Rarely, if ever, does Fordham have to protect against overconfidence when it comes to the Liberty Cup, the annual rivalry game with Columbia, slated for Saturday afternoon at Jack Coffey Field in The Bronx.
Of course, this isn’t just any September for the Rams, who are off to their first 3-0 start since 1988. They are ranked 21st in both Football Championship Subdivision polls after back-to-back impressive victories over FCS power Villanova and American Athletic Conference foe Temple, Fordham’s first win over a FBS team since the program was reestablished since 1970.
Quarterback Mike Nebrich keyed the comeback against Temple, throwing for a career-high 320 yards and two touchdowns. The Patriot League Player of the Week, he tossed the game-winning 29-yard touchdown pass to Sam Ajala with four seconds left.
“It’s a huge confidence boost for our program,” head coach Joe Moorhead said. “It helps with recruiting, it helps in every aspect of what we’re doing, trying to build a national championship team.”
Less than 24 hours after the Temple victory, before the euphoria had worn off, Moorhead met with his team and asked them to forget about the win.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told them. “It’s about this week.”
He gave the team a similar message after the win over Villanova, the first victory at home over a top-10 opponent in program history, to build on that performance and make “history” for the second week in a row against Temple.
Columbia, as an Ivy League program, is playing its season opener after going 3-7 under first-year head coach Pete Mangurian last fall. The Lions are decided underdogs, but Moorhead knows the records — or in this case, Columbia’s lack thereof — can be thrown out when the two sides meet.
“It’s a game that [historically] really comes down to the fourth quarter,” said Moorehead, who led Fordham to a 6-5 record last year, a five-win turnaround in his first season after the program went 1-10 two years ago. Fordham has won the Liberty Cup — a winner’s trophy dedicated to those lost on 9/11 — each of the past three seasons.
Mangurian said Fordham getting an early start to the season has worked out for the Rams, but had the Lions played games before the annual rivalry, they could have suffered injuries as well.
“It’s our of our control,” Mangurian said. “We try not to worry about that stuff.”
The Lions have more important things to worry about — like how to slow down the heavily favored Rams Saturday afternoon in The Bronx.