There’s No Joy in Morningsideville

Boretti and Mangurian 

The smiles and success that seem to surround everything about Columbia Baseball right now are the well-deserved spoils of hard and smart work by Coach Brett Boretti and his staff.

Tuesday’s article in the New York Times really focused on that joy and it emphasized how Boretti has tried to recruit players with good character overall.

It’s the latest example of how Columbia Baseball continues to be the opposite of everything Columbia Football has become.

And the dichotomy is getting worse.

For example, the only time I’ve ever seen a CU Baseball player Tweeting anything was the recent, “where’s the love?” Tweet from Jordan Serena as he implored the CU Athletics website to publicize more news about his team. That Tweet was clearly the work of a fired up and well-meaning player.

Contrast that to the 4-5 Tweets I STILL SEE EVERY DAY from CU football players on their PUBLIC ACCOUNTS that are filled with inappropriate comments, references to drug use, and racial epithets. It’s an undisputed disgrace that even after last year’s team-wide Twitter scandal, this is still going on. Either the players doing this are stone cold stupid or the Mangurian coaching staff hasn’t really cracked down on the problem like they promised they would.

Now, let’s focus our attention on our incoming recruits. Mangurian is talking about how he’s bringing in a “blue collar class” and these players were simply missed by the traditional recruiting process used by the other seven Ivy schools.

I don’t really know what makes a kid a “blue collar player,” but I assure you we’ve got plenty of white collar kids in this group and on the team already. Any coach who recruits and signs not one, but TWO, players from the soft and posh Norfolk Academy the same year should probably stay away from making “blue collar” boasts when in the company on non-sycophantic idiots.

The kind of prep school kids we should be going after are the PG players at Lawrenceville like Princeton’s Anthony Gaffney who’s going to go to the NFL. We continue to avoid even making serious visits to the Lawrencevilles, Exeters, and Andover of the world. Just to be clear, Norfolk Academy wouldn’t last one quarter on the field playing those New England and NJ preps. The final score would be something like 60-0.

And while I like the idea of getting 4-5 kids the other schools may have foolishly ignored, the fact that most of our players got no interest from other Ivies is a clear red flag.

And now with at least 10 veteran players leaving or getting kicked off the team, the importance of this questionable class has been multiplied several times. With no JV program to help them learn, we’re asking them to be varsity ready in a little more than 100 days. This is as close to a sure-losing bet as there is in sports.

And here’s another disturbing contrast: baseball over the last few year has been having fun, even when it’s not winning championships. Football has clearly become a humorless program devoid of joy. If you read this and the last few weekly updates from the football website, you’ll see exactly what I mean. These updates have all the emotion and joy as you might see in a manual for performing colon surgery. Whoever wrote this or dictated it sees football as a cold, boring and smile-free job. We should delete these articles immediately so we don’t accidentally attract refugees from a North Korean work camp to our program,

As usual, the Columbia administration is very much to blame. Because the successful road map on how to win and manage a good team at Columbia is being unfolded right in front of them! When was the last time the New York Times or anyone wrote a piece about how good a CU football coach was doing his job? (Probably 1996, when Ray Tellier enjoyed an 8-2 season, but that turned out to be a very ephemeral high point).  

Columbia athletics is now being dominated by a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. Luckily, unlike the movie, we can get rid of one without losing the other. So let's do it before it's too late.

Lindy's, Sporting News Predictions

Head over to Bruce Wood's Big Green Alert for a look at how two college football magazines are calling the 2014 season right now. Of course, they both pick Columbia for last.

BREAKING: Washington, Hilinski and others off Roster

Chad Washington


Gone Baby Gone

The football roster has been updated and there are some major names no longer with the team.

The top loss is DL Chad Washington, who still had a strong 2013 season despite his legal issues last summer. It's possible he's left this time because of some kind of continuing issues related to that, but there is nothing confirmed on that end.

Another very hard pill to swallow is the loss of QB Kelly Hillinski. 

Other roster deletions are:

DL Charles Melka

LB Parker Tobia

OL Eric Kulinski

OL Rick Wolff

... and we already knew about the losses of:

WR Isaiah Gross

LB Mark Cieslak

TE Connor Spears

WR Jake Wanamaker

That makes 10 players so far who were on the roster for 2013 who are gone now. That's a big number compared to recent Columbia history and yet another disturbing trend we are now witnessing under the Pete Mangurian regime.

NY Post Acknowledges CU Baseball

Nice piece in the Post today about CU baseball getting seeded 3rd, (instead of the traditional 4th for Ivy teams),  in the NCAA Regionals.

What They’re Up To

Michael Nebrich 

Every week for the next 10 weeks, I’ll be taking a quick look at what our 10 opponents for 2014 have been up to this offseason.

I’ll start with week one opponent Fordham and go on from there:

The Rams haven’t stood still since finishing their remarkable 2013 season at 12-2 and winning an FCS playoff game.

Well, that’s not completely true, because one impressive aspect of the 2014 Fordham team is how many amazing players are returning from last year.

Nowhere is that more evident than the wide receiver position where the Rams have not one, not two, but THREE returning WR’s who gained at least 1,000 yards each last season.

But the story at Fordham is not just about the returning players.

New York fans will likely be paying a lot of attention to a transfer named Josh Klecko, son of NY Jet great Joe Klecko.

Klecko transferred from Rutgers to Fordham early this year. He’s also the brother of Dan Klecko who won three Super Bowls in the NFL.

Of course, the Rams are okay on the D-line already when you consider that FCS All American Brett Biestek is returning for 5^th year. He’s been named to the CFPA preseason watch list.

And you have to mention that QB Michael Nebrich is coming back after throwing for 4,380 yards, 35 TD’s and just 7 INT last season. Nebrich also ran for 513 yards and 9 TD’s.

With all the transfers and returning players, Fordham brought in an extremely small incoming freshman class, but one player from the class of 2018 who really stands out to me is All-State RB Chase Edmonds from Harrisburg, PA. That kid is dangerous.

A big moment for Fordham will come on Nov. 22^nd when the Rams travel to West Point to play Army. 

The Comps

The bar is set pretty low

Being the head coach of Columbia football would really be a dream job...  if the job were starting this season.

That’s because the “comps” from last year are so easy to beat.

Here is the link to the 2013 stats, I suggest you study them well.

But the key stats are these: The won-lost record was 0-10. The points per game average was 7.3. The points allowed per game average was 40.2. The rushing yards allowed per game was 243.

It would be very, very hard to do worse than that in 2014. So, with Pete Mangurian miraculously and inexplicable returning for another chance this season, everyone has to expect that there will be some statistical improvement this fall.

Of course, the trouble is, Mangurian has been here going on three years now, so improvements over last year’s debacle  have to be kept in context.

But what are the numbers the Lions need to reach this fall for the staff, players and fans to really gain some level of confidence?

I’m going to throw out some very modest numbers and then show how not-so-modest they really are when you consider how much of a percentage jump they would require.

Goal #1: At Least Three Wins (% change: n/a)

Anything worse than 3-7 would still be an embarrassment despite last year’s 0-10 record. The trouble is that I don’t see which game Columbia has a good chance to win at this point, let alone three. Gun-to-my-head I’d say our best chance to win is the week nine game at home vs. Cornell. Other than that, I just don’t see a great chance.

Goal #2: At Least 15 Points Scored Per Game (% change:  +119%)

That’s right, to get to just a measly 15 points per game average, the Lions would have to enjoy a 119% increase in point production. That’s probably an unprecedented percentage gain in Ivy history. A massive 50% gain in points scored would still leave CU short of averaging 10 points per Saturday.

Goal #3: Keep Opposing Teams Below 175 Yards Rushing Per Game (% change: -28%)

This is the most attainable goal for 2014, but remember that allowing 175 yards per game on the ground is still a monstrous stat.

Goal #4: Hold Opposing Teams to under 450 yards Per Game on Offense  (% change: -12.4%)

This is also doable, but nothing to be too proud of even if it’s achieved.

Goal #5: Complete at Least 45% of Passes (% change: +10.2%)

The best way for the Lions to avoid furious bone crushing pass rushes would be to complete more passes and get more of the potential blitzers to drop back into coverage. CU didn’t even complete 41% of their passes last season and a 45% completion rate would still be horrific. But jumping 10% or more is rough in this category, and it would be impressive to get there.

These are the “comps” we need to see set this fall. And we all need to be results oriented and results specific when we talk about this team. I’m more than a little disturbed by the fact that the word “wins” never seems to escape Mangurian’s lips or appear on the digital pages of the official athletic department website.

But we we’re way beyond happy talk. These real goals need to be met in 2014. If not… well, Mangurian will still probably get a contract extension but we’ll all know that no real improvement occurred to make such a move worthwhile.