Ranking the Ivies
Jake's Ivy Power Rankings (as of 9/23/07)
1. Yale
The Elis follow up a slight scare at Georgetown with a real mauling of the Big Red at the Bowl. Cornell started to implode at the end, but the Eli defense made things happen as opposed to just dodging bullets like they did in week one.
2. Princeton
Just when the Leopards were looking unbeatable, Princeton goes into their house and posts a pretty convincing win. Take away the big 89-yard Lafayette run for a TD and this game isn't close. Tiger QB Bill Foran showed huge improvement from game 1.
3. Harvard
The Crimson move up on the shoulders of their win over Brown and Holy Cross' total domination over Georgetown, making Harvard's close loss to the Crusaders in week one look pretty respectable. The Crimson's great run defense of 2006 returned to the field Saturday night.
4. Brown
The Bears put up a respectable showing at Harvard, but some of the final stats were ugly.
5. Columbia
The Lions have big trouble stopping the run, but some adjustments were made at the end of the game that seemed to work. Meanwhile, Columbia's run blocking on offense was better than it's been in 4 years and a 31-7 win always helps.
6. Dartmouth
Well, you can't complain too much about the Big Green offense. And the defense was torched no worse by UNH than Marshall a week before. They get the reeling Penn Quakers at home this weekend.
7. Penn
Penn's passing game is horrifically error prone. If Sandberg doesn't come back soon the Quakers are doomed.
8. Cornell
The Big Red go from first to worst in the span of just one week. Last year it was just road woes, but now they're coupled with mental mistakes. Cornell needs a big rebound against Georgetown this week.
posted by Jake @ 9:53:00 PM
27 comments
27 Comments:
Is Yale really that good? Or is Cornell really that bad? With all the hype from Ithaca something must be wrong. I think that Cornell doesn't have the personnel for a hurry up offense.
I think the Big Red are still a very young team and they got very sloppy at the end. Until Cornell wins a game on the road, they certainly won't contend.
I think you might be a bit generous with Columbia there.
Jake- I like the ranking. Try and make this a wkly event.
I know this is a fball blog, but I'm curious about how other Columbia fball alums feel about today's Iran-related campus events.
Regarding the Iran thing, I would guess Bollinger et al are trying to show the guy that we're a free country and we want to dialogue for peace. Sometimes the best way to subdue an enemy is to become his friend. Will it work? Worth a try, I'd say.
I am outraged and think Bollinger and Coatsworth should be fired. I have never felt this strongly about a Columbia issue. It's a PC airhead reaction. Coatsworth is the idiot who said he would have invited Hitler to speak at Columbia.
Bollinger attacked Ahminejad quite strongly in his comments--it was the polar opposite of a friendly or gracious welcome--hard to believe but I think Bollinger may actually have overdone it. In any case I have no problem with the invitation, although I wouldn't have issued it.
Regarding Jake's ratings: I don't think we can rank Columbia above Penn, Brown, and Dartmouth, all of whom were playing far tougher opponents than Marist. Plus Columbia was at home, and Penn and Brown were on the road. Penn was leading at halftime at Villanova--not something I could expect from Columbia at this point. We won't know what kind of team we have until after Princeton. I need to see us stop the run before I rank us fourth in the league.
Leonidas
Are knowles and Bags going to be on the hot seat if they don't win this year? Bags may be entered into the Carm Cozza stage after many years as the league bully. You will recall that Carm had five or so mediocre years in a row at the end of the career. Sonce when does a Penn team throw 7 interceptions and have neither a kicking nor a running game? As for Knowles, he seems to be an enthusiastic and energetic recruiter but cornell is not known for its patience.
Regretfully, at this stage I would have to agree with Leonidas. Week one we looked really bad at Fordham and Marist is the worst team we will see this year and they still ran the ball well against us. We won the turnover battle which helped create the scoring disparity but until the defense solidifies we can't put ourselves above any Ivy brethren at this time.
Columbia's passing game has looked consistently strong in both games. Penn, Dartmouth and Cornell don't have a weapon like Knowlin and Hormann is also better than all their QB's.
Defensively, we're weak against the run, but still found a way to win last week and not get embarrassed against Fordham like Cornell did against Yale.
And listen, there are very few solid O-lines, if any, in the Ivies right now. Columbia will fare a lot better against most Ivies than they did against Fordham's surprisingly veteran and strong front five.
Jake, we couldn't do much in the Harvard scrimmage against the Harvard O Line. I think that this is a reflection of hte fact that we haven't quite clicked up front as of yet. I was not happy with the fact that another no name RB went for a career day against us. I suspect that Lagomarsino is a little bit better than what we have seen. We need to get a better defensive surge up front and wrap up when we tackle. We will also need to force Foran to the inside when he tries to scramble. Remeber that Foran is a Purdue transfer where he was a recruited D 1 player with good speed. He will look to run first and pass second, and he will try to run the option around the ends, where Mitchell et al. will have to snuff it out and Masorti will have to clean up inside.
Bollinger is a PC airhead. He is afraid of being Summerized by a PC faculty which thinks it's OK to ban ROTC but just fine to invite the little Nazi from Iran. It is disgraceful.
Let's just hope this doesn't hurt the team in any way.
I'm worried that it will hurt recruiting; other schools will be able to point out that we have an airhead PC President who can't host ROTC but is all too pleased to host a murderous thug who is providing arms which are killing Americans. Footballers as a rule do not come from PC families. And what about fund raising? We are trying to raise big bucks to build a new fieldhouse. Do you think this helps? Apart from all else, even if the head of SIPA backed Lee into a corner and he didn't have the guts to countermand the invitation, this display shows that he doesn't have an ounce of common sense.
This will blow over in a week and Lee was brilliant with his intro.
Everyone needs to calm down. I don't see how the speech has anything to do with football. I don't like the guy either but some of you need to settle down a bit. None of the Ivies are anything but extremely PC at this point in history so what difference does it make? Another drop in the ocean in my book. Brown, Yale, Harvard, etc. are all also extremely liberal schools that are inclined to do stuff similar to this from time to time to show how "enlightened" they are. Big whoop.
I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill with the Ahmadinejad speech. I can completely understand not supporting the invitation--I wouldn't have issued it--but Bollinger is far from an airhead and in fact is the most substantive Ivy League president currently serving. Who would you trade him for? Only Levin at Yale comes close.
Bollinger slammed Ahmadinejad in his remarks, and the "cruel and petty tyrant" remark is leading in newspapers around the country, so the attendant publicity hardly makes Columbia look too PC. Anyway, the whole thing will blow over quickly and in a few days will be largely forgotten.
As for athletics, remember that Bollinger is the guy who invited Bill Campbell to join the board of trustees. He's also the first president to form or permit to be formed a board of trustees commitee on athletics. He took a personal hand in the recruitment of the athletic director. He is supporting a fundraising campaign for athletics (which I understand is going to be rolled out this fall) as part of the overall Campaign for Columbia. He is trying to get the new campus in Manhattanville approved which will give us space for new athletic facilities. If anyone is really serious about Bollinger not deserving to be president, just reflect on whether you think you'll get anyone better.
Want to know what will drive recruiting? How hard the football team competes this season, and how well the coaches sell the program. Today's speech will have no impact.
Leonidas
This alum totally agree with Leonidas. In my opinion, President Bollinger made a marvellous opening statement today attacking Ahmevileidiot from which the Iranian madman never recovered. Millions of viewers heard the tyrant deny the existence of homosexuals in Iran, question the Holocaust, and lie, lie and lie about nuclear weapons, his feelings about 9/11, Israel, etc. As far as the Columbia football program is concerned, there's no question that President Bollinger fully supports the program, and I suspect his speech next Friday kicking-off "The Columia Campaign Campaign for Athletics: Achieving Excellence," will contain some nice goodies for Columbia Football Fans. Let's Go Lions!
I am not in the loop on the Friday announcement of the camaign for athletics at Columbia. Somehow I thought it was happening at Homecoming--did you mean a week from Friday?
Where and when is the announcement/kickoff event, and what is going to be announced?
Jake why don't you get the Princeton-Lafayette film and post some clips for discussion?
People who think Bollinger scored academic points are naive about the real impact of those points on the world at large. Iran will find a way to use the comments to suit its purposes. But I doubt this will affect the football program. Recruits probably won't see much difference in attitudes among most Ivy schools.
Sorry about that, I meant Friday, October 5 at Low Memorial Library Rotunda. The program is from 4:00-5:00 P.M. with a 5:00 P.M. to 5:30 P.M. reception. Unfortunately, I have no idea what will be announced, but I assume it will be something significant.
I received this announcement:The Columbia Campaign for Athletics: Achieving Excellence will be held At Low Library Rotunda 0n Friday October 12th at 4pm. Space is limited. RSVP and details at (212) 854-2781.
OUR JORDAN DAVIS IVY OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK! While I don't know what happens next week, O got it done this week. Hopefully, we'll build on the positives from this week and look to improve next against Princeton. I guess at least 4 things need to work for this to happen: good scheme/good calls (coaching), good effort from the back(our man Jordan), good effort from the 5 line guys and good decisions from 14. If the run game has another good week, it'll be due to all those factors working together in a positive way. Credit to all involved in this effort, you've set a new standard for the NW era at Columbia.
I think Davis is a b etter inside runner, especially with Stoll out in front. I also think that Stoll is a great potential weapon, and we saw some flashes of that. We must stay with the running game and not go to the gun so often. It is much harder to run out of the gun. also, our passing game needs to be more vertical. We can't continue too go with those WR screens to Knowlin; one of these days somebody will pick one off and take it to the house. On the run defense, I still think we need a bigger body over the center. We also need Masorti to play the gap on the strong side. Taems will run on us until we can stop it.
I agree that winning football games will be the best way to help the game attendance and alumni contributions.
Regarding the Iran campus event, it is telling that the ROTC and Minutemen are not afforded as much respect by the students/faculty to be heard on the Columbia campus as was this madman who used this as a political platform. Not very open minded...
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