Fordham Week Begins

We're there in 5 days!


Game week has finally arrived as the Lions are now in full prep-for-Fordham mode in practice.

I had a chance to check out the team a little this weekend during Saturday's media day and the players seem calm, focused, and even a bit photogenic at this point.


Saturday Scoreboard

Week 2 opponent Central Connecticut was whipped by highly-ranked FCS opponent William & Mary by a 33-14 score.

Of special interest to Columbia is the way that W&M's dual threat QB R.J. Archer passed for 129 yards and two TD's and also ran for 63 yards and a TD on 11 carries. Archer is 6-2 and 220, the Lions' Millie Olawale is 6-1 and 224 and, (I'm willing to bet), faster than Archer. Discuss.

Week 4 foe Lafayette looked especially strong in a 28-3 win over Georgetown in D.C. Saturday night.

As you might expect the Leopard defense was dominant, giving up just 19 net yards rushing. Lafayette had six tackles for a loss including three sacks.

Offensively, Lafayette committed no turnovers and got 5.5 yards per carry in the running game.

The game was still a but sloppy in other ways as the Leopards committed ten penalties and the Hoyas had seven.

Something else that completely surprised me was the weak night put in by Lafayette's all-star placekicker David Rodriguez. He missed all three of his field goal attempts from 38, 34, and 32 yards. Rodriguez has been a "lights-out" kicker for this team in his previous two seasons. He was a perfect 4-4 in his PAT kicks, so I don't think he was injured. Perhaps this was just a weird night.

And One More Thing...

Fordham's coaches did something very productive during the Rams bye week. They hosted a Crash course in how to watch football for women on the Fordham campus. I wish I had known about this and I may have sent my wife... who despite an illustrious career playing varsity basketball in high school, still does not really "get" football.



Jeff Otis with the Raiders


Day 5: Jeff Otis '05

One of the many great Columbia QB's in recent decades who got lost in the shuffle was Jeff Otis. In fact in 2003, Otis probably had the best single season as a passer that Columbia had seen in 20 years.

Jeff came to Columbia in 2001 with some great football blood in his veins. His dad Jim was an All-America fullback at Ohio State in the late 60's before enjoying a 10-year career in the NFL. His brother Jimmy successfully walked on to the Buckeye team and got decent playing time over the years.

Otis didn't get into any games as a frosh, but he made a little bit of noise as a soph with a TD pass against Colgate and a TD run against Yale... both in "garbage time."

But that was enough for new Head Coach Bob Shoop to give Otis the starting job in 2003. And it paid off.

Otis responded with 2,552 yards passing, a 58% completion rate, and 17 TD passes. The yardage and TD pass numbers were the highest since John Witkowski '84 put up even bigger numbers in 1983.

But the stats don't tell the whole story. Otis showed big-time leadership skills that year in the comeback win over Princeton that ended in a Hail Mary TD score. The week before he led the team on a last minute TD drive for a win at home over Bucknell. And in week 8 against Harvard, he overcame a slow start and some punishing hits to pull out a 16-13 win over the Crimson.

Otis' most lethal target was tight end Wade Fletcher '05, who hauled in nine of those 17 TD passes.

But Fletcher got injured before the 2004 season, and Otis' numbers suffered greatly that senior season.

Nevertheless, he caught the eyes of a number of pro scouts and he landed a spot on a number of NFL teams over the following years.

But when you think about that 2003 season, you have to think about how exciting guys like Otis made that year become.