Counting it Down

This will be the scene soon enough


With Saturday's "Junior Day" recruiting event completed, (I can report the weather was perfect... and that's something, especially when Manhattan looks so dreary on rainy days), here are the highlights of the summer as we await the season's kickoff on Sept. 15th:

Football camp sessions begin on June 23rd


Just five days from now, the first of four one-day sessions begin for the Peter Mangurian football camp for high school students. The exact dates are June 23, 24, 30, and July 1.

The camps will be held at Wien Stadium and have been helpful in identifying promising recruits for a number of years now.

Training Camp begins August 18th

All returning Lion veterans and incoming freshmen has just two months from today to take it a little easier before the work really begins. 61 days until they have to report to what should be the most intriguing training camp for Columbia football in decades. A lot of jobs are on the line and Coach Mangurian has a lot of crucial decisions to make in what will amount to only a short bit of observation time.


New Student Orientation begins August 27th

 Nine days after reporting for training camp, the freshmen players will be pulled away from some football activities to attend a few mandatory orientation events. But with Mangurian moving practice times to the early morning this spring, one would hope he will continue that policy this summer thus eliminating most of the conflicts.


Classes Begin September 4th


8 days after the start of orientation, classes begin. This can be a real emotional jolt, especially for the freshmen. Things start to get very real when it comes to scheduling football and academics together.


Season Kicks Off vs. Marist September 15th

89 days to go... 'nuff said.

City of Dreams

It's a big "junior day" at Columbia tomorrow as a good number of rising senior high school football recruits visit the program. 

I can't speak about what the best purely Columbia football events should be scheduled, (meetings with coaches, football strategy sessions, etc.), but I'd like to put in my top 10 events/locations in New York City that I would be sure to take a group of 16-17 year-old football players to see.

First, we need to remember the two things that just about EVERY 16 and 17 year old male wants.

(Hint: Columbia can't LEGALLY provide the first thing).

The second thing every teenage male athlete wants is FOOD... oh, and FOOD... also: FOOD!

So, most of my top 10 sites are either restaurants or locations close to them!

1) Yankee Stadium

I know the Yankees aren't home THIS weekend, but taking sports recruits to the most iconic sports location in America is a good move. And that's coming from someone who isn't even a Yankee fan. I would schedule as many junior weekends around Yankee home stands as possible and get those kids in there to see a game. 

2) Peter Luger's

Speaking of icons, this is quite simply the BEST steakhouse in the world. And it's just over the bridge into Brooklyn so all the recruits can say they went to Brooklyn. 

3) Times Square Tour and Carmine's

Checking out the scene near the Broadway theaters and the MTV studios are just two of the things I would make sure the recruits get to see. And the food highlight in the area would be Carmine's. I used to think this was a tourist trap, but it turns out the food is great and the portions are gargantuan! Many of my Italian food snob friends have been surprised at the quality of all the fare. Good food, sickeningly large portions... teenage boys... what's not to like?

4) Tour of the NYSE

There's not exactly a lot of action on the floor of the exchange these days, but it's an impressive venue and so many of the Columbia football players go on to work at Wall St. firms that it makes sense to make this stop, (and then get on the subway for the quick trip to Luger's). 

5) Cruise past Statue of Liberty, other New York Harbor icons

Actually touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island can be tedious. Cruising past them in a charter boat is much better, especially if you bring snacks.

6) Broadway Show: "Bird-Magic" or "Rock of Ages"

Getting back to Times Square, I'd try to get the recruits to one of the "guy-friendly" shows likeBird-Magic or Rock of Ages right now. Moms and girlfriends would be so impressed.

7) FOX News Tour

With some many recruits coming from red states like Texas, a tour of the FOX News studios across from Rockefeller Center is a good bet. Some very, very beautiful anchor ladies and reporters are almost always around too!

8) Top of the Empire State Building

Yeah, yeah, it's touristy but the awesome greatness of New York City isn't quite as visible from any other spot. 

9) Meet with Econ and some CC profs

Do we even do this at all? If not, we should. An informal talk in a lecture hall with a dynamic young professor might make a great impression on these guys. Surely we can find one or two members of the Columbia faculty who are not so anti-athletics to make this worthwhile.

10) Caroline's Comedy Club

A later night show at Caroline's, with all the young and diverse comics, is something these recruits are likely to really enjoy. Leave 'em laughing! 

My list is by no means the Bible. So let me know where YOU'D take a group of Columbia football recruits if it were up to you!

Two Burning Questions

Ragone on the Run




Is Billy Ragone a Good Passer?


A lot of Penn fans are getting excited about what could be a real resurgence in the Quaker passing game this fall.

They're clucking because of returning talents like WR's Ryan Mitchell and Conner Scott, (Scott missed all of 2011 due to an injury, but looked promising as a frosh in 2010). And they're really excited by incoming freshmen WR Cameron Countryman, the speed demon who is the consensus top recruit for the Ivies in the class of 2016.

Penn has been hurting for a better passing attack for about 8 years now. The team that racked up almost 2,700 passing yards in 2003 fell all the way down to just over 1,400 in 2010. Of course, no one really cared about that in Philadelphia because the Quakers won the Ivy title that year. And in 2009, when the team had just over 1,600 yards passing, they won the championship too. 

But as the dominant offensive line Penn enjoyed from 2008-10 started to thin out, passing became more of an imperative in 2011. The Quakers responded with a decent 2,000 yard passing season last fall. 

Now, Al Bagnoli and company want to take the next step and they feel they can with what is arguably the best receiving corps in the Ivies. 

Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but none of those receivers is going to make much of a difference without a good passing QB to get them the ball. 

So is Billy Ragone a good passing QB?

It's an open question mostly because of his performance last season, especially in the final two games of the season. 

Against Harvard in week 9, he was 16 of 32 for just 190 yards, but he did have two TD passes to just one INT in the 37-20 loss.

A week later in the 48-38 shootout loss to Cornell at home, he passed for 253 yards but only completed about half of his passes and had two INT's to one TD pass. 

The Quaker offense relied mostly on the run and rarely had Ragone throwing the long ball. His longest completion of the year was 54 yards. Even though Ragone's throws were almost all high-percentage short tosses he completed fewer than 58% of his passes. He also had the same number of TD passes as INT's with 11.

The Penn running game may fall even further off its recent highs this fall thanks to some real questions about the Quaker offensive line. For the first time in many years, the Quakers are not returning a single O-linemen who made the All Ivy 1st or 2nd team. Senior Joe Bonadies is the best returning O-lineman and he only made Honorable Mention All Ivy. 

So receivers aside, Penn probably needs more passing output this year to compete for the title. 

So if you're a Penn fan having to rely on Billy Ragone, do you feel lucky? 

Whose Got the Weakest Offensive Line?

Let me preemptively insist that just about every pundit will proclaim Columbia's offensive line the weakest or at least the most questionable in the Ivies going into the 2012 season.

It makes sense on some levels, especially since the Lions have lost NFL signee Jeff Adams and another top notch player on Bob Hauschildt to graduation.

But at least Columbia has senior Scott Ward, a standout starter since his sophomore year and a 2011 All Ivy Honorable Mention, returning along with a large number of players who got serious playing time last season either as starters or backups.

Compare that to teams like Yale, with NO returning All Ivy offensive linemen but plenty of questions to answer as the Elis will almost surely need to improve pass protection with the graduation of quick release passer Patrick Witt, (I say "graduation" but I don't believe Witt has actually earned his diploma). 

Princeton has no returning All Ivy O-linemen either, and the Tigers are looking at a season where they will have to protect and poke holes for a new starting QB and RB.

And Dartmouth also has no returning All Ivy players on its front five, and it's losses to graduation, (Ryan O'Neil, Austen Fletcher and Kyle Cook were all All Ivies and they're all gone now). 

The bottom line is there is really a league-wide question mark about offensive line play, one that will be mostly projected onto Columbia but will be no less true for Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale and even Penn. 

Media Darling

Crimson QB Colton Chapple


We can all continue to debate the many reasons why the prognosticators will all surely choose Columbia to come in last in the Ivies this fall.

And we will continue that debate until the team hopefully makes those predictions look foolish by October.

But what will be very hard to refute is those same experts' inevitable choice of Harvard to repeat as the league champ this year.

Consider these facts:

1) Harvard's returning starting QB was a backup last year. But he was a backup who played in eight games, threw 12 TD passes, had a 62% completion rate, and was picked off just twice.

2) With the graduations of Nick Schwieger and Alex Thomas, and the likely loss of Chuck DiBilio to his stroke recovery, Harvard will have the top returning rusher in the Ivies in Trevor Scales.

3) There are some big losses on defense, but rising stars like LB Joshua Boyd return as does DB Brian Owusu.

4) Tim Murphy is still the head coach, and that counts for a huge amount.


The list goes on, but Harvard was so much ahead of the rest of the pack in the Ivies last year, that it would take a lot more graduation loss and other bad luck not to expect the Crimson to cruise to another title in 2012.

If Harvard does have a problem this season it's in the fact that it must travel to Brown and Penn this fall and the Crimson's recent track record at Brown Stadium and Franklin Field is not the best.

But for all the scorn Columbia will receive from the preseason papers and magazines this summer, an equal amount of gushing praise will likely go to the Cantabs. It's to be expected.

Instant Eloquence

I have to say I'm impressed with the more extensive response to the NBC Sports snub by Head Coach Pete Mangurian on his personal blog yesterday.

Mangurian wants the fans to get fired up by this and respond by supporting the team more. He doesn't talk about donations, he talks about showing up to practice during training camp, (does this mean we'll be allowed to do that?!?... if so, that would be great!), going to home AND away games, meeting the team bus after road wins, etc.

I don't think anyone who reads THIS blog needs to step up our devotion to the Lions very much, but God knows most of the alumni and existing student body definitely does. So it's incumbent upon us to recruit more of our friends, family and acquaintances to get to the games this season. 

But the key element of the blog post from Mangurian is this: OWNERSHIP.

Even though he had nothing to do with it, he takes ownership of our record last year and acknowledges there's no way to get away from that unless we start winning.

There's also a good understanding from Mangurian about how social media works. His response was immediate and that's what makes social media and blogs so useful. 

Meanwhile, Dianne Murphy and Robin Harris remain silent. And that's typical. They seem to think it's their job to pretend they don't care about the daily whims of the fans. The fact that Murphy was one of the few people actually on the TV contract committee is even more telling. Some people get taxation without representation, we got screwed with or without representation!

Of course, they still respond in a way to criticism. When I wrote the old, unclosed blog I would get almost weekly, (sometimes daily), complaints from Dianne's office delivered via one intermediary who I think is working under what has to be considered something of a battered wife syndrome. Dianne's aloof nature with all fans who don't donate at least $5,000 a year is getting more than annoying, especially when all it would take to soothe most of us would be a few "rah rah" emails now and then. 

It is my fervent wish that anything Mangurian possibly owes Murphy for hiring him last year is quickly eclipsed by a strong winning record on his part. He's already asserting his strong independence with his blog, Facebook, and Twitter statements that are so much better than the often incoherent and always boring releases from the athletic department. 

Mangurian will soon find out, if he hasn't already, that he doesn't need the athletic department administration and shouldn't wait for them or extend them too much courtesy. It's been part of the problem for years, and Mangurian has already made a point of discarding anything that perpetuates our problems. 

Empire Challenged Ivies

Columbia's NYC and LI recruits are not participating in this week's Empire Challenge, but four other incoming Ivy frosh are.

They are Yale's Pat McHugh from St. Anthony's HS, (the same school where incoming Lion freshment JD Hurt comes from), and three Princeton players, Isaiah Barnes, Evan Kappatos and Brian Sheng.

Kappatos and Sheng played for Syosset HS, a great place academically but no football power.

Barnes on the other hand is from Freeport HS, a great football factory over the years which has produced guys like D'Brickashaw Ferguson of the NY Jets. 

The fact that Barnes is a QB and the Tigers are so in need of a QB this year could make things interesting in training camp.