National Laughing Stock

"If you're not trying to be the best, then you will be the worst." 

The above line should be the motto for the Columbia Athletics Department and the administration in general.

A department that allowed sub-par coaches to be hired via sub-par and even fraudulent hiring processes has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

A department that is always reactive and not proactive when it comes to offering the best financial aid has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

A department that pays some of its head coaches well, but does not spend an adequate amount on coordinators and other assistant coaches has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

A department that exists mostly at the whim of just one person, generous and well-meaning as he is, has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

A department that is insular, defensive, and dismissive of outside advice or consulting help despite the worst record in organized college football has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

An administration that has always set the bar low and seen mediocrity as an acceptable goal for football has now become the butt of the jokes in the national sports media.

Here are some of the jokes appearing in today's column in the Washington Post by Norm Chad:

"Columbia football has been bad since Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House. In November 1870, the Lions lost their first game to Rutgers, 6-3."

"In the third game this season, Columbia actually led Princeton in the second quarter, 6-3 — due to the fact that most of the Tigers’ offense was finishing mid-term papers on the biology of hydrothermal vents — then Princeton scored 35 points in a row for a 38-6 win."

"Brown’s school motto is, “Nos Autem Mali Sumus, Qui Malus Columbia,” which, translated loosely to English, means, “We’re Bad, But We’re Not Columbia-Bad.”

Yeah these are all cheap shots. But that's what happens when you lose 20 in a row. Watch what the reception will be if the Athletic Department, (what an oxymoron that is by the way), expends more energy complaining about the teasing in the news media than it does on actually conducting an above board and decent coaching search.

A more telling piece out today comes from Dave Caldwell at the Wall Street Journal who does a good job of showing how Head Coach Pete Mangurian continues to throw the team under the bus with not even a hint of personal contrition.

Columbia football, even if the losing streak is still 23 games shy of hitting the 44-game mark again, has fallen back to the place that even the most cynical longtime fans never thought it would be again. We are at absolute bottom again. An already weak program made a terrible coaching hire and that's how we got here. It's as simple as that.

Speaking of that bad hire, I've documented many things the "search committee" missed, (and I believe deliberately missed because the decision was made before the committee even had its first meeting), about Mangurian from his violent feuds with fellow coaches and players to his curious lack of close connections to his former players.

But now we have even more specific information about why he lost his last job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL. Again, all of this info was easily available on Google if anyone at Columbia had bothered to care about who Athletic Director Dianne Murphy was pushing for the job from the get go.

Here's what the line was on Mangurian in Tampa from the top insider Buc website, (see if any of it sounds familiar):

“One of the reasons the Buccaneers fired offensive line coach Pete Mangurian is that the team didn’t feel he was specialized enough to install pass protections. A case in point was that in Jon Gruden’s last year as the team’s play-caller, Tampa Bay only allowed three unblocked, free-hitters to hit the quarterback on blitzes. In 2009, when Mangurian replaced Bill Muir as the offensive line coach, that number swelled to over 40 quarterback hits, which the Bucs knew was unacceptable. So offensive coordinator Greg Olson installed the protections himself instead of Mangurian and the number of free hitters coming on blitzes resulted in only six hits on quarterback Josh Freeman – a massive reduction. That’s one of the many reasons why Mangurian was replaced with Pat Morris.”

Ask Sean Brackett and Brett Nottingham if Mangurian ever got better at teaching players to protect the QB.

A lot of people are really confused when it comes to the kind of coaches Columbia has hired for the last 50 years or so.

Some of the hires have been honest mistakes, like Bob Shoop who wasn't quite the guy he is now as Penn State's defensive coordinator. Plus, he had a personal conduct issue that made his firing a necessity.

Some of the hires were good recruiters, like Ray Tellier and Norries Wilson, who weren't the best at getting a decent amount out of that talent on most game days.

But some of the hires have been garbage from day one, and everyone knew it. Rutgers alums were shocked when Columbia hired Bob Naso in 1980. And Bucs, Giants and Falcons fans and players were surprised that Columbia hired Mangurian to actually do the more mentor-based job of coaching Ivy League football players.

No one should be shocked that Columbia is 3-26 under this coach, and no one should blame his failures on other factors. You just don't lose 20 games in a row in the Ivies unless you have a very bad coach.