Oct. 29, 2005
NEW YORK -- Yale scored 37 unanswered points, including 31 in the second quarter, as the Bulldogs defeated Columbia, 37-3, at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium.
Jon Rocholl hit a 20-yard field goal on the opening drive of the game to mark his fourth made attempt in a row, and 11th made field goal of 13 tries this season. Craig Hormann hit Brandon Bowser for a 51-yard completion on the game's third play from scrimmage to move the ball to the Yale 12-yard line. The Lions moved the ball to the Bulldog three, but a quarterback draw on 3rd-and-1 resulted in no gain, setting up Rocholl's field goal.
It would be the Lions' final points of the day.
Columbia (2-5, 0-4 Ivy) held the Bulldogs (3-4, 3-1 Ivy) scoreless through the first 16 minutes of the game, and allowed just 46 yards of total offense while the Lions racked up 129 of their own.
"I challenged our guys to win the first quarter, and we did," said head coach Bob Shoop. "The second quarter was horrifying."
Yale completed an 80-yard drive that extended from late in the first until early in the second quarter when Jeff McLeod carried seven yards for a Bulldog touchdown. It would be the first of five second-quarter scores for Yale, which had 203 passing yards in the 15-minute span. Jeff Mroz completed touchdown passes of seven and 68 yards to Ashley Wright, who now has eight TD receptions this season. McLeod had a second rushing score from one yard and Alan Kimball hit a 41-yard field goal as time expired in the first half to complete the barrage.
Shoop said, "We have practiced better than we've shown on Saturday."
The only scoring of the second half were 23- and 21-yard field goals in the third and fourth quarter, respectively, by Kimball.
James Cobb rushed for a team season-high 127 yards on 20 carries (6.3 yards per rush), including a 50-yard gain late in the third quarter.
"Cobb had a career day," Shoop noted. "I can see good things by the offense every week. At some point, we've got to put them all together."
The Lions, who had thrown just three interceptions through the season's first six games, threw four today, including two by Craig Hormann (14-of-26 for 160 yards) and two by Joe Winters (1-of-3 for four yards). Bowser, Bryce Marshall and Jim Besselman had three receptions each. Nick DeGasperis had one of the team's best scoring opportunities when a long pass from Hormann up the far sideline went through his hands.
Defensively, Tad Crawford had 11 tackles and broke up a pass. Fellow safety Keenan Shaw had eight tackles and two passes broken up. JoJo Smith and Adrian Demko forced fumbles for the Lions (the latter was on an interception return), but Yale recovered both.
For the Bulldogs, Mroz's passing total of 329 yards tied for the seventh-most ever in a game by a Yale quarterback. Wright had seven catches for 93 yards and Chris Denny-Brown had five receptions for 99 yards.
With the win, Yale moved into a four-way tie for first in the league with Brown, Penn and Princeton. The Lions host Harvard Saturday, Nov. 5 at 12:30 p.m.
