Columbia-Cornell Keys to the Game
Just add snow
With some snow in the forecast now, there's a chance this game won't become another shootout like the Dartmouth and Princeton games were for the Lions.
But I'm betting most of the game will be played in decent conditions, and we know the Schoelkopf AstroTurf will not get ripped up by rain, snow, or an industrial thresher.
1) Don't let Liuzza run wild
Stephen Liuzza will get the start tomorrow and that could spell doom for the Lions who have had serious trouble containing rushers, especially quarterbacks who can run. But in the Princeton game, Columbia made Tiger QB's Bill Foran and Greg Mroz pay from time to time by forcing fumbles and making hard hits. The Lions must do the same tomorrow, and with the shotgun spread Liuzza likes to run out of, there's certainly a possibility that guys like Phil Mitchell and Justin Masorti can get to him.
2) Establish the passing game
Columbia needs to get Knowlin going early and then mix in the run as something more than just a obvious breather from the passing attack. On the fast AstroTurf, I think Ray Rangel might be able to get some good gains and make what I expect to be an all-out Cornell pass rush pay.
3) Don't get caught up in the hype
"Senior Day" at Cornell has the feel of a Homecoming game some years. There should be some decent hometown fan support at the game tomorrow, but the Lions need to tune that out.
posted by Jake @ 9:46:00 PM
41 comments
41 Comments:
Anyone have any comment on Marcellus Wiley's commentary rol on ESPN this morning.
He's a pretty articulate guy.
I'm sure that was a test spot to see how he'd do.
Thoughts?
Marcellus has been on the sports talks show and preshows before - and yes, he speaks well.
I remember he was on the day they had the Gameday thing at Penn, and he said they were a dirty school.
Got some Penn fan's backs up - they're very touchy apparently.
Another time he was on a preshow with Terry Bradshaw I seem to remember.
It's Dat Dood fyi..changed his name a few years ago. He is a frequent guest on Cold Pizza and he does alright. Also has been on the NFL network quite a bit in the past
JV game results......Columbia 30, Cornell 21!
How about some more info on the jv game from anyone who might have watched?
From a text message from my son...
We led the whole game. We scored 2 defensive touchdowns. It was sloppy on the astroturf, and raining, so the kicking game and passing were affected for both teams.
I just noticed that the jv game is archived on the Cornell site, free. I tried to watch it but it must not be loaded yet. But keep checking back and you should be able to watch the game there.
Some details on the JV game are at the voy site, and you can see scoring info at
http://livestats.internetconsult.com/cornell/football/
at least for now....
Leonidas
JV game stats
First downs Cor 11 Col 17
Total off 203 270
Passing 4/21 11/23
Interceptions 7 2
Interception yrds 18 165 or so
TOP 22:14 37:46
Sacks by 7 0
Olawale 3/6 1 interception 3 sacks
Havas 6/15 1 4
Corey 2/2 0 0
Zac Kouroma 14 carries 62 yds
Leon Ivery 14 80
Those interception were the story of the game, but how do we give up 7 sacks and get none?
Leonidas
here's the deal...Cornell is a freaking state school for all tense and purposes. Half their team is backdoored in thru the Ag school. We have just as much talent as they do. They are very beatable. Tired of hearing we're a young team and moral victories and next year. Get a damn W--NW-prove your mettle as a coach/motivator and get it done. One Ivy win--help us,help the program and more importantly help yourself....1-9 isn't a great recruiting tool especially when you're one win is over a quasi d3 program...
The JV game, including stats, is on video at www.cornellbigred.com
Sloppy, cold conditions hampered both teams, but it was impressive that in the 2nd half Columbia clearly controlled the line of scrimmage and ran the ball nearly at will. Just watch these underclassmen play and you can see there are better things for the Varsity coming. Our JV are now undefeated (2-0) and just beat a team that was 2-1.
For alumni/supporters wondering what they can do to help Columbia football, helping get more JV games on the schedule and fund video coverage of them would be a very nice addition...parents like us who live 1000 miles away often can't afford the trip to watch JV games--it is a nice way to stay connected with our sons,Columbia football and Columbia U, by watching these games on the internet.
A strong football parents organization under the auspices of the Columbia Athletic Department would be a tremendous plus to all the players, the coaches and the program. I hope one of the interested parents contacts Dr. Murphy immediately about this. One Hundred Football Parents Can Make A Differnce!
Two Hundred Parents, Five Hundred Parents, Family and Friends Would Be Even Better. Let's Do It!
Not just the Ag school, but hotel administration.
21-0 1st Q--looks like NW really had these kids ready to play once again. Pathetic. I'll give it 3 more quarters before I really chime in.
I see Kelly finally got in a game and it sounds like he was decent. Did Hormann get hurt or did NW finally pull him? For those who saw the game, any insight on Kelly's play would be appreciated.
Any insight on the 3 QB's who played JV.
You can watch the varsity game at www.cornellbigred.com and click on live video.
A couple of observations
1) Our QB lack of mobility REALLY hurt us in this game.
2) We have allowed 3 special team LONG TD's this year. All have been momentum changers--on a blocked FG (Penn), a blocked FG and a kickoff(Cornell). This is unacceptable,as it demoralizes and undercuts the rest of the players.
OOPS--I meant the special teams TD's that killed us were
blocked FG (Penn), punt and kickoff return (Cornell).
Pope was supposedly a good recruit but doesn't seem have played. Anyone know why?
The only pages the JV game is even noted is here and on the Cornell AD site. The BR thinks enough of theirs to put games on their video service, free. I guess the Columbia dept. doesn't appreciate the efforts of the kids and coaches. Too bad; they and the women's swimming and soccer teams were our only winning squads this weekend.
I FOLLOWED THE GAME ON RADIO AND HAVE THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS: THE COMEBACK EFFORT BY HORMANN WAS ADMIRABLE, BUT HE SHOULD HAVE PROBABLY NOT BEEN THE STARTER. HE LOST THE SPRING AND MOST OF THE PRESEASON. HIS MOBILITY WAS AWFUL, HE BECAME ENTIRELY ONE DIMENSIONAL, AND HE NEVER LEARNED TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS. SHANE KELLY MAY NOT HAVE AS STRONG AN ARM BUT HE SEEMS TO HAVE GIVEN US A BOOST WITH HIS ABILITY TO CHECK OFFTHE HOT RECEIVER AND TO FIND THE OPEN MAN. NW CAN RECRUIT AND IS A CLASS GUY, BUT HOW MUCH OF THE COACHING IS HE DOING? OUR SPECIAL TEAMS WERE JUST AWFUL. SEVERAL LONG RUN-BACKS BY A TEAM WHICH FEATURES THE RUNBACK. WHY WEREN'T WE PREPARED FOR THAT? WHY DID WE ALWAYS RETURN KICK OFFS INTO COVERAGE? AS FOR THE OFFENSE IN GENERAL, BASICALLY TERRIBLE. NO OFFENSIVE LINE PLAY,DESPITE HAVING A HC WHO IS AN OLD OL HIMSELF. TERRIBLE RUN DEFENSE AND AN INSITENCE UPON STICKING WITH A DEFENSIVE SCHEME FOR WHICH WE LACKED THE PERSONNEL. THERE AREN'T THAT MANY GREAT PASSERS IN THE IVIES. RUN A FOUR MAN FRONT, PUT 8 IN THE BOX, STOP THE RUN FIRST AND FORCE THE OPPONENT TO PASS, SINCE WE HAVE GOOD DB PLAY. JAKE, PLEASE CHIME IN.
While the Varsity could go winless in the IVY, lets look at the underclassmen, who will make up the backbone of the team for the next 2-3 years. They outplayed Cornell on Friday, and take on Brown this Friday...they could go 3-0 in JV play. The JV team is the immediate future of Columbia football-this team will be better.
Hey it's great the JV team won a few games but that is hardly a barometer to the future of the varsity. I'll remind you Garrett's frosh team went undefeated and that team won 2 games over the next three years. And yes when you go winless in The Ivy's, you can only get better. Let's hope the coaching gets better. We should have won at least two Ivy games this year but as numerous posters have mentioned, the coaches seemed to make few adjustments in close games and were incredibly stubborn in starting players who probably should have sat 5 games ago....
There's no doubt the 3-man defensive front has been a disaster this year, and Hormann has not delivered as well as expected. I think those have been the two main problems, and coaching has also "left much to be desired" (to quote Wilson's comment on the O-line). Against Cornell the team reminded me of Shoop's last season...disturbing.
On the plus side, Shane Kelly looked pretty good, maybe more accurate than Hormann (who seems to have regressed lately), and a couple of more wide receivers, J.A. Williams and Jancisin got into the mix. Lots of work to be done...no excuse for the terrible special teams play on both sides of the ball. Can this coaching crew do it? Next year will tell.
Blaming the coaches after 19 games?
Columbia fans are delusional. This isn't the NFL. There isn't an equal distribution of talent in the Ivy League - and there is no entry draft conducted in inverse order of finish at the end of each season.
The notion that people have that all things are equal except for the playcalling is asinine.
Columbia has had problems over the years because the majority of alumni have been cheap bastards more than anything else.
Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, and yes, even Brown - all outearn Columbia in fundraising. That's why the recent athletics campaign is so important.
Cheap alumni who like to kick the team when its down will not bring victory.
And a corollary - giving a little bit of money doesn't make one a football genius, either. Leave the coaches alone. More faith is required from the peanut gallery. At this time, generous gifts are more worthwhile than internet trashing of the program.
It would be one thing if the critics were T Boone Pickens types paying the freight for the entire program... like he does at Okla St.
Unless these anon comments are from Kraft or Campbell... they are as worthless as the people making them.
I believe in Norries and Dr. Murphy. Change will happen - but you have to be patient.
Is that what it is about? How much does a winning team cost? Would an Ivy league champion cost twice as much? Oh, and the fans can't criticize the coaching decisions?
What planet ,exactly, did you come from?
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the coaches as Norries Wilson and his staff are all outstanding people and coaches. The reason Columbia is not as successful at football as the other Ivy League Schools is because our football players are not as good as theirs. We simply do not get as many talented high school players as the other Ivy League schools. However, that is starting to change, as Coach Wilson and his staff become better known around the country and make contact with top high school players earlier in the recruiting cycle. Remember that there are no easy academic programs at Columbia so we are at a tremendous disadvantage when competing with some other schools for talent. Also, it takes awhile for a new coach at Columbia to learn how to recruit successfully in the Ivy League,particularly when you are going up against the Big Three--Harvard, Yale and Princeton. We just to have remain very positive about Columbia Football and hope that Coach Wilson brings in some great talent in the near future.
Wilson has recruited only one class from start to finish, the current first years. There is a lot of talent in that class. The some of the first year O line guys are physically more talented than the current starters but they aren't up to speed on the blocking schemes and playing this offense. O line is complicated and it takes time to develop starters.
It also takes time to build a successful college football program. Two maybe three more years at least. Wilson is recruiting better players than the ones he inherited. You can't legitimately judge Wilson's abilities until he fields a team that is 80 to 100 percent his recruits. That won't happen until the 2009 season.
The biggest factor that can be addressed immediately after the season in a meaningful way is the strength program. These guys need to get much stronger and the only way to do that is by serious effort in the weight room.
Anyone who expected this year's record match or better last year's 5+5, doesn't know very much about football. The current team is younger and more inexperienced and the schedule is much tougher than last year's.
Wilson does have what no coach at CU has had in decades, an administration and board of trustees that is supportive. Come on filks, give rationality a chance and drop your silly overblown expectations. It is way to early to judge the tenure of Mr. Wilson and his staff.
In the immortal words of Vince Vaughn's character in "Be Cool", "Don't be hating, start participating."
In other words, come to the games, give some money and hold your bellyaching.
There are some good football players at all levels of the program who will contribute, not just the current freshman and sophomores. They need time in the weight room and confidence in the program.
To be successful, we'll have to have players in all years that are contributing on the field and in practice.
To 8:25..
How much does it cost? It costs 100mil.
Look at our facilities compared to HYP - or even Dartmouth for that matter. Stuff like that matters for recruits.
Oh, and unless you've been under a rock for a while, you would realize that doing business in NYC costs exponentially more than Hanover, Ithaca, and other places.
Think about it this way:
IF Columbia's avg. football operation expense > all other Ivy schools
AND Columbia's avg. donor kitty < all other Ivy schools
THEN Big Problem
Bill Campbell and Robert Kraft cant save the program themselves.
And yes, you shouldn't criticize the coaches in a public forum. This is not the NFL. Our coaches have to convince high school age kids that they will be supported and appreciated, and that there is a culture of respect for the football team at Columbia. That's tough to do when the coaches are torn down by anonymous posters on a pro-CU board.
It's bad enough that the students are whiny, worse that the alumni are too.
Recruiting is the key. Look at Head Coach Ron Zook at Illinois, who was nearly thrown out 2 years ago by the impatient Illinois fans. Now he has a team that HE recruited. Now he is ranked 18th in the nation. Now he is a genious.
And lets not lose sight that these boys are students 1st, athletes 2nd, not getting paid a dime,and getting no favortism from teachers.
While it is nice to win,it is more important they are learning to be accomplished and outstanding men of character under NW. From the posts by players parents, it seems this is happening. What can the alumni do? I dunno, but maybe open doors for these boys using your connections with summer jobs, internships or whatever. These are outstanding young men representing Columbia more than just on the football field.
It seems over the years that Columbia has lost the "recruiting game" to other Ivy schools judging from their W-L records. As a parent of a current player, we saw 1st hand how the game is played.
HYP play up the tradition, school spirit, football facilities and championships along with the jobs their football grads snare when they are out. Columbia is at a disadvantage for much of this, but some of it is being neutralized by having a coaching staff that is as respected by the players as NW et al is, an administration that is more committed than ever to help and support the team, and good recruiting classes, which brings hope that these boys can be a part of a program on the upswing. This can turn around, depending on how well NW sells the Columbia experience to the boys and their families over the next 3 months. Help him have a great year recruiting, by supporting the Columbia experience any way you can. Even the Cornell football commentators, during the game, talked about NW recruiting ability and character with more respect than many CU bloggers. He is a gem, from my perspective. Give him another couple of years.
I fully agree with the posters who say that we need to show support both morally and financially. some of the complaining here is by well meaning alums who absolutely love columbia football and can't stand the losing. So point well taken. Let's stay positive, help NW and our players, encourage administration support, and write some bigger checks. We can and will turn this thing around. We have some terrific young players. Let's geet our guys into the weight room and do what we cna on recruiting. And Ron Zook is a great example. Likewise Greg Schiano. When I was at the College, Penn and Brown were bothe doormats. We ahve alot to sell; great school; great location; and wonderful HC who really cares.
As easily demonstrated in some of the comments over the season, anyone can be a critic. Not everyone can, or will, take a higher road and find a way to become part of the solution. If you can, and will, let's hear from you!
In the hierarchy of importance in any organization, it will always be people first and resources second. Most recently, the posters here (under "Columbia-Cornell Keys to the Game" on Sat Nov 10, 07:20:00 AM PST and Sat Nov 10, 07:22:00 AM PST), who speak of a developing a strong parent organization are #1 and #2 in my book, and so count me in at #3.
As parents, we have already successfully invested time, effort, and sacrifice into these young men. So surely this is an idea at least worthy further exploration.
I applaud the idea of a strong parents organization and suggest that implementation begin as early as Senior Day this Saturday. I'm not sure how something like this get's started, so maybe someone needs to call Dr. Murphy for her suggestions.
I will do whatever I can to help make a real parents organization get started. I know there are other alumni support networks, but I say: "The more the better."
Let's all think about this in the coming days and see what we can do.
Another positive has to be the play of the wide receivers. Derek Jancisin stepped up and made a couple of really nice catches, as did Josh Willams, Tim Paulin, Taylor Joseph, Nico Gutierrez, and of course, Austin Knowlin, who has been terrific all season. The receiving corps is the team's strength. With Tim graduating we should be very strong at this position next year, even before you factor in the newcomers.
This past weekend we started a parent roster. It's a beginning. With only twelve names, we will need to get many more on Friday and Saturday. Any parents who are reading this can send your info (son's name, number, position, hometown, phone # and email address) to cbelk@earthlink.net.
In the coming months we can address what we can do to make a difference.
Regarding the post above (parent roster), please send me your first and last names as well as your son's info.
Although like everyone else I would have liked a couple more wins, especially for the kids and the coaches who put so much effort into winning,I don't see the season as a disaster. I see it as a step in the growth of this program. My biggest fear is panic from alumni and admin. will not let Wilson see his program through to fruition. Building a program does not mean that since you were 5-5 last year,well we should at least be that again, maybe 6-4. Building means getting a good group of talented recruits in every class you bring in and retaining them for four years. I think coach Wilson did a great job coming in late his first year and convincing as many great young players to commit as he did. I think this years class will truly pan out to be a very outstanding one. By the time this first year group are jrs.,with a couple more classes,this team will have a good base of talent to compete year in and year out. A lot of espoused negativity can only help to deter potential recruits. It's not all about the wins right now. With support from fans and admin. Wilson will get the job done. I've heard complaints about his coaching and his yelling at kids. Hey football coaches yell at players, but coach Wilson is not afraid to well up in tears and tell the kids he loves them too. Great guy, great leader,great role model. Please believe me, we are lucky to have found coach Wilson at this time in in Columbia athletics.
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