Ivy Media Day Tomorrow

There’s a knee jerk reaction some have in favor of trashing a lot of the aspects of Ivy Football Media Day ever since 2008 when they turned it into an online/conference call affair.

But there’s a lot that can be gleaned from this event as a lot of coaches just come out and clear up many offseason mysteries like who’s going to start at QB, who’s injured, who’s coming back for a 5^th year, etc.

I’ve already outlined the top questions I’d like to see the reporters ask the other seven head coaches tomorrow, so here are my five multi-part questions that should be asked of Columbia’s Pete Mangurian:

  

-What’s the state of the starting QB race right now? Who’s ahead and what are the relative strengths of Nottingham, Hilinski, and McDonagh?

-How are the Chad Washington arrest and the Twitter embarrassments affecting the team? Do you expect Washington to play this year? Are any players being suspended for the offensive Tweets? Some players are STILL Tweeting sketchy stuff, what is being done to put a lid on this?

-Was the offensive line the true weak link of the team last year, and what’s being done to fix it? Did you expect better from a line that was, and still is, so much lighter than the rest of the Ivies?

-Who are the leading candidates to replace the graduated starters at linebacker?

-On the Columbia roster page, you have a personal assessment of every player EXCEPT Seyi Adebayo. Why is that and isn’t he a key piece in the puzzle for the Lions defense this fall?

Scouting the Enemy

Week one opponent Fordham begins its season in just 24 days with a home game against URI.

So the Rams opened training camp last week and Fordham has already released a short video setting up the key issues for their preseason.

As for week 2 home opener opponent Monmouth, it turns out the Hawks opening game is also on 8/29, not 8/28 as I reported earlier. So they have also opened training camp as of this past Friday.

Unfortunately for Monmouth that opening game is still a very tough road contest against Montana State.

Fortunately for Monmouth, the school has just approved a $5 million plan to build a state of the art press box and concession level at its football stadium, Kessler Field.

The upgrade will not add to the stadium’s capacity of 4,600 seats, but it could help lure Columbia and other Ivy foes to play the Hawks on the road. While some exceptions have been made, Ivy schools have generally rejected playing road game at stadiums with sub-10,000 seat capacities.

Columbia’s training camp opens in 15 days, on August 20^th.