The 1983 Columbia Lions football team was an American football team that represented Columbia University during the

1983 NCAA Division I-AA football season The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

. Columbia placed second-to-last in the Ivy League. In their fourth season under head coach

Bob Naso Robert James Naso (born September 11, 1937) is an American former college football coach. From 1961 to 1967 he was defensive line coach at Rutgers, then was defensive coordinator from 1968 to 1979. In 1976, while Naso worked as defensive coordi ...

, the Lions compiled a 1–7–2 record and were outscored 363 to 218. John Witkowski was the team captain. The Lions' 1–5–1 conference record finished seventh in the Ivy League standings. Columbia was outscored 221 to 130 by Ivy opponents. This season marked the start of a winless streak and a losing streak that would become the worst-ever in Division I. Following their October 15 win over Yale, Columbia would go 47 games without a win. As the Bucknell and

Dartmouth Dartmouth may refer to: Places * Dartmouth, Devon, England ** Dartmouth Harbour * Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States * Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada * Dartmouth, Victoria, Australia Institutions * Dartmouth College, Ivy League university i ...

games in 1983 would also be the only tie games during the streak, this meant four complete seasons (1984 to 1987) of nothing but losses, with 44 losses in a row. The streak finally ended with a homecoming win October 9, 1988, against Princeton. This stretch included 33 consecutive Ivy League losses, starting with 1983's

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and Brown games. A decade later, Columbia's streak was surpassed by an 80-game loss streak by

Prairie View A&M Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU or PV) is a public historically black land-grant university in Prairie View, Texas. Founded in 1876, it is one of Texas's two land-grant universities and the second oldest public institution of higher learning ...

in 1989–1998. Columbia scheduled most of its games on the road in 1983, as its own football stadium was being rebuilt. The Lions hosted two home games at the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

Giants Stadium Giants Stadium (sometimes referred to as Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands or The Swamp) was a stadium located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The venue was open from 1976 to 2010, and it primarily hosted sp ...

East Rutherford, New Jersey East Rutherford is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the borough's population was 10,022, reflecting an increase of 1,109 (+12.4%) from the 8,913 counted in the 2010 census.

, and one game at

Hofstra Stadium Hofstra University is a private university in Hempstead, New York. It is Long Island's largest private university. Hofstra originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of Ne ...

in Hempstead, New York.

Schedule

References

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Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

Columbia Lions football seasons Columbia Lions football