Update on Columbia Football

There will be an update on Columbia Football on gocolumbialions.com released every Tuesday evening in 2013.  The features will include updates on the team's off-season workouts, dates to remember and other team information that will keep you in the know about the Columbia Football program!

Ivy Football Dinner

Just a reminder, Columbia Football will celebrate the tremendous accomplishments of Marcellus Wiley '97CC at the Ivy Football Association (IFA) Dinner on Thursday, February 7. This year's dinner will be held for the first time at the Marriot Marquis hotel in Times Square. You can get more information at  www.ivyfootballassociation.org.

These other fantastic Columbia Football alumni have been honored at the Ivy Football Association:

2011 Honoree, Martin Francis "Marty" Domres, 1969

2009 Honoree, Robert K. Kraft, 1963

2007 Honoree, Brian Dennehy, 1960

2005 Honoree, William V. Campbell, 1962

2003 Honoree, Allison F. Butts, 1964

2001 Honoree, Russell F. Warren, M.D., 1962

The More You Know...

Want to know more about Marcellus Wiley?  CLICK HERE

You can also follow Marcellus on Twitter @MarcellusWiley

While you are looking around on Twitter, you can follow @ColumbiaLionsFB and @PeteMangurian

Body Composition Update

We continue to move forward in building a football team that will have the strength and stamina to excel. Our Body Composition initiative is beginning to show real results.

Throughout the course of the year, we collect the following data on each player: weight, body fat percentage, lean mass and fat mass. Measurements are taken four times each year, at the start of training camp, after the season, at the start of the spring semester and at the end of spring football practice.

Now that the spring semester is underway, we officially have 3 data points for this year's returning players - and important trends are beginning to emerge.

Since we started our program in August 2012, every single position, on average, has gained lean mass. In particular, our returning quarterbacks have gained 9.3 pounds of lean mass since August, while reducing their body fat percentage by 1.2%. Only three positions have increased body fat percentage - and these three positions had the lowest body fat percentages when we started tracking.

Here are the total changes since August 2012:

As you can see, we are moving forward - and getting stronger. Strength Coach Ryan Cidzik gave our players a specialized training program for each position to follow during the winter break - and the results have been outstanding.

In cases where both lean mass and body fat percentage have both gone up - it means that our players may have put on too much weight, too quickly. By tracking body composition on both an individual and team basis, we can tailor our strength training plans to ensure that we are getting the maximum results for our team.

With Coach Cidzik's spring semester training program in full force, we expect to see even greater results by the end of spring practice. Keep checking our updates on Columbia Football for more information as we move forward through the spring.

The Pride of Morningside

One of Coach Mangurian's first priorities when he arrived on Morningside Heights was get the campus community involved with the Columbia Football program. Coach Mangurian has a solid group of University Leadership, faculty and staff that are involved in many facets of the Columbia Football Program. Columbia's faculty, staff and University Leadership were excited to be involved. Many of them, including deans and professors, are involved in every recruiting weekend! Once again, thank you to all the members of the Morningside Pride!

Intent is Inferred

You've heard it for the past week - National Signing Day is upon us.  Do you know what National Signing Day is?  National Signing Day is the first Wednesday in February, which is the first day a high school senior can sign a binding National Letter of Intent for college football. Remember what we said a few updates ago about recruiting information?  If not, no worries, here it is again.

Columbia does not participate in the National Letter of Intent program. The Ivy League rule has different layers to it, but in short, at Columbia, a prospective student-athlete is considered "signed" when they send back their signed admission statement and they have paid their deposit. We are unable to comment on student-athlete commitments until that time.

That being said, we are excited that some of our prospective student-athletes will announce their college decisions tomorrow.  Please note though, we still have to wait for before we can make any comments.  Coach Mangurian will not release names until the entire class is complete and have paid their deposits.