My Special Teams Meltdown

You have to feel sorry for the Columbia defense this week. After allowing 325 yards rushing en route to a home-opening loss against Central Connecticut State, the Light Blue defensive unit now feels the pressure of a second underwhelming week despite high expectations.

But honestly, who could blame them? Just look at the first quarter they had to endure on Saturday.

It actually started out well, as the unit first jogged onto the field with a 7-0 lead and plenty of positive momentum still abuzz from the Liberty Cup victory. The energy was evident as the Lions defense held the Blue Devils on their opening drive after just 4 plays.

On the ensuing offensive possession, Ray Rangel broke a 49 yard run and the Lions looked set to put the game away early. However, the drive stalled and, in a disappointing turn of events, Columbia’s field goal attempt was blocked.

By the time the Lions defense jogged onto the field for the second time, CCSU had been rejuvenated by the stop and blocked kick.

But the defensive unit held strong and forced CCSU into a three-and-out.

On the proceeding punt, a Lion was charged with holding before the punter had kicked the ball, and thus the Blue Devils were awarded with ten yards and kept possession for a first down. It was another momentum shift for the defense to fight, and come through they did, getting another stop to force yet another punt.

Upon receiving the punt, the Light Blue offense failed to move the ball, and was forced to kick it again, this time from a dangerous position inside the Columbia ten. The kick was easily blocked by the Blue Devils, who recovered at the two yard line.

Junior Marc Holloway then stepped up, getting in on three of the four consecutive goal line stops that kept the score at 7-0 heading into the second quarter. To cap it off, the Lions defense opened the second frame by dramatically stopping star Blue Devil James Mallory again on fourth down to force a turnover.

Despite the blame this week, the Columbia defense was terrific to start the game. Unfortunately, the energy expended to minimize the early special teams damage would prove to have severe consequences in the second half.

Switching gears away from Saturday, there are certain things sports fans expect when rooting for their high-level athletic teams. One expects his pitchers to throw strikes, the same way he expects his star forward to convert a penalty kick during a soccer game, or his starting point guard to hit a majority of his free throws. Using this same progression, a football fan expects not to have to hold his breath every time his team attempts a point after or a punt.

This is because the special teams unit carries with it the minimum expectation of executing critical plays with consistency. Because this minimum expectation exists for all competing football teams, a squad finds itself at a true advantage when special teams play exceeds expectation. Think back to the excitement that surrounded Dante Hall’s kick returning abilities for the Chiefs in the early part of the decade and his appropriate nickname: “the x-factor.”

In much of the same way that a special teams threat can dramatically enhance one team’s chances, a special teams deficiency can have the opposite effect. This was evidenced during the Lion’s home-opener on Saturday.

In fact, poor special teams play has been a common theme for the Columbia football team for the past two seasons. Last week, a missed extra point had the Lions holding on to a vulnerable six point lead at Fordham when freshman punter Matt Williamson saved the game by scooping up a bad snap inside his own thirty yard line and still delivering a solid punt.

On Saturday, the Lions had a punt blocked, a thirty yard field goal blocked, an extra point blocked (and returned for two points), and a first down given up for a penalty while receiving a punt.

Aside from the possible six point swing these mistakes cost Columbia, the special teams meltdown hindered the Light Blue in a less hypothetical way. Mistakes in kicking and punting killed the offensive momentum in the first half while overexerting a defense intent on keeping the Blue Devils off the scoreboard.

In the second half, the offense continued to be out of rhythm despite the hot start, and the special teams unit continued to struggle. When all was said and done, the Light Blue were out-possessed 21:23 to 8:37 in the second half, as efficient CCSU coaching continued to call run plays against a battered defense, who never got a rest of more than two minutes and fifty six seconds of game time in the final two quarters.

I never said I was going to be an optimist every week, and sometimes the factors of a loss need to be thoroughly scrutinized to yield improvement. Last week, special teams unacceptably cost Columbia a victory, an experience that will hopefully prove beneficial to an up-and-coming team seeking to learn how to win.

On Saturday, they learned their first lesson: you cannot win if you beat yourself.

The Columbia D prepares for another big season

The true stars of the Columbia football team are no longer secrets. At least not to opposing Ancient Eight coordinators, who surely spent the summer planning a way around the Lions’ two defensive standouts, Alex Gross and Lou Miller.

Any good coordinator would, as the pair emerged as the two most dominant defensive players in the Ivy League last season while leading an upstart Light Blue defense whose obvious potential has many Columbia fans eager for opening day.

However, this is not the first time in recent years that a Columbia defense has been hyped entering the season. Just three years ago, the Lions excited supporters by finishing second in the Ivy League in total defense, due in large part to an adventurous and innovative 3-3-5 formation. Big things were expected for the following season, but Columbia’s 2007 defensive performance failed to match the hype, as the Lions allowed nearly a hundred yards per game more than the previous season and finished the year with a total defense ranking of sixth in the league.

The weakness of the 2007 Light Blue defense was stopping the run. The Lions were last in the league in rush defense by a large margin, a fact that forced head coach Norries Wilson to consider a major defensive overhaul.

The 3-3-5 defense was designed to utilize an undersized defense through frequent blitzing and complex coverage schemes. Ultimately, the plan in such a formation is to avoid a smash mouth battle against an oversized offensive line by creating chaos with added defensive backs.

What Wilson realized after the 2007 season was that he no longer needed to attempt to organize chaos. Consecutive solid recruiting classes had evolved the Lions roster by the start of the 2008 season and now gave Wilson a defensive group with added talent, depth, size, and options.

Thus, the switch was made to a more traditional 4-3 setup for the 2008 season, a move that immediately paid off for the Lions. Columbia’s D managed to shave 72 yards per game off of the total from the previous season, and its stars shined in the new system.

Then-sophomore Alex Gross led the Ancient Eight in tackles by nearly a full tackle per game last term while junior Lou Miller held the league lead in sacks and tackles for loss by season’s end. Together, they form the core of a Columbia defense which expects to make headlines in 2009.

Yet, there is more to the highly touted defense than its two stars. Take, for instance, junior Adam Mehrer, the playmaking free safety who led the team in interceptions with four last season. “We definitely want to be the best defense in the Ivy League. … We’re going to set the bar high,” Mehrer stated on Media Day last Saturday. Hardly the only Lion with such lofty goals, Mehrer is part of a secondary led by fourth year starter Andy Shalbrack that will face much scrutiny in the season’s opening weeks.

The secondary weathered some criticism last season for its propensity to allow big plays, as was highlighted in the homecoming loss to Princeton. Much of these troubles were blamed on a lack of experience, as Calvin Otis, a sophomore, was featured alongside Kalasi Huggins, a freshman, as the starting cornerbacks last season.

This year, experience will play a positive role for this group, or at least that is the hope of strong safety Andy Shalbrack, who explained last Saturday that “experience is something that’s invaluable going into the season.” Good thing the Columbia secondary now has plenty.

All four starters are back this year, as Otis and Huggins showed much improvement over the course of the 2008 season and Mehrer and Shalbrack return to their roles as the starting safeties. The safeties will be backed up by two talented and experienced juniors, Augie Williams and Dan Myers, who exemplify the impressive new depth of this Columbia defense.

Another position in which the Lions seem to be particularly deep is the linebacking core, a group led by the ever-present junior Alex Gross, Columbia’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year. Like Shalbrack, Gross voiced his confidence in the Lions’ experience last Saturday, saying, “When you look around the league and look at the experience this team has, this has got to be the year that Columbia football really turns things around.” To make that turn around happen, Gross has to demonstrate his own experience, as he gets set to replace graduated senior Drew Quinn as the leader of the linebackers.

Despite the loss of Quinn, the Lions still have multiple legitimate options to line up alongside Gross. Junior Matt Moretto returns from injury this season and should compete with senior Corey Cameron for time on the outside, while fellow junior Marc Holloway made a sizable impression on the coaching staff this summer and could earn a starting spot at middle linebacker over senior Josh Williams. Add senior Clark Koury to the mix and you have six veteran players to fill three positions.

Despite the plentiful depth and talent among the seven rear positions of the defense, the real key to the Lions’ success lies up front on the defensive line. Two seasons ago, Columbia’s rush defense ranked eighth in the league as the Light Blue allowed a staggering 231.1 yards per game on the ground.

In 2008, a defense rededicated to stopping the run finished third in the Ancient Eight in rush defense and allowed only 104.3 yards on the ground, a remarkable improvement over the previous campaign. Much of this turnaround could be accredited to Owen Fraser, the 280 pound super-recruit whose size at nose tackle gave the Lions a legitimate defensive anchor on the line. His presence coupled with the lightning-quick pass rushes of All-Ivy defensive end Lou Miller gave the Lions a successful dynamic in the trenches last season, a dynamic the Lions will look to keep intact this year.

Unfortunately, opposing coaching staffs will be looking to ensure just the opposite, as this season, Columbia’s aggressive new defense will no longer be the Ivy League’s best kept secret.

The Long Road to Optimism

Somehow, I find myself feeling optimistic about the upcoming year in Columbia athletics. I say somehow because the horrific taste left in the mouths of Lions fans by the football, basketball, and baseball squads still lingers. And for good reason, as Columbia fans were treated to three of the most comically brutal season conclusions imaginable last year.

The fat lady made her first proverbial appearance last year in Providence to announce the end of the football campaign. I remember the game well, as I was sitting in the press box on that frigid afternoon doing color commentary for WKCR. In my pregame analysis, I excitedly pointed out the fact that the Lions were 2-2 with M.A. Olawale at the helm, and played up the fact that his big-play ability gave the Lions a chance to end Brown’s bid to capture their share of the Ivy League title.

Just as I optimistically predicted, Olawale broke a seventy yard run in the first quarter to tie the game at seven, and Columbia looked set to play spoiler. Then I watched in horror as it all fell apart. Three straight scores gave Brown a comfortable 24-7 lead. Then, Olawale was knocked out of the game with an injury at the same time that his backup quarterback forgot which team he was on, leading to two prompt turnovers to start the second half. As the game ended and Brown celebrated another conference championship, I remember thinking to myself, “What did we do to deserve such a devastating end to this season?” Unfortunately, the worst had yet to come.

Many more Columbia fans were in attendance for the second season-ending shocker of the year in Levien Gymnasium. The back-story for this one was even more intriguing, as the Lions had emerged during the course of the season to become perhaps the best home team in the Ivy League, sitting at 5-1 in Manhattan entering the final day of the season. Excited fans packed Levien that night, as they had all year, ready for the completion of an epic Princeton-Penn sweep that would give the basketball program its first season above .500 since the late seventies.

Now let’s fast forward to 0:03 of the second half. Noruwa Agho is at the line with one free throw attempt left and the Lions lead by 2. Agho misses, allowing Penn to gain possession and call timeout with 1.9 ticks left. The ensuing inbounds pass finds Penn senior Kevin Egee who proceeds to launch the last jump shot of his collegiate career from 35 feet out and SWOOSH! The crowd watches in shock as the Quakers celebrate and the silence in the gym is filled by the incessant moans of some overweight woman, sitting behind the Penn bench, belting Fight on, Pennsylvania. Apparently, the fat lady does not always sing opera.

Yet, perhaps the most disappointing of all the anticlimactic season conclusions occurred on the final weekend of the baseball season. Columbia, the defending champs of the Ancient Eight, actually had a chance at gaining a birth to the Ivy League Championship Series entering their four game set with lowly Penn despite underperforming for most of the year. The Lions needed to take all four games from the Quakers and to have Cornell and Princeton split their series, a scenario that seemed extremely possible. After confidently taking the first game of the set, however, the Lions tanked, losing the second game of the home doubleheader and getting swept in Philadelphia the following day. Interestingly, the Quakers won more Ivy games that weekend (3) than they had during the entire rest of the season (2). To add insult to injury, Princeton and Cornell split, making this season-ending catastrophe the first of the year to have championship implications for the Lions.

Agony aside, looking back on the past athletic season has allowed me to see why it was so uniquely painful: the presence of hope. The football team was transformed when Olawale took over at quarterback, and the team was 2-1 at home in the league this past year. The basketball squad was a miracle away from its best season in thirty years, and the baseball team could have (and honestly should have) secured a chance to play for its second consecutive Ivy League Championship with a strong performance on the final weekend. Now how many Columbia classes have witnessed such promise in a single athletic year?

This brings me back to my excitement toward this year’s athletic endeavors, beginning with the imminent football season. The Lions have an advantage this season over their four toughest Ivy opponents (Penn, Yale, Harvard, Brown), as they get all four at home. Combine this with the fact that Columbia’s three league road trips will all be winnable games (Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth), and you are potentially looking at a full slate of competitive Ancient Eight contests for the Lions.

Am I predicting an Ivy League championship? Of course not. But with M.A. Olawale, a favorable schedule, and perhaps the most talented defense in the league, four league wins are certainly within reach. Now that is something to get excited about.

Summer Status Update

Yes, I am still here, and I'm feeling pretty lucky to have made it. If you are a Met fan, you know why.

Forget the fact that the Mets are already way out of playoff contention despite being hyped by many during spring training as the favorites to win the National League pennant this season. I had already coped with that reality before the all-star break.

And forget the fact that every single key Met has been injured for most of the season (with the exception of K-Rod), making watching Mets games about as enjoyable as getting bludgeoned to death with a wooden spoon.

The real surprise is that I did not suffer a fatal stroke upon hearing the news that Omar Minaya will likely be retained as the Met GM for next season.

Somehow, this summer was more miserable for Mets fans than either of the previous two were. Yet, my spirit has not been broken. I am ready and raring for more sports this fall.

Most of that excitement is probably due to my support of the Florida Gators football team, who will begin the year as the #1 squad in America. But there are also the Mark Sanchez-led Jets and the Marian Gaborik-led Rangers to be excited about.

Then, there is the Columbia Lions football team. No no, I am not going to act as though there is a chance of an Ivy League championship on the horizon. However, a .500 season looks attainable, and for a CU football fan, that type of pre-season outlook only comes around about once every decade.

So despite the best efforts of the Mets, The Mouth Blog returns this fall, and I am ready to have my heart broken again.