Season Preview

The Columbia cross-country teams have been sharpening their racing spikes as the fall gets underway.

This season, the Columbia football team's ability to beat a .500 record rests on one thing: offensive production.

In Norries Wilson’s first year as head coach, the defense was the shining evidence of a new direction for Columbia. The unit gave up a league-low 16.3 points per game in 2006 and led the Ivy League in pass defense, with 15 interceptions and yards allowed per game at 149.7. With a new season upon the team and optimism running high, the Lions will try to repeat these defensive feats again in 2007.

“Take a wild guess; What do you think happened at Penn?” This is the headline that ran for the game recap against the Quakers on Oct. 3, 1988, after the Columbia Lions’ 44th-straight defeat. This was the final loss in what became college football’s longest losing streak. The final score in next week’s contest against Princeton was 16-13, and the jubilation that day could not be contained, leading to the only conceivable headline for that Monday’s paper: “WE WIN!!!”

Norries Wilson had a year of firsts in his opening season as the head coach of the Columbia football team. He was the first new coach to win his first game since Buff Donelli in 1957. Under his watch, the Lions won their first Ivy game since 2004 and recorded their first .500 season since 1996.

When asked how it felt to lead Columbia to its first winning football season in a decade, head coach Norries Wilson quickly replied, “.500’s not a winning season.”

Senior cornerback Justin “JoJo” Smith has not always been the man making the tackles.

Craig Hormann has quietly put together one of the more successful careers for a quarterback in Columbia history. He currently ranks sixth on Columbia’s all-time completions list and, in his junior season, made a name for himself as the toughest quarterback to pick off in the Ivy League. However, if it hadn’t been for a high school teammate with incredible foresight, the name on the front of his jersey would have been that of a league rival.

Coming off of its best season in a decade, the Columbia football team has a lot of momentum to build on going into 2007. The Lions have 15 starters and 57 letter-winners returning to the squad, and they will be joined by 39 recruits and one transfer for this year’s campaign.

In a sport where leadership on a team is so deeply rooted in experience and seniority, the difficulty of being a captain as a non-senior cannot be taken lightly. As a testament to that fact, there have only been three junior captains in the history of Columbia football. Current linebacker Drew Quinn will aim to be the fourth.