ugly start

happy coincidences of family obligation spared allgame the nausea inducing horror of watching columbia’s gridders lose their first two contests  this season.   i can understand a casual reader’s assumption that the psychic callous of  myriad unsuccesful saturdays at baker field would protect a lion rooter from the cliched, panicky response of all too many sports fans when their personal mudville nine collapses.  hell, i pretty much thought the same thing.  then came the september 21 battle at jack coffey field in the mid-bronx for the 2013 liberty cup, columbia’s now annual game v the fordham rams.  last year’s edition of this fcs spectacular was a fairly close run thing and the 20 -13 jesuit victory primarily settled by the outstanding toe of their efficient place kicker, pat muray.  as this was year two of columbia coach pete mangurian’s regime, i expected that a more sharply drilled,  more acutely focused lion squad would battle to a happier conclusion.  additionally, i had been aroused during the off season by news of the transfer to morningside heights of one brett nottingham, a quarterback originally recruited by the mighty stanford program.  as a first year, young nottingham had understudied the now eminent nfl sophomore andrew luck during that hero’s brilliant final season in palo alto.  having failed to gain the starter’s slot his second year, however, and seeing little prospect of such achievement in coming seasons for the cardinal, brett decamped for manhattan and the pro set offense that mangurian purportedly features.  i thought this might be the long anticipated moment of columbia’s football renaissance.  in my mind’s eye i saw nottingham’s mighty right arm devastatingly complementing the quick feet of returning star back marcorus garrett and co-starring in an offensive display long missing from the environs of inwood.   i awaited brett’s debut in the death grip of a full blown man crush.  those delicious pins and needles of ardent hope lasted for about the first five minutes of the first quarter until nottingham ate the sod of a twenty yard sack.  over the subsequent three quarters he’d dine on another thirty yards worth of fordham’s field before turning the reins over to trevor mcdonagh who threw for the blue’s only td in a 52 – 7 loss.  that is no typo.  a freakin’ 52 – 7 slaughter.  a whipping only exceeded in recent memory by last year’s 69 – 0 annihilation in cambridge.  two such outlandish defeats in so short a time must give one pause about mangurian’s game management, shall we say?  sadly, the tussle had far graver consequences.  brett nottingham’s first campaign in blue is over.  having been thoroughly battered on saturday, on  sunday he underwent season ending wrist surgery at columbia- presbyterian hospital.  so much for my dreams of the next john witkowski.  compounding brett’s loss was the knee injury suffered by defensive lineman seyi adebayo, similarly finished for the year.  a heartbreakingly bad beginning to the campaign.

that debacle concluded, the lions returned home to face the monmouth university hawks.  marcorus garrett, now the indubitable focus of the offense had an alabama tailback kind of afternoon running for 149 yards on 15 carries and cashing two touchdowns.  the rest of the offensive unit was apparently given saturday off and the lions limped from robert kraft field subsequent to another thorough thumping, this time losing 37 -14.  columbia coughed up two fumbles and trevor mcdonagh threw one pick.  stunningly, the hawks possessed the ball for a full 39:51 of the one sided contest while ripping off 94 plays to the blue’s 58.  numbers like that make it seem the lions played for three quarters and then turned the field over to the hawks to play on by themselves.  the game was so ghastly in its dimensions and particulars that one can imagine coach pete forced in a postgame interview to discuss the progress of an offensive line which yielded 6 sacks as opposed to the 5 handed fordham.  those failures against the hawks, however, had cost merely 7.6 yards per loss.  on the other hand, the average loss v the fordham boys had been 11.4 yards.  that is a 33% gain in efficiency week to week.  things are looking up!  when one considers that mangurian spent the first five years of his coaching career working with offensive linemen, the room spins.

of course, paulie b dodged the full impact of those massacres because he had been watching a more elevated stratum of college football.   on the 21st, as nottingham was wrapping up his season,  i traveled to rutgers’ packed and raucous high point solutions stadium in piscataway, nj to see the scarlet knights overcome early turnovers and some nifty play calling by the shorthanded first year arkansas coach bret bielma to down the razorbacks for a second consecutive year, this time 28 -24.  rutgers’ qb gary nova shook off the ill effects of a mild concussion and the psychological toll of an early interception to rally the home gridders with two late td tosses to his high school partner, leonte caroo now a knights freshman.  caroo was mismatched against the game but undersized razorback tevin mitchell and simply outjumped the defender for both catches.  messr nova’s don bosco prep training told in the clutch,  as he recognized the mismatch and put the ball where only his fellow ironman could grab it.  even more memorable than these heroics, however, was the immense and constant howl of the crowd.  unwaveringly loud throughout the game, they managed to ratchet up the volume as their heroes played their way back to victory.  emblematic of this noise was the eight year old rutgers fan sitting behind paulie b who shrieked in precisely the key of a strangled tom cat all afternoon for the physical destruction of each and every arkansan.  all in all i have to say that the rutgers stadium was the loudest sports venue i have ever been in.  when rutgers completes its move to the big 10 and crews like ohio state, michigan, and penn state start rolling through piscataway,  high point solutions stadium should be one of the rockingest football locales in the nation – and i hope the expansion plans have been approved, cause they’re gonna need the seats.

the following saturday we followed bielma’s boys  and  traveled to fayetteville, ar – home of the razorbacks and the best sports talk radio program in the sec sports mediaverse.  we were regally feted at our dinner friday evening by nick and carrie wright, the owners of herman’s restaurant – president bill clinton’s favorite steak house in his home state.  we entered the premises “goodfellas” style, jumping a two hour long waiting line and entering through the kitchen.  nick welcomed us with baby back ribs, garlic shrimp and tenderloin filet before the main course that left us swooning with cholesterol fueled delight.   game day itself featured some heavy downpours but that precipitation did not scare off too many of the 70,000 plus who turned out to see their heroes take on the notorious and amply talented messr manziell of texas a & m.  allgame was not incommoded a bit as we had been gifted pricey ducats to the enclosed club level of the stadium.   johnny football was good but actually got outpassed by arkansas’s brandon allen, returning to the lineup from a shoulder injury.   allen’s welcome performance was not enough to overcome a & m’s other weapons, particularly running back  ben malena, and a third quarter pick six by the texans’ secondary.  though the hogs covered, they fell 45 -33.

by all rights, the bulk of these 1,300 odd words should have been devoted to those two razorback games.  but i am at the mercy of my disease.  the columbia fall sports schedule commences and i feel internal pressure build irresistibly like some tourettian tic until i burst out not with soothing expletives but the sweet balm of lion sports chat.  not shit!@!#@!!fuck&^*# but go blue!@#% and who owns new york!%#@* pour forth uncontrollably.  and two ugly losses aside,  in ten days we will happily find our seats at wien stadium and root the boys home against another flock of raptors, the as yet undefeated lehigh mountain hawks.  before that though the boys roll down the turnpike to start their bounce back by taming haughty princeton on october 5.

meanwhile, la lucha continua –

peace out, d up

paulie b