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.