Football Looks to Improve Struggling Rushing Defense

A year removed from having the Ivy League’s statistically best defense, the Lions now sit at the bottom of the Ancient Eight. After surrendering 16.3 points per game and just over 300 yards of total offense last season, defensive coordinator Lou Ferrari’s crew is giving up 32.8 points per game and over 400 yards of total offense.

“I’m not particularly happy with where we are at,” he said. “We’ve had a series of injuries and are playing with young players who are making a good showing but we are not where I thought we’d be.”

Ferrari cites injuries and big plays as the main reasons for the poor performance.
He anticipated that the Lions would finish in the middle to top of the league in defense. Though the unit allowed the fewest points per game in the league, the graduation of all three starting up-the-middle players—nose guard Darren Schmidt, mike linebacker Adam Brekke, and free safety Tad Crawford—took out the core of his defense. Ferrari had hopes for another good year but knew that replacing those three players would be a challenge.

His hopes for continued success took a hit when in the first game of the year the defensive captain, senior Drew Quinn, suffered an injury. In the first game, Fordham ran all over the Lions defense for 323 rushing yards. Over the next two weeks, two other starting linebackers and a cornerback went down as the defense continued to struggle.

“We started two freshmen and one sophomore at linebacker at Princeton,” Ferrari said. “Being thrust into a situation with multiple freshmen on the field at a time is difficult. They do not have a great deal of experience and on the field you can’t rely on each other.”

Ferrari said that the other negative brought about by playing five or six freshmen at one time was that size-wise they could not compete. 18-year-olds are simply not as large as 21-year-olds.

This is one of the main reasons Ferrari believes the Lions have been unable to stop the run. They gave up over 150 yards a game last season, but that figure pales in comparison to the numbers put up by opponents this season. The team is giving up 260 yards a game on the ground and 4.7 yards per attempt.

“There is no way to make them pass,” Ferrari said. “You have to be able to stop the run. We are giving up a lot more yards in the rushing game and opponents are taking advantage while they can.”

Those 4.7 yards per carry is just one of the many goals that Ferrari’s defense has failed to meet. Ferrari judges his defense on five tasks—giving up three yards or less on first down and per rush, recording a tackle for loss on each possession, creating turnovers, 100 percent-plus grades on special teams, and not giving up big plays. The Lions have repeated last year’s success in terms of generating turnovers—they’ve forced 11 in five games—but none of their other goals have been consistently met.

The one that Ferrari believes has crippled his team is giving up big plays. A big play is defined as a gain of more than 15 yards. Last year the Lions only gave up five per game. This year, big plays have been far more frequent.

Whatever the causes, Columbia’s defense has not been consistent in 2007 and on Saturday Penn torched the Lions for 59 points—45 in the first half.

For the defense to turn around its season, the return of key players from injury may be the first step. Quinn is back and, according to Ferrari, is playing at about 90 percent. The return of the other injured starters is up in the air.