The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Yale looks to fix its offensive woes
NEW HAVEN — Its chances for a second successive Ivy League championship dashed at Columbia last week, the Yale football team won’t merely be playing out the string over the season’s final three weeks.
Brown, dead-last in the Ivy, visits the Yale Bowl today at 1. Princeton, undefeated and the top-scoring team in the Football Championship Subdivision, comes to New Haven the following week with the finale against Harvard at Fenway Park looming in two weeks.
Brown (1-6, 0-4) hasn’t beaten an Ivy League opponent since 2016, a string of 12 straight games. Yale (4-3, 2-2) can use the hapless Bears as a chance to readjust to life without injured quarterback Kurt Rawlings. To finish the year by knocking Princeton from the ranks of the unbeaten and a third straight win over Harvard would more than salvage the season for Yale. But the offense will need to figure out how to put more points on the board to have any realistic shot at playing spoiler over the final two weeks.
Jimmy Check and Pat Conte are expected to both see time quarterback Saturday afternoon. Check handled the majority of time at the position against Columbia and Yale moved the ball well enough.
Yale finished the game with a massive advantage in total offense (428 to 157). But an inability to turn yardage into points cost the Bulldogs in a 17-10 loss.
“There are inconsistencies we need to work on as an offense,” Yale junior receiver J.P. Shohfi said. “We had seven three-and-outs against Columbia. Some drives we go 80 yards and score, others we fail to get going with penalties or losing yards on first and second down. Overall, our team has confidence with whoever is in at quarterback. As a whole, we need to do a better job of staying consistent and keeping the ball moving.”
Yale coach Tony Reno
was pleased with his team’s defensive performance, which completely took away Columbia’s passing game while limiting the run.
Still, there were missed opportunities that could have put the Lions away early on, a trend that dates back at least a month.
“We’ve had 16 turnover opportunities in the last four weeks that have not been turnovers,” Reno said. “We’ve dropped nine interceptions. That’s a high number in a short period of time. And fumble opportunities we’ve not gotten possession of. We could have forced turnovers the first four possessions of the game and didn’t get any of them. We get one and it changes the game. We’re creating opportunities, just not finishing the plays. Those are game-changing plays. You can’t expect to get every single one, but you have to get some.”
Special teams was also a thorn of contention for Reno against Columbia. Yale had a punt blocked — the first in Reno’s seven-year tenure as coach. Kicker Alex Galland also missed a field goal and struggled in the punt game.
“We had control but didn’t finish, which led to the outcome,” Reno said. “It’s a game with a very small margin for error. It was the first time all season we made mistakes that created success for the other team. We gave them plenty of opportunities. Credit them for making plays, but we didn’t do our best finishing drives which led to success for the other team.”