A Stunning Display of Normalcy

There was something startling about today's introductory news conference for new Columbia Football Head Coach Jon Poppe.

It was an amazingly unique and almost radical first for a new CU head football coach:

It was NORMAL.

By "normal," I mean the speech Poppe gave was the kind of speech you're likely to hear from just about any new coach taking over a program. He talked about commitment, adaptability, strategy, and even a little bit of luck. 

While I came into the event thinking intently about how Poppe is the first Columbia Football head coach since Buff Donelli took over in 1957 who HASN'T had to spend most of his opening speech talking about how he needed to fix everything about the program from the ground up. 

That's because he doesn't. As Poppe said himself in a the Q & A session, the program is MUCH better off than where it was in 2015 and doesn't need to focus on starting over when it comes to facilities, recruiting, or overall team commitment. It's not that each of those things don't need improvement, it's that none of them are at rock bottom or even very close to it. 

It's one thing for all of this to be true, and it's another for a new head coach to realize it and have the humility to see he doesn't need to restructure every little thing. It's pretty obvious Poppe has that awareness. 

The other bit of new from the event is that it's clear Poppe has not finalized his staff and negotiations and other work behind the scenes is going on right now to get that done. Clearly, bringing in a quality offensive coordinator is a major part of the puzzle when it comes to staff. 

The other challenge via recruiting, existing player development, or the transfer portal will be finding a new starting QB for the 2024 season. Poppe doesn't have to do a rebuild, but he still has some major work ahead of him. 

But as his former players at CU have been telling me for weeks, Poppe will not lack for that enthusiasm and commitment that it will take to get these immediate and long term jobs accomplished. 

 

Poppe Presser Day Updates

As we await the official news conference to welcome new Head Coach Jon Poppe, here are some more updates and details:

-The event will be at 1pm today in the 2nd floor lounge at the Dodge Fitness Center. For those who cannot attend, I believe it will be streamed live, but the details on where to find that stream have not been posted yet. 

-You can expect most of the news conference to cover Poppe's biographical info and his coaching resume. I don't know if we'll be presented with a more clear picture of who is and isn't on his coaching staff, but we can hope.

-On that note, I can report that former Lion LB Justin Woodley '21 will be rejoining the staff as the linebackers coach. 

-Sources also tell me that will coach Greg Skjold is rejoining the staff, he will not be the offensive coordinator. That's despite Skjold serving in that role under Poppe at Union this past season. 

-I think I'm not alone in hoping that Al Bagnoli will be at the news conference and say a few words of welcome and encouragement for Poppe and the new staff. 

Poppe Presser Set for Wednesday

Multiple sources confirm to me that the official news conference to introduce new Head Coach Jon Poppe will be this Wednesday afternoon in the 2nd floor lounge of the Dodge Fitness Center and will be open to the public. The exact time has not been confirmed. 

I'm sure we'll get some of the questions about what Poppe's staff will look like during that news conference, etc. 

The response to Poppe's hiring has been very positive from every one of the members of the team I've heard from since Friday. That should play a role in convincing a decent number of players with options to return to Columbia next fall, as opposed to using their remaining year or years of eligibility elsewhere. 

 

It's Official... but still lots of unanswered questions

The Columbia Athletics Department has made the official announcement that Jon Poppe is the new football head coach.

But some of the info my sources provided me over the last several weeks has changed, (it happens in developing news stories). 

-Sources tell me Justin Stovall is staying on as Defensive Coordinator. 

-I can NO LONGER confirm that Princeton Wide Receivers Coach Brian Flinn is joining Poppe's staff at Columbia. I am now getting unconfirmed reports he will remain at Princeton.

-Gregory Skjold is returning with Poppe to rejoin the Columbia staff. Skjold served as the offensive coordinator under Poppe at Union this year, but I do not know what his job title will be at CU now. 

-Poppe informed some of his Union players Thursday night that he was going to Columbia, as reported by the local press in the Union area. 

As the official release reported, the official intro news conference for Poppe will be this Wednesday. Hopefully, we will have more answers then.

Of course, I have posted several thoughts about Coach Poppe over the years on this blog. As I re-read those posts last night, I realized they were ALL POSITIVE. That includes this post I made about how Columbia had the best secondary in the Ivies in 2017 and how that unit was going to miss Poppe as he went to Harvard. 

JON POPPE TO BE NAMED NEW HEAD COACH SUNDAY

Because I do this blog as a supportive tool for the football program and the players, I've held off on publishing this information that I've had confirmed for more than a week. But since the facts are now becoming known by more and more members of the Columbia community anyway, it's now time to "go with the story."

Jon Poppe will be the new head coach of the Columbia Football program, with an official announcement coming this Sunday. 

Poppe served as secondary coach and recruiting coordinator at Columbia under Al Bagnoli from 2015-17 before going to Harvard in those same two roles, (Poppe had been an assistant at Harvard before his time at Columbia as well). 

For the past year, Poppe has been the head coach at Union College, where the Garnet Chargers went 10-2 this year and made it to the 2nd round of the Division-III playoffs. The 10 wins were a record for a 1st-year coach at Union. 

Poppe is bringing with him the outstanding wide receivers coach at Princeton, Brian Flinn, who my sources tell me will be the offensive coordinator and associate head coach. Flinn's record at Princeton and Villanova before that speaks for itself. 

I'm also told that Augie Hoffmann  will remain at Columbia and likely take on the role of offensive line coach. There has been an effort to retain much of the defensive coaching staff, but I'm not sure if any of them will decide to remain. 

Getting back to Poppe, his Columbia connections run deep. His father Bill and brother Will both played for Columbia, and all of the boys in the family including the dad are Bergen Catholic alumni.

Poppe is an excellent recruiter. For Columbia, he was responsible for bringing in many of the players who turned the program around, most notably Cameron Roane '18 who remains the best cornerback CU has had in my lifetime. While it is true that recruiting for Harvard is a "different animal," Poppe had some major successes there as well. 

He is not yet 40, which may give some of us pause, but he will be surrounded by some older staffers and he's far from the youngest person to get an Ivy football top job, (he's about 8-9 years older than David Archer when he was made HC at Cornell). 

It's also a fact that the CU secondary has fallen off in quality since Poppe left. Hopefully, he can reverse that fast. 

The other key positive is Poppe's knowledge that the program needs an offensive mastermind to work with him is an excellent sign of his self-awareness and awareness of the Columbia challenge. As I've written before, this team/program now is NOT A RECLAMATION PROJECT! There is good talent on the roster, great facilities in place, and a tradition of winning over the last eight years now. 

Jon Poppe has what he needs to succeed at Columbia and there is no doubt he has the enthusiasm to go along with that.