 yards on 14 carries, with a long run of eight yards. As good as the rest of thewo Leopard team is, especially on defense, this team will not win games unless Curtis does damage.
The Leopards will be on the road again tomorrow to play Monmouth. Next week, they'll host Marist before taking on the Lions at Wien Stadium on the 21st.
Naieem Kearny
Week two foe Georgetown fared much better at home in a 46-24 win over Davidson. It was a close 19-17 Hoya lead late in the 1st half before Georgetown rattled off 27 straight points.
The Hoyas did it with the run. They racked up 263 rushing yards and a whopping 9.3 yards per carry average. This is even though Georgetown ran the ball by committee. Naieem Kearney was technically the top runner with 87 yards, but he only had five carried.
Meanwhile, the Hoyas passed the ball just 17 times for 106 yards.
Of all of Columbia's out of conference opponents, Georgetown has become the hardest one to figure out from week to week. For example, just a week after losing to the Lions 30-0 last year, the Hoyas shocked everyone by defeating Fordham a week later in the Bronx. Every year, GU puts up a shocking win or two like that.
The Lions have defeated Georgetown three games in a row, but before this current streak the two teams always seemed to play nail-biter games that went down to the wire and neither team would win more than twice in a row.
Tomorrow the Hoyas take on Marist (and Marist is NOT on the CU schedule this season) in the Red Foxes' home opener.
Hameline Field, Staten Island
Week four opponent Wagner trounced D-III Lynchburg 46-7. There's not much to take away from this game, as you might expect. But we'll learn more when the Seahawks travel to Lehigh tomorrow.
Wagner hasn't had a winning season since 2016, but the Seahawks are on the mend overall. After not winning a game in 2021 and 2022, Wagner went 4-7 last year.
Columbia travels to Staten Island on October 12th for the first time since eking out a 15-13 win over the Seahawks in 2016.
4 comments:
Absolutely detest the fact that Lafayette plays 3 games before our season opener. I am praying we come through the contest in good health !
Agreed, DOC. Puts us at a huge disadvantage before we’ve even had a snap.
And all against FBS opponents.
Correction: including a game against an FBS opponent
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