What We Want
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Season Tickets 2011
Okay, so as of Friday the special pricing deal on season tickets is over.
SO WHAT??
All of us still need to buy these tickets right away and show our support for this program and these remarkable young men.
Click here and get started!
The deal is good through June 30th.
FYI: I’ll be in my usual chairback seats in section D.
Let's march for what we want!
What Do We Want???
The debate about how good the Lions really are and why the team hasn’t been winning more has flared up again in the comments section.
Good.
Everyone associated with Columbia football should know how passionately we all CARE and want the team to do the best it possibly can with no excuses.
For my take, let me just reprint the manifesto I wrote late last year.
None of my opinions have changed on the matter so it seems like a good idea to make those heartfelt points once again:
(this was originally posted on December 1, 2010)
Here are my top three in ASCENDING ORDER of importance:
1) Beat Penn and/or Harvard within the Next Two Years
Basing a major goal on defeating just one or two teams can sometimes be foolish because the dominant teams you need to defeat in your league are often a moving target.
Not so much in the Ivies.
Since 1997, the league has been dominated by Harvard and Penn and since 1997, Columbia has a grand total of zero wins over Penn and two wins over Harvard.
It’s hard to believe the Lions will have turned a corner until they can beat the Quakers or the Crimson.
2) A Winning Season NEXT Year (2011)
Two straight 4-6 seasons show that Columbia is tantalizingly close to finally posting a winning season for the first time since 1996.
This streak HAS to end now.
Anything else for 2011 has to be considered a failure.
3) Win an Ivy Title by the end of the Decade, AND Do it BEFORE Cornell and Princeton
For the sake of argument, let’s just say Columbia has some kind of unknown disadvantage that gives teams with equal talent a real edge over the Lions.
Whatever that edge may be, Columbia is currently well ahead of Princeton and Cornell in the talent department.
And that means if either one of those teams gets a winning record or a championship before the Lions do, we somehow dropped the ball big time.
So not only must Columbia make this decade the one where it finally ends its championship draught, it must also not allow Cornell and Princeton to come from behind and grab the lead again over the Lions just like Dartmouth has in just two years.
These goals are very simple to understand and not one of them is impossible.
Don’t think so?
Consider these three facts:
-Princeton was 2-8 in 2003 and beat Harvard AND Penn just three years later on its way to an Ivy title in 2006
-Dartmouth was 0-10 in 2008 and posted a winning season THIS year
-Brown was 0-10 in 1992 and was an Ivy co-champion by 1999
Top 100 Moments of 2010
#79: Back to Back Sacks
Only a newer Columbia fan could really still be breathing easy when the Tigers started a drive deep into Lion territory with about four minutes left in the game.
Sure, the score was 24-10 Columbia and Towson would still need a miracle to win it… but Lions fans are conditioned not to celebrate too early.
Happily, things started to fall apart for the Tigers as soon they got inside the Lion 10 yard line.
First, Towson was flagged for an illegal motion to send them back to the 14 and a 1st and 15.
But then, Josh Martin killed any thoughts of miracles.
First he recorded a solo sack of Towson QB Chris Hart for a short loss to set up 2nd and 15. On the next play, Martin and Ben Popeck sacked Hart again. The next two plays were incomplete passes and the final Tiger threat was over.
Martin was really a monster throughout the Towson game and one can only guess just how worried the Princeton coaches were when they saw him on film in the days in between week 2 and week 3.
posted by Jake @ 7:58:00 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Nice piece on incoming OL Callahan:
http://burrridge.patch.com/articles/standout-callahan-set-to-remain-a-lion
That's an interesting observation you made about Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown recovering from abysmal seasons in relatively short order. The fact is many Ivy teams fluctuate dramatically in quality over a relatively short period of time. As you point out, only Penn and Harvard have maintained their current success for a sustained duration.
Personally, I always thought Columbia competed at a disadvantage due to its NYC location. There's no question that, as recently as the 80s and 90s, most American high school students -- and especially their parents -- viewed New York as a big negative. Football players, which tend to skew more Midwestern and less urban in demographics, almost certainly felt the same way.
Now, of course, what had been a negative is by far our greatest selling feature. In light of this 180-degree turnaround, there is no reason why our football fortunes should not improve as well.
It's interesting that the other longest title drought in the Ivies belongs to Cornell, along with Dartmouth one of the two rural members. We absolutely must win a title before the Big Red does because they now labor under the disadvantage that rural is decidedly uncool among 17-year-olds. Princeton has certain advantages which manifest themselves quite clearly in their sports success across the board; the Tigers might stay at the bottom for a while but that would be more a reflection on a new coach than any institutional disadvantage.
... is Philly better than Morningside ??? ... no, the Penn campus is not better nor safer than the Columbia neighborhood .... Dartmouth is in the sticks unless you ski and have a dog (probably a retriever) .... Princeton's campus is pretty, but it's just a small Jersey town with Trenton as it's nearest BIG city (have you seen Trenton ??) ... and New Haven, Yale is a good school, but New Haven is still New Haven .... OK. Harvard has Boston going for it, that's hard to argue against .... so in the end, Morningside "a big negative" ... I disagree ... it's in the most exciting city in the US .... the City is an asset !!! ... the coaches seem to do a pretty good job getting kids .... but for us to start believing we are a winner, we need a few years of winning records to convince the rest of the League .. that's the way we become another Penn or Harvard .... remember in the late '60, Penn was at the bottom of the league with us and Brown .... consistent winning is what is needed to change our and the rest of the League's attitude about expecting the worst for Columbia football ....
As impossible as it sometimes seems, programs can turn around quickly, as, for example Dartmouth, which had a long losing record only a couple of years ago, and now is an Ivy League contender, with a winning record last year
Dartmouth did not have a winning record last year where it counted. They were 3-4. After dumbing down their OOC schedule they managed an overall winning record. That is fine. But this is the year we will see if they turned it around.
Dartmouth had a winning record where it matters most: they beat us at our own homecoming. They beat a decent Holy Cross team out of conference and played Penn tougher than anyone. In fairness, no one played a weaker OOC schedule than CU last year and we still managed a losing record.
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