Yes, a Columbia football player to be afraid of

In the recent past, the words "Columbia" and "football" make about as much sense next to each other as "Cincinnati Bengals" and "law-abiding citizens." But this year, there's one Lion that has been striking fear into his opponents' hearts.

Wide receiver Austin Knowlin, as the Lions athletic department is quick to point out, is on pace to break the team's all-time receiving record. And he's only a sophomore.

You might think this has to be fuzzy math, or that this record can't be more than a few yards, but this guy is for real. The Ivy League Rookie of the Year caught 44 balls for 553 yards last year, and has a chance to break that mark midway through this season.

In Columbia's loss to Princeton in their Ivy opener, he had six catches for 146 yards and two touchdowns. In their lone win, a blowout of Marist, he was the only player to grab more than one ball, and he had six for 59. Last week, Columbia lost 29-0 to Lafayette, and yet the 5-10 wideout brought in eight catches for 99 yards, as the next closest man had two for 23.

In all, he has 29 catches for 434 yards and three touchdowns in four games, 14 catches and 286 yards ahead of from the nearest teammate.

Al Bagnoli's job is easy: double him. The entire game. It's better to play 10-on-9 without Knowlin than 11-on-11 with him burning you.

Getting pressure on Craig Hormann will help the Quakers' defensive backs in this one, though. Hormann's thrown six interceptions already this year.

I'm the first one to admit passing numbers in a loss can be a wash (as with rushing attempts in a win), but the Quakers really have to give running back Joe Sandberg the ball.

Quarterback Bryan Walker, now the starter in for Robert Irvin, threw a Penn record 60 passes against Dartmouth just a week after he attempted a mere 15 against Villanova, and had two of those picked off. This guy certainly is no Colt Brennan.

But Sandberg only touched the ball on 20 plays against the Big Green, and those certainly don't include the missed fourth-down conversions of two, three and four yards. He did get a deep bruise in the back at some point that game, but from my understanding was still in on some plays even late-on.

While the injury troubles are well-documented at the all-important quarterback and running back positions, the rest of the team has stayed impressively healthy. Other than Joe Anastasio missing the start against Villanova, none of the other 20 starters has missed a game due to injury.