Carter McFadden
Moment #2: Bang Bang!
If you decided to count all of the resilient moments in Columbia's 2024 season, you'd run out of fingers and toes pretty quickly. Indeed. resiliency was what stood out the most about this team both during games and from week to week.
Columbia's first resilient moment was as exciting as it was inspiring and trendsetting for the season. Leading 10-6 and with 12:46 left in the 1st half against week one opponent Lafayette, Lion QB Chase Goodwin was strip sacked and the Leopards took over at their own 49. Momentum was already moving in Lafayette's favor before the play, as the Leopards had executed a 75-yard drive for a TD to cut the CU lead to 10-6 before DL Ayden Baker blocked the extra point attempt.
Lafayette took just two plays to get a 1st down on the Lion 39, but on that 1st down play S Carter McFadden made an extremely acrobatic one-handed interception along the west sideline to give Columbia the ball back at their own 20.
BANG!
Then on the Lions first offensive play after the pick, Goodwin threw a pass going the other way down the west sideline that WR Bryson Canty snagged in another acrobatic play for a 29-yard gain.
BANG! BANG!
Seven plays later, Goodwin threw a perfect TD pass in the east corner of the south end zone to put CU up 17-6, but it was the interception and the first play of the drive that really set a tone for that game and the season as a whole. There would be other bounce back moments like this in several games, but perhaps none came so quickly and were the result of a team effort on defense and offense.
For the record, McFadden finished the season with three interceptions, 12 passes broken up, and was fourth on the team in tackles with 50. Perhaps more impressive than his stats is the fact that his early season play forced opposing offensive coordinators to rip up their game plans that determined he was the best CU defender to target through the air. By midseason, no one was primarily throwing McFadden's way anymore.
Canty missed a full game and most of about two others, but finished the year with 43 receptions, 790 yards, and nine TD receptions. We await the news on whether he will be named a finalist for the Offensive Player of the Year.
76 comments:
Most of our DBs had excellent seasons; both safeties were excellent McFadden and the first year CB were also excellent. The best play of the defensive backfield is hard to call, but the McDonald interception against Cornell was a game changer, as was the interception by the rookie in the Brown game.
There’s speculation that offensive genius Mark Fabish is being interviewed for an assistant position at Ohio State. Last seen boarding a Columbus bound flight from Newark this afternoon dawned in scarlet and gray
Aside from the Fabish nonsense, you are certainly correct that Ohio State is likely to be vigorously searching for a new head coach after its pathetic losing effort today against Michigan in Columbus.
You're in love with him.
Our women's basketball team will be playing 13th ranked Duke in North Carolina tomorrow whereas the men's team's next three games are against low ranked Division One SUNY Albany and two nearby non- Division Two cupcakes, namely the Merchant Marine Academy and Sarah Lawrence. Can anyone explain why the approaches of the two Columbia Basketball Teams are so different?
Because Engles can’t coach, and he knows that he has to pad his win total before in-conference play begins so that he can tell everyone he’s “making progress” in year eight. I’m predicting MBB finishes sixth or seventh in the Ivies. Griffith, on the other hand, is a legit coach. The results speak for themselves.
Offensive genius, lol
Idiot!!! Columbia will win the men's IL this season.
They are scheduling cupcake to the trying to build confidence and a culture of winning.
The girls team is in a different position. They are trying to establish a national presence and reputation.
Engles and Poppe will both win IL coach of the year in thoer respective sports.
It's been a slow start, but I think they'll be building a statue for Engles outside of Dodge before he's done.
Coach G has been great, but in the end Engles will outshine her.
Laugh now.....but in a couple of years you'll see I was correct
Engles , quite simply stated, is HORRIBLE! How many years has he been here? How many games UNDER .500 is he? In the Ivies even worse. How about his NJIT record! Even worse! Don't get a woodie over his beating up D IIIs and Villanova.
Agree! Name all the other schools that would have put up with his record. NONE, NADA, ZERO,
Why do you think Columbia hired him away from NJIT?
You’re joking, right? Griffith already has an IL title. So does Poppe. Engles can’t even get to .500 in conference play. If you think he’s a good coach, you need your head examined. If you think he’ll ever win the IL, I have a bridge to sell you. Ridiculous claims like yours — with no evidence whatsoever to back them up— can be just as easily dismissed. Also, he won’t be IL coach of the year, and the losses will begin this Wednesday. The players, staff, program, school, and alums all deserve better than Engles. Just sad that the 8-0 start has fooled so many. His results over seven seasons of 25+ games apiece tell the real story. I would never say that a coach who wins less than one out of every four Ivy matchups is a great coach. A coach’s win-loss record might not matter to you (for whatever inexplicable reason), but it sure as heck does to me.
Not lost on any of us is the irony of your calling someone an idiot while saying that a) Engles has scheduled cupcakes so that the team can gain confidence this season (by beating the little sisters of the poor?) AND b) Engles will win an IL title this season. News flash, Einstein: IL champions don’t have to duck legit teams or “build confidence” by beating JV teams. That’s what losing teams (and programs) do. We won’t be a legitimate program until we fire Engles. And yes, when it comes to MBB, the other Ivies are laughing at us (and have been for the last several years).
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it might’ve had something to do with the fact that he was an assistant here for five years. Not particularly successful ones, mind you, but at least better than what we’ve seen from him as a head coach.
That's it?
Got singled out every week until Poppe/Stovall changed up the positioning on Mc Fadden
Exactly what happened!
Due to the Columbia Men's Basketball Team 8-0 start this season, I believe that CoachEngles overall won-loss record as head coach of the Columbia Men's Basketball Team from April 2016 thru current date has improved dramatically from 59 wins versus 135 losses to 67 wins against 135 losses. Unfortunately, his won-loss record in the Ivy League of 23-75 remains unchanged since conference play has not yet. My prediction is that the Lions will make the Ivy League Tournament this year with a record of 10-4
Really? Not what I saw. Hate to agree with Jake, but I think he is correct on this one. Taking shots against McFadden had low likelihood of success and teams stopped testing him
Assuming Princeton and Yale finish in the top 2 slots, who are the 2 teams besides us in the mix to finish 3rd and 4th?
And he had connections? Who the hell knows? Not sure where we’re getting with your cryptic catechism, but if the answer you’re fishing for is that someone believed “he was the right man for the job,” obviously he isn’t. Or are you suggesting that circumstances and situations never change and that for that reason, hiring decisions can’t be (and never should be) revisited? Truly bizarre. Look, his hire was a mistake—it’s that simple. But let’s not pretend it wasn’t and continue to throw good money after bad. We should acknowledge the mistake and look for someone else (which, frankly, is what we should have done several years ago).
Cornell, Brown, and Dartmouth. Somebody else also said Penn.
You named everyone else except Harvard.
You can put your pencil down—you’ve connected the dots.
As if on cue, Penn played their best game of the season and took down Maine this weekend. Roberts and Spinoso likely to give an Engles-coached team fits.
If Engles allegedly sucks so bad why was he one of the only Ivy coaches not to loose players to the Portal? He must be doing something the James Jones's and Tommy Amakars of the world are not doing. The players seem to like him and rally around him. There have been many coaching greats that have endured years of futility before making a sustained turnaround. If football could win a title, then Engles can we too. The bar in basketball is lower and we will make the IL tourney and possibly get the automatic bid to the dance.
Good question about why Engles did not lose any players to the transfer portal. My guess is that there was very little interest in any of the Columbia players given how poorly the team has played under Engles the last seven or eight years. However, I am very surprised that Columbia did not lose Geronimo de la Rosa to the trasnsfer portal. He is obviously a very talented player. However, the League
is so weak this year that the Lions ought to easily make the post-season Ivy Tournament.
Heard they tried to offer him OC but is holding out to be the head coach of the buckeyes will see if the gamble pays off.
Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa
Yeah, I can understand there being demand for players from Harvard, Yale, etc., but who from CU would other teams be interested in? Maybe DLR, but that’s about it. And perhaps teams were skittish given all of our previous exiting transfers who underperformed, got hurt, etc. Mike Smith is a notable exception; I can’t think of any other MBB players from Columbia who transferred and had any kind of impact elsewhere. It could also be that other schools are willing to go after guys from H, Y, Princeton because they know they’re well coached.
I believe the only non grad transfers who left were Forrest and Tape who sat out his senior year. Correct?
Grad transfers from '24 all having impact.
Myles Hanson and Jaron Faulds were two other non-grad transfers. I’m not sure either saw much playing time after transferring.
Yes, good catch. Faulds was happy to be at the end of the Michigan bench and Hanson didn't play at Xavier and transferred again to Stonehill.
I believe this is a football blog.
Rightuh!
Football: after ending 63 years of....and the excitement, elation subsides, a couple of thoughts on the season. Lions were bested by each of their co-champs; were we the weakest of the three? I would argue Harvard always seems to have more horses than everybody else and made a habit of terrific 4th Q comebacks (until they didn't). And Dartmouth's defense had a penchant for self-inflicted, game changing personal foul type penalties late in some of their games. For our side, could personnel decisions rather than game plan - which was excellent this season- have made a difference in those games?
Amen!
It's a clown blog
As far as the Harvard and Dartmouth losses, we were playing without our QB; it was the Harvard game that led to the decision to start the very, very talented Caleb Sanchez. If Sanchez or Goodwin had started those games, and if we hadn’t lost Townsend and five other starters who knows what would have happened.
It was always going to be a tough ask for us to beat Harvard in Cambridge. The game that hurt was the Dartmouth loss. People seem to forget that Goodwin played most of the first half, though. To his credit, Freeman scored a rushing TD in the second half and then threw those two fourth-quarter touchdowns. The crazy thing was that as poorly as we played in that game — especially against the run — we were an onside kick away from having a chance to tie in the waning moments. What I’m getting at is that even though they beat us, Dartmouth underimpressed in a lot of ways. I think you could argue we were better than Dartmouth, especially as the season progressed and Sanchez started playing. I still think Yale was best by the very end of the season, but obviously it’s about the full body of work, and they were inconsistent early on.
If you think Engles is a great coach, you probably think that Tee Rump is a moralistic, Intellectual, honest , guy! Maybe try moving to the great states of Alabama, Mississippi, etc!
You love Trump, Fabish and Engles.
Fake news.
Really hard to compare games and play. Brown and Cornell ranked bottom two defenses in the league
Sorry, there is no intersection between Trump, Fabish and Engles. But clowns continue to clutter this blog with silly references. Get out of here! Now as relates to the Ivy football co-champions....bottom line is that we tied and played the same competition. Look at the season in totality. So Cornell beat Yale and Dartmouth, Brown beat Harvard, we beat Yale who beat Harvard, and of course, with our new freshman QB and strong team effort, we closed the season with must wins over Brown and Cornell. Case closed. Most Ivy games could go any way, based on factors including injuries as well as attitude getting off the bus. Dartmouth should never have lost to Cornell. Bottom line --- the Columbia Lions, picked for the cellar by the pre-season media "experts", are co-champions. Got the job done and hats-off to everyone including the incredible defense. Columbia staff is the coaching staff of the year and Jon Poppe is the undisputed Ivy Head coach of the year given that we exceeded all expectations --- perhaps even over-performed. Enjoy and indeed, this is a football blog, but okay for Lion faithful to post on hoops. We shall see when both MBB and WBB head up to Providence for Ivy Madness at Brown's Pizzitola. (Princeton, Yale, Brown will be there with a dogfight for the 4th slot with your Columbia MBB team taking that slot.)
Too many words
Poppe and company did an incredible job! And the players gave it their all! Nothing but plaudits for all involved. I’m going to enjoy this one for a long time.
Isn't this a Football forum? Why all the basketball posts?
I think people are frustrated that MBB has been allowed to languish under a bad coach. The success of football under a brilliant new coach provides an obvious counterpoint. Let’s hope the 8-0 start isn’t a tease, though I’m not holding my breath, given the level of competition thus far, as well as our problems in the frontcourt.
Thanks to the success of the Columbia University Football Team, Columbia University has received more favorable press locally and nationally the past week than in the last 15 +/- months altogether. Our players and coaches deserve sainthood!
Columbia received two votes for the AP Top 25 this week. It’s put up or shut up time for Engles. Wednesday’s night’s game should tell us a lot.
No, not too many words. A thoughtful post instead of five word bullshit, Inflammatory posts. The lengthy post above was simply a response to Spuyten suggesting that Harvard and Dartmouth are better than we are. Because they beat us. Maybe, maybe not. We beat teams they lost to. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? We are co-champions. Nothing wrong with Benefiting from this platform to touch on other Columbia sports teams. Most of the people here care about this, and it expands the discussion and relevance of the blog. If you don’t want to read about men’s and women’s basketball comments by various folks, dismiss and move on. And maybe add some additional football thoughts while you are at it.
Absolutely, great post. And that’s why some of us remain tied to the university. Through our athletics.
Or at least some sweet sweet NIL $’s!!!
We beat Cornell right after Cornell demolished Dartmouth. As far as Harvard, we were down 19-7 and in it until the fading minutes when Harvard scored on a busted defense. And I still say that Hebb caught the pass on the Harvard 5 which was called a non-catch, and that either Sanchez or Goodwin would have connected on a few other throws in which receivers were open and Freeman missed or didn’t see them. That’s why the switch to Sanchez was made. I would move Freeman to RB next season and have him bulk up this winter. I am really torn as to whether Goodwin or Sanchez gets the start—we have two excellent candidates there. As far as other times, I’m sorry that Townsend entered the portal. He is a difference maker—as great as our defense played without him, he would have made for a tremendous pass rush.
Good response. I hate all of that “too cool for school” sneeringly dismissive one-sentence snark that contributes nothing to this forum.
Let’s not forget Freeman’s gutsy performance and late TD pass against Yale. That win saved our season. I know he made some bad decisions against Georgetown and Harvard, but I think he’s catching a bit too much flak on this board. And no, I’m not his dad. For the record, I agree about turning him into a back. I’d start Goodwin next year if he’s healthy, with Sanchez a very good second option.
CF is not a back. No where near quick enough. Thats why his designed qb runs never get anywhere. He can be a threat running read option
Hopefully, Townsend will return, but the coaching staff has successfully recruited an outstanding edge rusher from St. John Bosco the same high school powerhouse in California as Caleb Sanchez attended.
Come on now - you know better. Nobody knows whether or not a recruit can play at least until after their first preseason camp - let alone replace an all-ivy talent
I thought I taught you all better than that.
Ps: recruits from “name” high schools often get over-recruited.
I disagree with you my friend. The edge rusher attends the same California high school powerhouse as our outstanding freshman quarterback, Caleb Sanchez. The defensive lineman is our highest rated incoming recruit with a three-star designation because of his size ,speed and documented performance. I don't think you need to wait for preseason camp to confirm he can play.
Let’s see what this Young Man does before we name him a superstar. College is much different than High School. I’ve seen 5 star recruits a bust.
So “disagreeable”, let me see if I understand your logic. Because a recruit is from the same highly rated high school and is a 3-star high school player, but untested at the college level, a different recruit from the same high school and untested at the D1 college level will be as talented, successful, if not more so, as the 3-star high school recruit. Is that a fair assessment of your thinking? If so, I surely hope you did not get a degree from Columbia. Otherwise you have just diminished the value of a Columbia degree.
I surely hope you understand that being a 3 star recruit from a High School that we recruited another player from doesn’t guarantee the success of the player. He needs to strap it up and prove he can play at the next level. It’s not that hard to figure out.
Strap it up, bro.
Do you guys understand the meaning of stars?
And how they given ?
To quote Moby, “We are all made of stars.”
I like players from CA with 3 or more stars, especially if they played in the Trinity League. I also like tacos.
Do I have to bring up the 4 star recruit that turned down full ride (not PWO) to Alabama to play for Princeton? Never saw the field
I wish all incoming recruits the best. It just makes the Columbia fan base appear “very low football IQ” to say incoming recruit is a replacement for all-ivy talent
Btw. How many stars did JT have? What was his depth chart position as a FY? State dont matter, stars dont matter, hs dont matter. When they play, you know
Class dismissed
Can’t agree more. JT is a stud and stars don’t make players.
JT is one of the best defensive players we’ve ever had.
Some of us are in the gutter, but all of us are looking at the stars...
Class dismissed! Lol
Looking at the stars and dreaming
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