In which Bwog football correspondent Christopher “CML” Morris-Lent returns to document the unlikely triumphs of Columbia’s pigskin throwers. 

This afternoon featured yet another Columbia home football game at Baker Field, this time against Georgetown.  The Lions sought to improve their record to 2-0 and thus keep their win/loss ratio at the exorbitant figure of infinity.  For their part, the Hoyas arrived in Inwood looking to right themselves after last week’s loss to Brown, and to restore some dignity and honor to the Church after the Lions mauled crosstown rival Fordham 37-7 last week.

For the first 35 minutes, it looked as if another blowout of the Jesuits was inevitable.  The Lions didn’t play exceptionally well on offense, but they did manage to capitalize on three Georgetown turnovers in the first half, which respectively resulted in a touchdown, a field goal, and a touchdown.  Plagued by a stagnant offense and precarious ballhandling, the Hoyas more or less failed to do anything constructive, as was reflected by the halftime score of 17-0.

Columbia continued its dominance after the break, manufacturing a second field goal to increase its lead to 20.  Shortly afterwards, all football hell began to break loose.  Georgetown’s defense, previously porous and inconsistent, forced two quick punts, and its offense, which had been bumbling and utterly ineffective, scored two touchdowns to cut the margin to six.  After Columbia failed to score yet again, the Hoyas reassumed possession and marched up the field in stylish fashion, putting the ball on the two-yard line with four opportunities to punch it into the end zone.

This moment, occurring midway through the fourth quarter, turned out to be the critical point of the game.  The Lions’ defense held for the first two downs, then on the third came up with an epic sack that pushed Georgetown back to the 8-yard line.  The hapless Hoyas were hence compelled to attempt a field goal, which – as the result of a fumbled snap – went down harder than an octogenarian woman with a broken hip.  The lead preserved, the Columbia offense took over and ate up the vast majority of the remaining time crawling towards the other end of the field, at last kicking one final field goal to put the score at 23-14 and the game out of Georgetown’s reach.  The Hoyas managed one last desperation touchdown, but their onside kick with nine seconds left was recovered by the Lions, who simply took a knee to seal the victory at 23-21.

Next Saturday is homecoming, and Columbia is slated to face Princeton.  The Lions are a perfect 2-0, but both victories have been based almost exclusively on the blunders of the opposition, and our quality of play is still violently variable.  It’s unreasonable to expect Princeton to play as poorly as either of our Papist adversaries have, but – as the last two weeks have shown – victory is far from unattainable.

– Christopher Morris-Lent