Lions' Skid Continues

Head coach Bob Shoop sat in his office Thursday and thought about how his offense was due for a breakout game. Yale, he said, ran a basic defense that would give Columbia's younger players a chance to make plays.

But what started as optimism for a reeling Columbia team quickly turned into disaster. The Lions defense melted down in the second quarter, allowing Yale to score 31 points, and Columbia's offense didn't help the downward spiral. Quarterbacks Craig Hormann and Joe Winters combined for four interceptions to help the Elis score 37 unanswered points in the 37-3 rout at Wien Stadium.

"The second quarter was just horrifying in every aspect of the game," Shoop said.

Senior cornerback Prosper Nwokocha added that the defense let its guard down during those 15 minutes-and that the unit was burned for it. Yale (3-4, 3-1 in the Ivy League) scored 31 points and gained 305 yards of total offense. Quarterback Jeff Mroz completed 13 of 21 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns, and running back Mike McLeod rushed 11 times for 52 yards and two scores.

"We just didn't execute with the same precision in the second quarter," Nwokocha said.

Shoop tried to spark his offense by putting senior quarterback Winters under center for two series-one at the end of the first half and one at the beginning of the third quarter. But he threw two interceptions, including one that led to a Yale field goal as time expired in the second quarter.

"I wasn't completely taken aback [when I was pulled]," Hormann said. "It was a reflection of how poorly I played in the first half."

Yale scored just six points in the second half, but for Columbia (2-5, 0-4), the damage was already done.

The Lions got on the board early when quarterback Hormann engineered a seven-play, 71-yard drive that ended with a 20-yard field goal by freshman Jon Rocholl. On the drive, the Lions' were jump-started when Hormann hit senior Brandon Bowser on a 51-yard bomb. The offense moved to Yale's three-yard line before the Elis' defense stopped Hormann on a third down quarterback draw.

Columbia looked as if it would score on its second possession of the game until junior wide receiver Adrian Demko fumbled a pass at the Yale 49.

"It was disappointing we couldn't get off to a better start," Shoop said. "We just didn't execute."

Yale was forced to punt on their first two series, Then, Mroz found a rhythm at the end of the first quarter, engineering an 11-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a seven yard run by Mike McLeod. Yale continued its dominance by scoring on six of its next seven possessions.

The Lions missed a scoring opportunity with just over 10 minutes left in the third quarter. Hormann floated a deep pass to junior Nick DeGasperis who was open at the Yale five-yard line, but DeGasperis dropped the ball and the Lions were forced to punt. Columbia, for the second straight week, went without a touchdown.

Shoop has looked for positives during his team's five-game skid and pointed today to James Cobb's 127 rushing yards as the game's bright spot. But Columbia's passing game has struggled as Hormann and Winters were limited to 15 of 29 completions for 164 yards and four interceptions. And 51 of those passing yards came on the completion to Bowser on the first series.

When asked after the game what this team needed to do to stop the skid, Shoop pointed to the necessity of unifying a complete game.

"We gotta put this whole thing together," Shoop said. "At some point, the whole has to function as the sum of its parts."