It was truly a breakout year for Columbia football. In the first season of head coach Norries Wilson's tenure, the Lions instituted a 3-3-5 defense that consistently kept teams guessing, finished the season with back-to-back Ivy League wins, and earned the team's first .500 record since 1996.
The Lions had a strong start to the 2006 campaign, winning their season opener over Fordham 37-7, recording the team's largest margin of victory since 2000. Two blocked field-goal attempts and two defensive touchdowns highlighted the victory. The team's second nonleague test was not so easy, as the Lions jumped out to a 20-0 lead over Georgetown only to watch the Hoyas mount a second-half comeback that fell just short, allowing Columbia to hold on for a 23-21 win.
The Lions' Ivy League opener was a step backwards, as the team produced just 134 yards of total offense in a 19-6 loss to Princeton. The defense was on the field for 40 of the game's 60 minutes, yet allowed only 321 yards and forced four turnovers. The offense finished 0-of-11 on third-down conversions.
After suffering their first loss, the Lions rallied to defeat their final nonleague opponent, Iona, topping the Gaels 24-0 in the Lions' first shutout victory since 1998. The defense was again the story of the game, scoring two touchdowns while holding Iona to negative-16 yards rushing.
The heart of the Ivy season did not follow the Lions' promising non-League start though. After falling 16-0 to Penn in a poor offensive performance, sophomore Jordan Davis fumbled on the first play of the game against Dartmouth, handing the Big Green an opportunity to get on top early en route to a 20-7 win. Although the Lions jumped on Yale early and the defense held the Elis to 21 points, the offense could not keep pace. Yale scored 21 unanswered in the final 32 minutes of the game to hand the Lions their third straight loss, 21-3. Against Harvard the Lions fell 24-7, after the Crimson exploited a short field, as each of its scoring drives began in Columbia territory.
But in the last two contests of the season, all the facets of the Lions' game came together. On senior day at Wien Stadium, the defense came up with three interceptions on Cornell's 21 passing attempts to keep the Big Red offense off the field, but it was freshman Justin Masorti who sealed the game with a sack on Cornell's fourth-down attempt from the Lions' 19-yard line to assure Columbia a 21-14 win, the team's first Ivy victory in 17 contests.
The Lions' final game at Brown was a fitting and thrilling end to the season. After falling into a 14-0 deficit in the first quarter, a 27-yard Jon Rocholl field goal with three seconds on the clock gave the Lions a 22-21 victory, the team's first in Providence since 1971. With the win, the Lions finished sixth in the Ivy League.
The team's accomplishments did not go unnoticed as freshman Austin Knowlin was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year, and six Lions earned all-Ivy honors-seniors Matt Barsamian and Tad Crawford earned first-team, senior Adam Brekke and junior Craig Hormann earned second-team, and sophomore Jon Rocholl and senior Darren Schmidt were named honorable mention.
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