Columbia was picked dead last in the Ivy League's official preseason media poll, released yesterday.
With all the upheaval in the program and last year's last place finish, it's not hard to see why the Lions got the booby prize.
But while I don't see Columbia as a serious title contender this year, there's reason to believe the program is being underestimated.
Here are the top reasons why:
1) Veterans
The Lions have a lot of key returning players this season, including almost the entire secondary and linebacking starters from last year, four very talented and experienced wide receivers, their best pass rusher, and a lot of other 2023 starters back.
2) Poppe Effect
I believe in new Head Coach Jon Poppe's abilities and the stability of his staff after last year's last minute retirement of Al Bagnoli. Poppe has this team behind him and he is a hands on coach with great enthusiasm.
3) Pressure's Off
For the first time since Columbia's breakout 2017 season, the Lions are facing little pressure to contend. That's contributing to a "fresh start" mentality on one hand, even as so much of that veteran talent remains.
The Dark Clouds
The reasons to be pessimistic are real, but not unique to Columbia.
One is the horrific upheaval and ugliness displayed by so many deans, administrators, faculty, and non-athlete students on campus since last October. Columbia was perhaps the worst of the Ivies in this regard, but all eight schools exemplified behavior that has to be a downer for all the varsity teams. Is this the culture and institutions these young men and women want to play for?
Second is the fact that the Lions will have to break in a new starting QB this year. But of course, CU is not alone in that challenge this season either. The play of Northwestern transfer Cole Freeman and the development of very talented freshman Caleb Sanchez present a lot more upside to the equation compared to the generally disappointing play from the QB position last year.
The schedule is a little tougher as well. The season opener against FCS top contender Lafayette will be rough. Top Ivy contenders Harvard and Penn are road games this year as well.
But there's reason to believe the other seven games will be a lot more winnable.
For what it's worth, I don't think Columbia will indeed come in last in 2024.
49 comments:
GO LIONS!!!
You really think political protests impact the football team? Or is it just how you feel about them?
"You really think political protests impact the football team? Or is it just how you feel about them?"
Don't see it having much of an effect this year, but certainly in recruiting going forward it will.
We will win the Ivy Championship this year. Just watch. The sophomore QB is the real deal and the team is loaded on both sides.
Welcome back, Jake!
Yale will be a home game
So happy to see you back Jake!! Missed the blog tremendously.
I think last is not going to happen. 5-5 or 6-4 is more realistic with 4 Ivy wins minimum. Poppe has the boys fired up!
Jake, we all missed your astute commentary on Columbia Football
the past several months. Hopefully, you and your family are doing well. Everyone connected with Columbia Football is grateful for the huge amount of time and effort you put in every year in support of the Columbia Football Team. You are the Columbia Football Team's 12th Man and we all love you.
Yeah! Jake is back!!!!!!!!!
Welcome back, Jake!!! I can’t imagine we’ll finish in last place, and I’m sure this will just add fuel to the fire for Coach Poppe. I think we’ll be somewhere around 6-4. Poppe’s a good enough coach that I believe we’ll be no worse than 3-7 even if everything goes wrong; in conference I think Princeton, Cornell, Brown, Penn, and Dartmouth are all winnable games. Not saying we necessarily win every single one of those, but if we take three or four plus one or two OOC, we’re looking at 5-6 victories. Harvard and Yale will be very, very tough, but then again, nothing’s impossible.
Please don’t be naïve. Of course the unrest on campus had a negative affect on recruiting… Less we not forget that we were on national TV and the University embarrassingly had NYPD crawling through a Hamilton Hall window to remove students (and outside instigators) from their blocked entrance. Whatever side you may be on with the protest (remaining neutral on this Blog), it was embarrassing on multiple fronts. Not to acknowledge that is disingenuous to the wonderful efforts of Poppe and his staff to put together this recruiting class.
Poppe and his staff did an EXCELLENT job speaking with players about the campus unrest and talking about what was going on throughout these events; BRAVO! However, it was still a difficult transition for Coach Poppe coming in relatively late (from a recruiting standpoint). His staff is very young and inexperienced (sorry, facts and please do not dispute), and he had to convince some players to stay - GREAT job! As Jake mentioned, we have some really good players coming back and I’m expecting big things from that fantastic RB Giorgi! The issue is that we lack depth. If you look at HYP rosters, they are deep with massive kids on both sides of the line. Unfortunately, we are not. If we stay healthy, we have a shot to have things go our way.
As far as the QB spot, the jury is out. Cole Freeman did not do anything at Northwestern and they went through 7 starting quarterbacks since he was there (ironically, including being behind Ryan Hilinski - Kelly Hilinski's brother (former CU QB who had academic issues and transferred out). While in the transfer portal, Cole's "major" school that offered him, outside of Columbia, was Marist. That is telling… Hopefully, he will shine. It's a risk, but a calculated one. My hope is that Caleb Shanchez will shock people!
If Poppe stays (meaning that he will eventually get offers elsewhere, he's that good), I have no doubt that we will have any Ivy Championship. This will take time.As far as this year, I don't care about Lafayette, G'Town or Wagner, but we should be 2-1 leading into the Princeton game. I envision going 4-3 in the Ivies (yes, I'm an optimist) to be 6-4 overall. Yale and PU are simply too good and deep. Harvard has underachieved for years and are beatable. Also, that have't had a good QB in decades. Dartmouth continues to win with their formula in the woods and they have a fantastic (FG) kicker who can change games. Penn, Brown and Cornell have pieces, but lack depth as well. If we can focus on our TE play (catching, not blocking), get consistency at the FG spot, and get height/size at DB, we have a shot to do even better. I think we have fantastic RBs and LBs. We have a very good defensive line and aggressive play at FS.
Roar Lions and thankfully Jake is back!!!
p.s. If we are playing teams outside the league, can we please get Army or Navy on the schedule. Yale, Harvard, Fordham, Lafayette and Bucknell (this year) have had the academies on their schedules. If we can compete against these Patriot League schools, we can compete against Army/Navy. Just imagine what a game would look like at Michie stadium. If you want to change the culture of the program, think outside the box. Forget Marist, Central Connecticut and Wagner for goodness sakes.
What I think is so encouraging about this year's squad--apart from all the points made by Jake and the other commentators--is the depth of talent the team has, never mind the tenacity of the returning stars to show that last year's drop-off was an aberration. Obviously, key games will be early season contests against Lafayette, which spanked us last year, and Princeton, who beat us in the last 10 seconds. Both those games will be at home this year. If we can win one of them and perform competitively in the other, this team could coalesce around a new QB and coach and surprise the pundits. As a final point, given all the returners, and how badly we mauled Cornell last year in a game that was thought to be a draw, how exactly did Cornell get picked ahead of us in the standings?
Good point about Cornell. They biff it pretty much year in and year out.
Jake indicates last spring’s protests were a dark cloud for this year. Simply a silly comment
I make this point in hopes that everyone will check their political opinions and stick to football. (Fwiw current players largely just shook their heads and went about their business last semester)
Putting your head in the sand and not acknowledging what is going on in/around the University is indeed a bit naive I'm afraid. Agreed, keeping politics out of this blog! I believe the reference was merely an understanding of what the staff was up against. And Jake may be many things, but "silly" is not one of them. He doesn't need me to defend him, but just be aware of his passion for this program. Jake should be in the HOF!
None of which negates my comment that asserting that “what is going on on campus” is in any way a dark cloud for this season is just a silly comment. HOF or not
Let’s keep this about the football team. Ivy. Championship this year. You heard it first!!
Any further updates on Dante Miller?
Too many words here.
He’s playing tonight.
Welcome back Jake, from Old Lion. The reason why we were picked last has nothing to do with football. We will be very good. The reason why we were picked last is because of the shitshow on campus. Until we fire the Dean of the college, the hapless President, and about a dozen faculty troublemakers and expel the worst campus lunatics, the bad vibe surrounding the campus will have an impact on how we are viewed in unrelated areas.
God you people arr asinine. Yes, campus unrest has to be punished by picking football team last in meaningless preseason poll
And please dont come at me about keeping it to football. I am not the one who continues to inject mon-football issues into these posts.
Back to the team... I consider this year's recruiting class a C+ with no real game changers. Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth continue to get size on both sides of the ball and they both have big TEs (6'4"+) and tall WRs (6'4"-5"+) who can run. This formula continues to work for them (the past several Ivy Championships). We my want to adjust our recruiting accordingly.
Unfortunately, I'm not impressed with some of the early offers recently extended to the Class of '25 either. Who offers a long-snapper? We continue to get vertically challenged DBs/FS? For the life of me I do not understand why? We have a very good (and deep) group at LB and RB. The D-Line starters are very good, they just lack a bit more depth. The O-Line, QBs and consistency in the kicking game (punting/FG) remain our achilles heel. Again, this is no different from the past couple of years so why hasn't it been addressed. We all see it. We've all commented on it, so why not address it?
This is a honeymoon year for Poppe and his staff. I just hope he doesn't play it safe. The Poppe factor could be the difference between 4th and 3rd place finish.
By the way, always good to hear wisdom from "Old Lion" - Respect!
As a final point, given all the returners, and how badly we mauled Cornell last year in a game that was thought to be a draw, how exactly did Cornell get picked ahead of us in the standings?
Because Cornell had given up on Archer way before that last game, that's why.
DL will have excellent depth this year. Basically entire 2 deep returns (with BC replacing QA - who as an aside is currently rostered for ND as grad transfer that no one in SID has mentioned)
Recruiting may not work the way you think it does. I am fairly certain that the talented, tall, big OL/DB/QB’s would be happily accepted by Poppe and staff if they chose to accept the offer. All Ivy teams identify the same group of players (more or less), there are only so many 6-3 db’s academically qualified. You cant make them turn down Yale to come to Columbia. Well you can kind of by winning. It is a bit of a chicken-egg deal
Hasnt kicking game been a strong spot for team last 8-10 years?
Coaching change definitely hurt the incoming recruiting class but that is to be expected. Recent scholarship limit change will further reduce the number of quality players abailable to league as a whole. Could cause the strong to get stronger unfortunately
Last year we were in 7 of 10 games and should have won the Princeton game except that on Princeton’s final drive a trapped ball to their TE was ruled a catch on 4th down. At Penn we were one stop away from holding onto the W in the final minute. And we just as easily could have won the Brown and Dartmouth games with a few more stops. So let everybody take us for granted but I expect very good things with lots of talent coming back including a WR who should be the best WR in the league, the best pass rusher in the league, an all Ivy RB, excellent LBs and the best punter in the league.
Hear hear
Or is it here here. I am much too young to know
Good post. What people forget is that right now there’s enormous parity in the IL. Even the top dogs can be taken down, especially at home. It’s not the SEC, in other words. Part of what we have to do is combat this perception of HYP as football giants who can never be beaten. There may be some differences in talent, sure, but what a coach like Poppe brings is the right mindset. Prepare properly and expect to win, be aggressive, play hard, and don’t just hope to win.
Dumbest post ever
I get it. We all want to be optimistic and we were "in 7 of the 10 games last year", but the reality is we were still 3-7. Let's step away from all of the excuses and start with a clean slate. And no, our kicking has not been great; it has been inconsistent at best. Felkins was good and he did very well at PSU but we need consistency. We could have easily been 6-4 last year with more accuracy. Yes, very optimistic with Canty!!! As far as recruiting, yes, all of the Ivies look at similar kids, however, one could argue that women's basketball has to deal with the same issues. However, Coach Griffith thinks outside the box and gets players who want to be in NYC and turn the program around. As a side note, I am at a complete loss as to why Coach Engles is still on staff? He has an in-league record of 23-75 (.235 winning percentage) over a 7 year span.
And no, you do not have to deal with leftovers from HYP. Just don't recruit those guys. You don't recruit guys looking at Cornell or Dartmouth either because they are interested in rural environments. So if you break it down, that leaves us competing against Brown and Penn. Also, we have a tremendous advantage by not requiring ACT/SAT scores and we need to stack the ranks now. However, that may change quickly (like what Dart and Yale have done recently).
agree
I meant I agree with Old Lion
Our punter is first team all Ivy and can flip the field. Canty is a fantastic talent and was all Ivy two years ago (and was lost to an injury last year). Our pass rusher is a candidate for DPOY. Our RB is a first team all Ivy talent. Our LBs are excellent. So where do all of the doom sayers see our problems? Open competition at QB? Fair point. Any other open areas of concern? As far as recruiting—Dartmouth has been consistently strong despite having average recruiting classes—they coach up their guys.
I have noted the apparent physical size differential, esp vs H and Y, and assume the position depth beyond others, including Columbia, as true.
To quote another Jersey guy, you are what your record says you are, and yet...there were quite a few close games last year, and given the utterly predictable and lame offensive game calling, given the same or better skill level of personnel, adding the expected Poppe factor, I remain highly optimistic!
Go Lions!
Hear, hear, as in I'm listening/hearing what you say, and approve.
Our OL was not undersized during the post Mangurian years. Lack of size on the DL and among the DBs was an issue last year. LBs except for rover back were about average in size. Anthony R at inside LB is back and was first team all Ivy.
Agree. I think we’re gonna surprise a lot of people this year. A tough test to start the season, but I’m so glad Poppe’s at the helm!
Who was undersized on DL?
On the DL rotation I would have to go back to the roster but on the two deep some of our rotation guys were as I recall in the 240 range.
They are around 255-260 and ready to role. Going to be a great year. Lions - Ivy League Champs.
Check all Ivy rosters - many,many DE’s are 225-240.
Excited for a great season but will not miss the Bubble Screen.
And hopefully an end to the most predictable offense in the IL.
Dante Miller made the final 53 roster
This is a QB driven league—tell me how well we will do at QB and I’ll tell you how well we’ll do on offense. The defense will be solid.
Miller now dealing with a hamstring issue. Let’s hope it’s not too serious.
Olá Administrador do Blog,
Quero apenas deixar esta mensagem aqui no seu blogue para dar a conhecer a alguém um apoio financeiro que o Sr. Pedro me oferece durante a época do covid-19 porque essa época foi muito má e difícil para mim depois do confinamento do país quase perdi o o meu negócio perante Pedro Jerome, um agente de crédito que me ajudou com um empréstimo à taxa de 2% em troca de financiar o meu negócio, estou muito grato e mostrar gratidão ao seu apoio testemunhará o quanto estou grato ao seu serviço e à sua equipa de trabalho como bem, depois de visitar o seu escritório na minha localidade, soube que era um bom homem com um coração agradecido.
Gostaria que qualquer pessoa aqui com condições financeiras contactasse o Sr Pedro Jerome no seu email pedroloanss@gmail.com e WhatsApp: +393510140339 ele irá ajudá-lo com qualquer tipo de crédito, crédito habitação, crédito automóvel, crédito construção, crédito empresarial, pessoal empréstimo, desde que seja honesto o suficiente para fazer um retorno.
Welcome back Jake! Go Lions
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