BBQ!
In another good sign of improving conditions for fans, the athletic department has announced that this Friday night's spring game will be followed by a free barbecue!
With the weather turning warmer in New York weeks ago, I think we're in for a great night all around.
Welker Role Revisited
One reader brings up the good point that one or both of the Gerst brothers could also be a good candidate for the "Wes Welker" role in the new Columbia offense. This could be one way to assuage the long-running worries about Nick Gerst that the previous coaching staff held about his durability as a 15-20 carry per game rusher.
But with that in mind, and the fact that CU will try an H-back formation this fall, Marcorus Garrett might also fit into that role. The "rough and tumble" work is presumably going to a bigger tight end type, so reassigning the quicker Lion RB's could be in order.
Moneyball and Ivies
I finally saw the movie Moneyball this weekend and the parallels from Major League Baseball to Ivy League football seemed strong.
Billy Beane had to change the way his organization scouted and fielded his team to be successful against the big market teams. It worked for awhile, until all the other teams started using some of the same methods.
Columbia's recent history has a similar story to tell.
In the early 1990's, Head Coach Ray Tellier decided to tear up the existing recruiting "rules" and he started an aggressive look at the entire state of California.
That plan yielded star players, most notably Marcellus WIley who became the best Lion player of the last 25 years.
More importantly, it yielded two of the three winning Columbia seasons in my lifetime: 1994 and 1996.
Eventually, the other Ivy schools figured it out too and they ended the Lions' brief advantage in recruiting in new areas.
Fast forward to 2012 and Columbia is clearly in need of re-writing the book on the way Ivy football is played in order to get ahead of the entrenched powers like Harvard and Penn.
Brown has done this for the last 18 years by committing to a pass-happy offense, (only adjusting slightly for the years when RB Nick Hartigan was on the team), and sticking with it.
Why Columbia or Dartmouth haven't copied the Brown formula is beyond me... Cornell finally did it last season and it worked big time.
But whatever the new Lion regime does, it needs to think like the guys in Moneyball who realized just trying to do what the big guys do won't work.
10 comments:
Jake, till now I had not thought of the arms race analogy you imply -- one Ivy gets an advantage with a new recruiting breakthrough that is later matched by others. But I like it and it seems accurate. For the record:Navarro and Naso intensively recruited California; Campbell (especially and short-sightedly) did not.
Some breakthroughs are non-geographic. Jerry Berndt at Penn was the first Ivy coach to require year-round weight training. a key factor in Penn's turnaround in the early '80s. I suspect Penn was also the first to game the AI.
There are also other factors at work. H an Y traditionally had distinctive geographic profiles that were due to the strengths of their alumni clubs in So Cal and Chicago. When alumni recruiting was banned they shifted to tactics more like the others.
Jake .... getting in to see THE Game is free .... the BBQ dinner is $30 ....
$30 seems a little steep-
Further to the slot back issue, I would not assume that either Gerst or Garrett is a slot back candidate. While some third down backs in the NFL occasionally set up as a slot type receiver, the skill set of a running back who is capable of catching passes out of the backfield, usually on third down, is not identical to the skill set of a good slot receiver. In order to excel as a slot receiver, you need to run great patterns, have great hands, and obtain separation. While Gerst or Garrett might have these skills I have no idea if in fact they do.
Pretty sure the BBQ is free, I know the team is included in this dinner. Cannot imagine that they would charge the team 30.00 to eat.
Read the brochure .... it specifically says that NCAA rules require that even parents and players have to pay ....
More good news! Coach Mangurian has just confirmed on Twitter that another key recruit, Scooter Hollins of Bowling Green, Kentucky, is now a Columbia Lion!!! Coach is showing Hollins as a "QB/WR." He led his team to the Kentucky state championship last year.
Jake, you might want to change Max Keefe from defensive back to linebaker, as that is the position he is listed at in Coach M's recent Twitter comment. Keefe looks like a terrific hitter on film.
We are certainly doing well in recruiting in Texas. From my experience, Columbia has a very good reputation in Texas and the quality of education in the high schools throughout the State is very good. I would expect Texas to be one of the focal points for recruiting in next year's class.
Sorry Red Tiger, my mistake.
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