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With the firing of Pete Mangurian already a done deal, I urge the search committee to conduct and ethical and open hiring process this time. 

Below is a list of seven head coaching candidates that I have discussed before. I have several sources that tell me just about every name below would be happy to come to Columbia. Some of my sources are these coaches themselves. 

Start here if you want to achieve the dual goal of getting a better coach AND getting the justifiably angry alumni off your backs. 

Hire some other no-name candidate and be prepared to suffer the consequences of more losses and more national humiliation. 

Tom Gilmore

Tom is just as good a choice for Columbia as he was three years ago, despite Holy Cross’ difficulties in that period. The truth is, HC is deliberately not keeping up with its Patriot League opponents in the new athletic scholarship financial race. And yet, the Crusaders are still a very tough team. Gilmore turned this program around 7-8 years ago, but is now better-suited to do his magic in the Ivies. He’s a tough coach, but someone who has the deep respect and admiration from his former players. Mangurian does not have that in case you hadn’t noticed.

Joe Moglia

Moglia would have taken the Columbia job in 2011 if CU had been smart enough to offer it to him. Now, it’s not so clear but Joe would still get a step up in media attention and visibility if he came up north. Right now, he’s still doing miracles with Coastal Carolina and probably would like a shot at a big-time FBS team very soon. But I think he would still entertain an offer from Columbia very seriously. A big bonus here is we wouldn’t have to pay him.

Keith Clark

The Big Green’s offensive coordinator has weathered the graduation of two once-in-a-generation quality RB’s in Nick Schwieger and Dominic Pierre in the last couple of years and still has his offense moving well. Clark was our O-line coach for our 1996 8-2 season and he knows what Columbia is all about. He is more than ready to be a head coach.

Cortez Hankton

A totally outside the box choice, except he’s not. The Big Green WR coach is universally acknowledged to be on the fast track to stardom. He’s a killer recruiter, great teacher, and has the personality to move mountains. No one at Dartmouth can believe he came back for a third year there and they are thanking their lucky stars. He’s worth taking a very long look at.

Mike Kelleher 

The D-Coordinator at Brown. He was with CU for 4 years and has a great resume. Remember, Brown's defenses have been underrated for years.

James Perry

The Princeton OC and former Brown QB and asst. coach was vehemently hated by Roger Hughes’ players when he came to the Tigers with Bob Surace. Now he’s universally loved as he’s turned Princeton into a scoring machine. And it didn’t take long.

Jim Margraff

Margraff has made Johns Hopkins into a consistent winner and has been on the CU head coaching radar for years. He has the admiration of the many players he coached as an assistant at Columbia under Ray Tellier and he also worked with the first few very good teams at Penn in the 1980's.


Chris Wilkerson

Wilkerson was at Dartmouth for nine seasons before going to the University of Chicago last year. He's made a quick turnaround for the Maroons and he certainly understands coaching in a tough academic, urban environment. He also recruits the NYC area.