Long time fans of Columbia football will all admit that the program has improved greatly since the bad old days of the late 70's and early 80's.
But the problem is that the other seven Ivy teams aren't standing still. So the Lions haven't been able to move up in a relative way. The result is just two winning seasons in the last 40 years.
What's going on at Yale is a good example of what I'm talking about.
Humiliated by a long-running losing streak to Harvard and a shorter run of losing seasons, the Yale program is now pulling out all the stops to get back closer to the top of the Ivies.
Barely two weeks after the news broke that Stanford QB Brett Nottingham was transferring to Columbia, we learned that Clemson red shirt QB Morgan Roberts was heading up to New Haven.
And yesterday we found out that the most highly-touted incoming freshman in the Ivies, Victor Egu, will ditch plans to do a PG year and suit up for the Elis this season.
Obviously, I don't have access to Egu's academic transcript. But I feel confident in saying that he did something to improve his A.I. He could have re-taken his SAT's, or perhaps someone in the Yale admissions office took a closer look at his application and found something that made his previous decision to go to prep school for a year unnecessary.
Either way, Yale's big ticket incoming class of freshmen and transfers looks like the real deal. These kinds of results don't happen without lots of ACTIVE alumni support. No team with a great recruiting or transfer advantage, keeps it for long. It's eventually matched by one or many Ivy competitors.
And so, as with all things in sports, the only place where you can win and that win lasts forever is on the field. All this one-upmanship in recruiting and training facilities, etc. is great for our players who deserve the best.
But wouldn't a really good game-planning strategy be a lot more valuable in the long run?
How many times have we seen Columbia football teams get on the field without the play calling and strategic smarts in the booth to beat a better or even equally matched opponent?
The Lions were certainly not strategically prepared to play Princeton and Harvard last season, just to name two.
I don't care how good Penn, Harvard or any of the teams in the Ivies seems to be in any given year, there are certain weaknesses that are present in every Ivy team every year, every week. Those weaknesses are usually all about speed, which is the one commodity where the Ivies most noticeably lack relative to FBS teams. Size, especially for skill players on offense, is another problem that plagues the entire Ancient Eight.
It's time to start creating a team that can win in the Ivies, not just based on our team strengths, but on the weaknesses in team speed and size that everyone suffers from.
It's just something to think about...
FOX Sports Network
FOX has just announced that it's launching it's new national sports network this August. It will be available in 90 million U.S. homes.
While I generally like the deal Ivy football and basketball have with the NBC Sports Network, now's the time for Robin Harris and company at the League offices to start earning their pay. Getting more football and basketball games on the air should be a lot easier with another player in the mix.
Just 28 Days to Go!
Just four weeks from today is the promised deadline for the official announcement of the names in our incoming football freshmen class.
Columbia is on track to be the first school to publish an official list, but as I discussed above, don't be surprised if someone comes up to match or beat us this year.
15 comments:
I'm sorry Jakey, but you seriously want to compare a GREY SHIRT QB from Clemson who NEVER saw college playing time and only had offers from Ball State, Elon (wherever that is), and Western Carolina to BRETT NOTTINGHAM? Yale is not pulling out all the stops with that kid. However you are right about one thing, big results don't happen without lots of ACTIVE alumni support....so let's start showing the Lions some positive love.
And that doesn't mean hyper-linking to a few good comments among 543 criticisms.
I have little doubt that Nottingham is better, but the League won't stand still if he proves to be the star he can be. I expect Bagnoli to grab someone from Penn St. ASAP if that happens.
support = $$$
Jake is right. Reno brought over from Harvard half of the coaching staff and the Harvard basketball and football recruiting playbook which is to make numerous offers of admission to top-rated recruits in the summmer and early fall of their senior year. Dartmouth's strategy is to offer early admission to top recruits. Princeton elevated its recruiting the past two years. Brown, Cornell and Penn have their own strategies. We are progress but have some ways to go.
Murphy uses the bottom band for DLs. Has for years.
Murphy uses the bottom band for DLs. Has for years.
no matter to me that some Ivy "beats" us in announcing its official signees.
How do ur financial,packages compare to HYP?
jake
you need to blog abut the NYT article today about the Campbell Center.
Besides $$ what can we do as alums to help the Football Program ?
interesting slideshow of the Campbell Center is available when you read the NYTimes story on line today.
Jake, as you may recall, one of the few Ivy coaches who went public in the 2008 New York Times article about Harvard's lowered academic standards was Yale basketball coach James Jones. To me, that suggests he has been asking for help internally for at least as long, with no obvious result on the court.
It's interesting that Yale may (and at this point it's still absolutely "may") be taking a more aggressive posture with football recruiting.
Of course, each school has its own priorities for sports success, with Harvard obviously taking basketball from the back burner before Amaker's arrival, first to the front burner, then into the oven and now through the microwave. Yale under President Levin has always resisted taking the same short cuts. It will be interesting to see whether, with a new football coach and a new university president, the developments you mention signal a new more lenient philosophy at the Yale admissions office.
By the way, I think we all need to withhold judgment until there's a lot more data points. To their credit, Yale and Princeton have stayed true to their higher AI targets for a long time even as Harvard has pushed the envelope. Yale deserves the benefit of the doubt concerning its academic integrity.
We need to step up our recruiting to the point that we have as many student-athletes interested in attending Columbia as the other Ivy League schools.In football, it is well known and documented by Rivals.com and Scout.com that many more high school football players are interested in Harvard Yale and Princeton than the other five schools. Penn, Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell have all developed strategies for overcoming the disadvantage. Coach Wilson made some progress in overcoming this obstacle. Coach Mangurian is working hard to overcome this hurdle. However, I do not see him getting much help from the Administration as Rivals listed only 50 players interested in Columbia compared to 200+ at Harvard. Our Athletic Department has to step up its efforts to publicize Columbia athletics to the point that our coaching staff is recruiting on a level football field with our Ivy League opponents.
I dont know why the fuss about Nottingham. Reminds me of Beau Sweeney. Highly rated nationally(higher than Nottingham his sr yr) and recruited by Cal, Sweeney was backup( on paper) at Cal, only to get booted aside when others performed much better than he. Disappointed, he transferred to Cornell, and guess what, he ended up as 3/4 stringer at Cornell as well. Nottingham is the same way. Lots of promise(and ego) in HS, looked good in practice, but his 3rd year at Stanford, he lost his edge, and his focus, and was 3/4th string by the end of the year. He is not the savior, and would end up like Sweeney at COrnell(a backup TE) if we had some better talent ourselves.
Looks to me like Nick Melka.
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