Bailey Popeck, right
Popeck Commits
Bailey Popeck, a TE from Tennessee, and the younger brother of Ben Popeck ’13,
has verbally committed to Columbia. Like his older brother, Bailey is a
graduate of St. George’s School in Tennessee. Unlike his brother, Bailey took a
PG year at Phillips Exeter.
Congratulations to Bailey and his family.
Speaking of recruiting…
What would be the nice things for Columbia football to find
in its incoming recruiting class?
The top needs are obvious: everything. But I would put a
priority on offensive linemen, running backs, wide receivers, and big defensive
tackles.
I wish I could say all it would take is a super-talented
crop of recruits to turn things around. But honestly, would anyone really trust naughty Head Coach Pete Mangurian to manage the
best talent properly?
A super strong 300-pound LT would probably be told to lose
50 pounds and call us next year.
Another super-talented QB would probably be ordered never to
run, and not be protected well enough to stay in the pocket anyway. (See Brett Nottingham).
A great speedy WR anything shorter than 6-2 would probably
not be recruited at all.
The list goes on.
I’ll continue to publish news about recruits as it comes in,
(and I am getting more reports of verbal commitments right now), but the excitement
and fun that I usually get from the whole process is all gone.
I can’t help but think it’s all irrelevant until Mangurian
and Dianne Murphy get off this
reservation.
The team is being grossly mismanaged and no one in power is
even willing to admit it, let alone fix the problem.
What on EARTH are the CU recruiters telling these kids
coming on campus the next few weekends?
If any potential recruit is reading this, I suggest you tape
it all on your iPhone. It might make for a good laugh in about 11 months.
Recruiting Truisms
I’m personally sick of hearing over and over again about how
there are only so many decent players available to play Ivy football, everybody
already knows who they are every year, and a school like Columbia never has a
shot to get any of the best guys.
That’s the conventional wisdom that I’m convinced is pushed
out by lazy and embarrassed Ivy coaches who, if you just bother to look closer,
miss so many great recruits every year.
There’s a great example this year among the Heisman finalists.
He’s Jordan Lynch, who was in fact interested in playing for an Ivy team when he was
coming out of Mount Carmel HS outside Chicago. But Ivy recruiters basically
ignored him.
I promise you there are many other stories like this every
year. Usually, players are overlooked for dumb reasons, (like a program has a
head coach with stupid weight and height requirements), and since we now have
the DUMBEST of all the Ivy coaches with
the MOST STUPID recruiting requirements, we can expect Columbia to miss out on
more than the usual number of Jordan Lynch-type players for at least another
year.
Here’s a good player Columbia, and most Ivies, probably aren’t
even looking at: He’s Joe Capobianco from Lawrence HS on Long Island.
Is Lawrence a powerhouse? No. Is Long Island football as good as it once was? Also no.
But Capobianco can flat out play and he’s been a team leader and starter for
three seasons. Sadly, he’s 5-11 and he also sometimes runs the ball, so the
fact that he’s broken every Long Island passing record will not get any Columbia or much Ivy
attention.
You can’t fix stupid.
42 comments:
Jake, you just have given the kid the KOD as far as CU football is
concerned. Clemson OC makes high 6 figures. Money talks in this game as well as all games. We need coaches on their way up, not down.
clemson OC makes approx 2.5 million a year
Amazing! 4 or 5 years ago he was a HS coach in Texas.
I saw Jordan Lynch play several times in high school. He is an exceptionally talented athlete and his place as a finalist is even more amazing because his high school program doesn't throw the ball much.
I guaranty that with the coaching staff at CU, he would have never seen the field.
When I think of the word naughty I think of women in lingerie (ahem). It never would have occurred to me in a zillion, trillion years to describe Pete Mangurian that way. I also can't imagine why any recruit would want to play on his team. I can understand every other reason for going to CU but for a student athlete to willingly step into that quagmire does not compute.
They wont recruit at mt. caramel, but Yale does.
Similar to the line they said, "we dont recruit in florida because it is overrated.."
opa
I am frankly pleased to see that Bailey Popeck will be playing for us. While M and M may only be with us another year, Bailey will be here for four. It says something to me that, despite all our woes, Ben still thinks enough of Columbia to have encouraged his kid brother to play for us. As much as I would prefer to see changes at the top, I cannot endorse the strategy of discouraging players from coming here.
I agree with Old Lion, it's foolish to discourage players from coming to Columbia. The current regime will succeed or leave soon enough, we must hope for the best.
we do recruit Fl.
Seen Big Green Alert this morning?
I see a number of Columbia committs at every position. Good to know that a hundred years of losing doesn't impact recruiting. Go Lions
Where do you see these commits?
What I'd like to see is anything from the coach to Columbia fans about his 0-10 season. The LAST post on his public Wordpress blog was on MAY 8th, about the Chad Washington/tweeting incidents.
Yet he recently whined to Spectator that people are trying to tear down his program, including even Columbians. Horrors! Does PM think we should applaud his 0-10?
And why would outsiders want to tear down his program? All our opponents are Mangurian's biggest fans? He guarantees them a not just a victory but a massacre every time they play us. You couldn't t buy that.
I count 7 committs so far.
Who? Where?
Any chance of getting TTs Mayfield?
Same HS as one of CUs DBs.
Would be best QB in IL.
Does the football program have a post season gathering like a dinner or something? That is traditional with other programs, win or lose. I would like to see how awkward it is for Pete the Imbecile to send off the seniors in front of the whole program (and presumably their parents) when no one has any respect for him, inside or outside the program. Reason being he showed no one else respect except a handful of freshmen he promised playing time to if they played on his team. The illusion the Imbecile carries about himself is that he is not accountable. He has the unwavering support of a CU administration that does not care about the football program so the Imbecile does as he pleases.
Rich '66
Al touches on a very interesting, important point. Rather than going out of his way to be politic and seek support, PM appears to have locked himself inside the gates.
I say this descriptively only. My primary opinion is that he will stand/fall on his record, as will his boss. And given those records, their survival is problematic as long as we all stay the course and let LB know we aren't going anywhere. He is the determining factor, not the previous two people.
Back to PM, all we have seen/heard from him is a wall of silence, and a leaked email ordering his team to keep their mouths shut with the press. It appears that he is joining the circled wagons tactic of his superiors. Why?
Seriously, and again, this is just my curious musing, wouldn't anyone with the season he has just had go on record, publicly apologize, explain how things will be better next year and how much we learned from this season, or something like that? Every coach in every sport at every level from HS on does that. Why not him?
Can it be he was told to keep a low profile? If so, what we are doing is working; getting results.
If not, he is clearly showing extreme defensiveness re his record and persona; crawling into a shell and denying his public obligations. If this is the case, it goes to the question of his emotional and psychological qualifications for his position. He owes his constituency and the CU community at least a public summary of the past season and a forecast of the next as a normal part of the job.
If he avoids this because of potential repercussions, well, perhaps he needs to take his medicine. He is, after all, a coach with an absolutely horrible record (that's not opinion; it's fact)and he should accept that. It's called moral courage, and the record isn't going anywhere.
If you are a terrible communicator I guess it's best to keep your mouth shut.
We cannnot protect the qb's we have now, why would another want to come to the hallowed grounds of Columbia where the lineman are giants among grammar school kids?
Did you see #95 CU Lion Josh Martin playing against the Raiders?
No, I had no idea he was back after KC cut following preseason. Good news. How did he do?
Al, "imbecile" is a very harsh word. Not that I absolutely rule it out for PM. After all, an imbecile is dumber than a
moron but still smarter than an idiot. Therefore it may have uses for PM if this farce goes on much longer.
However, because the word imbecile has a harsher
feeling to it than idiot or moron, I mostly prefer to reserve it for description of many of our top-ranking politicians.
Al, "imbecile" is a very harsh word. Not that I absolutely rule it out for PM. After all, an imbecile is dumber than a
moron but still smarter than an idiot. Therefore it may have uses for PM if this farce goes on much longer.
However, because the word imbecile has a harsher
feeling to it than idiot or moron, I mostly prefer to reserve it for description of many of our top-ranking politicians.
Former Columbia All Ivy Football Player Josh Martin Forces Fumble against the Raiders
On the ensuing kickoff, Chiefs LB Josh Martin forced a fumble that was recovered by Chiefs S Husain Abdullah and again, the offense would make the most of it.
http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/article-2/Chiefs-Top-Oakland-56-31-Clinch-Playoff-Spot-/53f30fbf-6543-4f76-b77d-6b20f699658e
The Kansas City Chiefs placed defensive back Sanders Commings on injured reserve and promoted linebacker Josh Martin to the active roster from the practice squad.
Martin joined the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in May.
Prior to joining the Chiefs, he played in 30 games for Columbia University in the Ivy League with 140 tackles, 17.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries.
They come to win the job lotto. How many kids graduate with job offers of $100.000+ from schools other than the Ivi League?
I'm not a Mangurian supporter, but if you read the blog posts and commentary here in terms of both tone and substance, you'd have to conclude that Mangurian would be crazy to tell you anything about the team. By demonizing the guy so uniformly and to such an extent, you have demonstrated you will accept nothing he says as true, and you will place anything he says in the absolute worst light. Now you ask why he won't talk to you. Do you really need an answer?
Note: before you flame me, let me repeat that I am not a Mangurian supporter. I'm commenting only on tone and tactics here, both of which have been counterproductive to their supposed purpose.
I thought about what label best suits Pete and choose that word intentionally. Only an imbecile ostracizes student athletes regardless if he retired them or not, further demoralizes them in various ways. Only a true to form imbecile would prioritize his ego over player development ( and team development). No need to rehash everything Pete has done wrong leading to crashing the entire CU football program. That's why he gets the label.
And I cannot control auto suggest on my phone very well. Recruited, not retired among other typos. :-P
Regarding whether or not Pete should talk to the CU fan base about the team: nothing he said last year turned out to be true, unfortunately. The program did not make a big leap forward in the second year, as he told us it would. We were not physically stronger in 2013 than in 2012, at least not in any way that one could see on the field. And worst of all, Pete wrote to us in March that he wanted to be held accountable for results in 2013 and judged ultimately by how many games he won. Of course, when he won zero games, he developed a different standard of accountability. One that involved accusing the alumni of negativity and the players of not playing as they had been coached to play. Although he did amusingly claim to have empirical data documenting improvement in the program!
Whatever any of us think of Pete, hearing from him would accomplish nothing. I enjoyed his very good blog posts last year. But since none of what he wrote turned out to resemble the truth, I'm not that eager to be fooled again.
Rich '66
I'll take "not a Mangurian supporter" at his word and not assume he's an apologist.
I didn't ask PM to tell US anything. He's running scared from this bunch.
I simply stated that he should have the decency and professional responsibility to address the CU community about his failure and what he intends to do about it, instead of hiding. The rest I already said earlier.
PS.....just read the NCAA stats on D1-2A, which is the next level down, where we are. We are statistically the worst D1 team in the country.
0-10
122 (last) in total offense
121 in rushing
110 in passing
122 (last) scoring
122 (last) 3rd down conv
121 first downs
121 time of possession
On the bright side, we had the 9th fewest penalty yards per game, although some Jake bigots might try to say that was because we never had the ball more than 3 times in a row :-)
How can ANYONE begin to think this overwhelming failure in EVERY phase of the game doesn't lie at one specific person's feet? Did the team suddenly decide to suck worse than ANY OTHER Lion's team in history.
You figure it out.
PS.......
I forgot
120 Total Defense
120 turnover margin
This means that out of the 122 teams in 2A, we are absolutely the worst. Not even close. Not even an argument. Not like our offense sucked but the defense was OK, or vice versa. NOTHING!!! Who doesn't get it??
At this point, PM is embalmed and wrapped in gauze. The only thing left is to (figuratively) put his CU career where it belongs.
I'm done talking about him. Now we'll see if the decision makers want to continue hitching their reputations to this mummy.
Pharaoh Peter 1?
Rich raises all the important data and. Do not really think we need to run the bus over Pete anymore.
What I do disagree with is the concept that the Norries recruits are soft or that our team lacked toughness. It is a fact that on all ivy teams there are soft players and hard players. It is the nature of a team. I have found that each trait is a player's DNA; meaning it cannot be taught or instilled. However, this doesn't mean that either one cannot play at a high level, which is what we are being told or at a minimum the path we are being guided down by the current coaching regime. The. Issue is that it is a good coach who gets the most out of the players and we have not seen that..just revisit the stats Rich listed. What we have seen are excuses and then silence because there really is no defense of the last season.
Players get judged on performance; for a minute there I thought coaches were too!?
It gets to the point of accountability across all athletics and until we have a method for making people accountable we will not take steps forward.
Des Werthman
Des
I am so tired of you thinking you know what you are talking about. Just be quiet.
Whether one agrees with him or not, Des Werthman has earned the right to speak up and be heard. He is one of the toughest and most accomplished players ever to play Ivy football.
thats not saying much!
Thanks Old Lion
To both anonymous posters who are likely the same...I love it when you guys talk smack...the crushing blows are too hard for me to take. I should ask my mommy to make the bad men stop.
What is not saying much is commenting without posting your name.
Too much time has been spent responding to what amounts to singularly unimpressive anonymous posts. I am going to go now and wrestle my 8 year old daughter who undoubtedly will put up more of a fight than either one or both of you.
Have a nice night old lion
Des
Totally low blow on Des!
Is coach M in the witness protection program?
Pete is planning his exit strategy. He knows he's a lame duck and he knows there is little possibility of building a competitive team next season. Unless an opponent does not mentally show up, there is no Brackett or Garrett to bail them out.
The shame of it all is he will leave the program in even worse shape than he found it.
Wingman, is that entirely your speculation about PM leaving or do you a shred of evidence?
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