Football offense unable to produce points in second half

It’s quite unusual for a football team to score 41 points in a game and still lose by three touchdowns. But there’s a first time for everything.

Given the high-scoring nature of this past Saturday’s game against the Big Red, it’s hard to imagine that there could have been a poor offensive performance. By the end of the game, though, Columbia’s offense left something to be desired.

Despite their final tally of 41 points, the Lions still faltered in the same way they have all season—failing to start off strong in the second half. The Light Blue left the field ahead 34-28 at the half and came back without any offensive rhythm. The Lions slipped into their season-long habit of stalling in the third quarter.

In this week’s game, Columbia didn’t post a single point in the third quarter. Instead, Cornell’s defense got the best of the Lions, who went three-and-out three times in a row to start the quarter. The most productive drive that the Lions posted was their last of the quarter—an eight-play, 29-yard effort that saw only two first downs and ended in a punt.

Third-quarter slumps have been an issue for the 0-9 Lions throughout the 2011 campaign. While Columbia posts an average of nearly 20 points per game, just over two of them come from the third quarter. In the nine games the Light Blue has played, the team has only scored 20 of its 176 points in the first 15 minutes after the intermission.

While the football team knows how to put up a solid fourth quarter in an effort to stage a comeback, it is also prone to offensive struggles for the entire second half at times as well, as was the story this week.

Though the Lions managed to take the pigskin into the end zone once more before the game ended, these were the only seven points they scored in the second half.

Junior quarterback Sean Brackett only completed one pass in the third quarter, adding just 14 yards to his game total. He did however recover in the fourth quarter with 143 more to bring his game total to 409.

Out of the total 27 first downs that the Light Blue racked up, only 10 were from the second half, and just two were from the third quarter.

The Lions struggled in all facets of offense. While the rushing game was slow throughout the contest, the first half was significantly better than the second. On its way to 34 points, the team rushed 73 yards in the first half hour of play. After that, the team only ran for 22 in the third quarter, and actually lost five on the ground in the fourth.

The disappearance of the offense would not have been such a tragedy for the Lions were it not for the continued success of Cornell’s offensive crew and the inability of the Columbia defense to put a stop to it.

While Columbia struggled to post seven points in the second half, the Big Red matched its first-half efforts by posting an additional 34 points after the break. The defense struggled to compensate for the minimal offense, stopping Cornell from scoring on just one of six complete drives in the half.

“We missed some open people and we didn’t tackle or get any pressure on the quarterback in the second half at all,” head coach Norries Wilson said.

Wilson’s sentiment was echoed by Brackett.

“We didn’t do anything offensively in the second half,” he said.

“The first half we were clicking, we were making plays,” Brackett continued. “Even when it wouldn’t work, someone just made a play. It was night and day from the first half to the second half. I missed some open people, had some drops. We just didn’t make the plays we were making in the first half. We scored 34 points in the first half, we scored seven in the second, I think that sums it up right there.”