Football Looking for First Road Win

Lisa Lewis/Staff Photographer

Recuperating from a heartbreaking loss in Princeton last weekend, the Columbia football team (1-2, 0-1 Ivy) has a chance for redemption this weekend. The Lions head to Pennsylvania to take on Lafayette (3-1), looking for their first road win against the Leopards since the teams first played in 1889. The Lions are 0-12-1 in Easton, and haven’t won a game against Lafayette in the past five years.

Coming off of a hard loss to the Tigers last Saturday, the Lions have, as head coach Norries Wilson says, “a taller order” this weekend than they did against Princeton. The Leopard defense only allows an average of 11 points per game, a result of its physical style of play. Wilson is prepared to see several different fronts from Lafayette, including blitzes and pressure formations specifically designed for the Lions.

“They have a very physical defensive line, they have a very physical linebacker core, and their secondary is as physical a secondary as we’ve seen here up to now, including last season,” Wilson said. “So, the fact that they’re a big, strong team and have very good athletic ability ... they have a lot you have to be prepared for.”

Another thing the Lions will have to be prepared for is junior wide receiver Shaun Adair, who leads Lafayette in yards receiving and catches. Adair has 21 catches this season—15 more grabs than the next receiver on the team—for 266 yards.

“He’s a great player,” Wilson said. “He has the ability to possibly beat you by himself. We’re going to have to do some things as far as getting after the quarterback so he doesn’t have time to throw the football. We’re going to have to keep the guy covered. We’re going to have to jam him. We’re going to have to reroute him ... to keep his production down.”

Adair is also a feature on the Lafayette special teams, handling their kickoff and punt returns. The Leopards average 19 yards on kickoff returns and 15 yards on punt returns, largely because of Adair. Although Wilson has said they “may have to punt away from him,” they first need to get the Lafayette offense off the field.

“We’ve got to get them to punt,” Wilson said. “Last week Princeton only punted one time. So if we can get them to punt, I’ll be really happy. If we get the opportunity to get our punt returner out there and make a big play that would be great.”

The Columbia offense, which found an effective balance between the running game and passing game last weekend, has consistently improved since the start of the season. The Lions sustained several long drives last weekend against Princeton—two over 70 yards—and were able to convert on six of their 13 third downs.

“We did better on third down this past Saturday than we have done in two seasons, so we’ll have to hopefully keep improving our third down conversion rate,” Wilson said. “If you just looked at the raw numbers, you wouldn’t think that we had improved on offense, but on the limited number of possessions that we’ve gotten offensively, we have improved.”

Wilson attributes this success to more consistency on the offensive line in opening up holes and pass protection. He’s said the line has focused only on specific plays in the last couple of weeks to improve its execution, resulting in over a hundred yards on the ground in the past two contests.

“You’re only as good as the last game you played,” Wilson said. “They’ve got to go out and do it again this week.”