The Game After (1992)

Des Werthman was Mr. Everything two weeks in a row (CREDIT: Columbia Athletics)

Game of the Day (Day 60)

November 21, 1992

Columbia 34 Brown 28


A week after Des Werthman put together one of the most incredible single-game performances in Ivy League history, the senior linebacker somehow did it again against Brown.

Against Cornell the week before, Werthman seemed to single-handedly defeat the 7-1 Big Red with 16 tackles, two fumble recoveries, two rushing touchdowns, a 2-point conversion, two extra points, just missed a field goal attempt, and even threw a pass, (which went incomplete).

Not many people could have expected Werthman to produce similar numbers again. But this was his last game as a collegian, and Des held nothing back.

The Lions trailed 7-6 at the half because of a missed extra point, but then the offense got going. Werthman scored on a 21-yard run to make it 12-7 and then QB Chad Andrzejewski hit Mike Sardo for a 35-yard TD and it was 19-7.

Then the two teams started scoring back and forth in wild succession. Brown scored on a 75-yard TD pass that was deflected by a Lion defensive back but landed luckily in the hands of Bear receiver Nate Taylor.

Werthman opened the fourth quarter with a one-yard TD run, only to be matched by a 13-yard TD pass by the Bears. Columbia's final score was an 11-yard dash by Werthman that was quickly matched again by Brown with a one-yard TD pass.

With the score now 34-28, the Lions marched into field goal range and looked to finish the game off. The final few plays of the game were described to me in an interview I did with Des last year:

"Brown was a really memorable game. My fondest memory combines two plays; the first was when we were trying to ice the game and they sent me in for a field goal. You have to understand that I just hated kicking these things. I would sit there cursing myself for ever having sent a film that had footage of me kicking in it. Needless to say that I missed the field goal, no surprise here right? The next play I pretty much knew the play they were going to run. Call it intuition or whatever, but they had been trying the whole game to run a shallow cross with a deep cross and for most of the day I had played the shallow cross. This time I just knew the QB was going deep and that was exactly what he did. We picked the ball off and the game was over."

Des finished with 114 yards rushing, scored 19 points - three rushing touchdowns and an extra point - and had 15 tackles.

All in a day's work.