The official announcements have all been made and now there is confirmation of my report from December 17th that Seitu Smith is the new offensive coordinator.
The other coaching staff names and bios can be found here on the official athletic department website.
Of course, the big takeaway everyone will get is that this is an extremely young staff from top to bottom. I think there are two things at play here:
1) I believe Athletic Director Peter Pilling is looking to duplicate some of the key characteristics of the best coaching hire of his tenure at Columbia: Megan Griffith. Griffith was barely 30 years old when she got the nod as head women's basketball coach at CU in 2016. Assembling a younger staff sure seems to have worked for women's hoops.
2) Pilling is still pretty well connected to a number of NFL contacts and that league has clearly embraced a youth coaching movement for many years now. The fact that Bill Belichick hasn't been hired yet this off season seems to be strong proof of that.
This kind of an extreme youth movement is something Columbia hasn't really tried before. Sure, Ray Tellier and Norries Wilson, are two examples of guys who were relatively young at the time they were hired. But both just seemed older in every way.
Will it work? The immediate first test will be how well Head Coach Jon Poppe & co. fill out this incoming freshman class in the short time still available. Poppe himself has proven to be a great recruiter so far in his career, but his time to devote solely to recruiting is surely curtailed now that he's running a D-I program.
The other big test will be how well he and Smith develop a QB for this coming season.
The 2024 season begins in 238 days.
18 comments:
This team has a lot of returning talent on both sides of the ball and will be contending for the Ivy Championship. My gut - is they win it all.
I'd temper expectations and be happy to see a solid team play with an edge and for each other and be competitive in every game. If the can do that, they and the program will be fine. Last year's team never seemed to recover its mojo after getting smacked around in its opening game until its last, ironically the two games I saw in person.
10-0 for sure
Hoopsters sweated one out today against Penn, looked pretty good.
Anybody know the status of Arop Arop?
I predict we go 10-0
Anything less than 10-0 will be a failure by this young staff.
I was at the MBB basketball game yesterday; we are much improved and seemed to have the game in hand but managed to hang on. Excellent backcourt talent but size in the front court is a problem. DLR is an all Ivy candidate to be sure and we are generally deep but lack size. As far as Aron, he is at least a year and probably 2 years away from being strong enough to play serious (or any) minutes; he looks skilled but is as thin as a rail.
Meant Arop
I would expect Cole Freeman to be pre season first team All American
Engles very nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. His team showed exactly how not to play over the last three minutes with an 11-point lead. Fortunately, Penn was atrocious and was the team that made the last biff. I was half-expecting them to hit a game-tying three while getting fouled, and then convert the free throw to win by one. I would not have been at all surprised if it had actually happened. Still think this team goes 4-10.
Am expecting losses in Cambridge and Hanover this coming weekend. Engles must go.
Columbia just received an important commitment from Mason Rudolph, a standout football player at Camden County High School in Kingsland, Georgia. Rudolph, who has 4.5 speed, is an outstanding athlete. ESPN ranks Camden County as the 24th strongest high school football team in the United States.
No, his name is MASON ROBINSON
https://x.com/mason13r/status/1751734113130737844?s=20
Princeton signed a QB offered by Alabama (yikes)
Name?
We get it—you’re still unable to come to terms with the fact that Fabish did a poor job, so you try to take shots at Poppe and the fans who support him by posting ridiculous comments about going 10-0 in his first year. Grow up.
Sorry, my mistake about Princeton QB Brevin White, that was a few years back. But they did get 3-star QB Asher Weiner.
10-0 baby, anything less is a major disappointment!
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