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Columbia Will Take Look at Football Team’s Futility

Columbia, currently on a 20-game losing streak, has three winning seasons in the last 51 years.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

For all its intellectual might, Columbia seemingly cannot find a way to win a football game.

On a weekend in which the Ivy League will be front and center, with ESPN’s “College GameDay” broadcasting from the Harvard-Yale game in Boston, Columbia will take a 20-game losing streak into its season finale at Brown on Saturday. It is the worst stretch since the program, which has been associated with decades of failure, dropped 44 contests in a row from 1983 to 1988. The Lions have been outscored, 348-96, in nine losses this year, including six in the Ivy League.

The team’s woes are so severe that Lee C. Bollinger, the university president, sent a letter to football alumni on Thursday in which he promised a comprehensive review of the program while offering support for Coach Peter Mangurian, who has two years remaining on a five-year contract.

“Columbia football should be, and must be, competitive within the values of Ivy League athletics,” Bollinger wrote.

Bollinger announced the hiring of Rick Taylor, a former football coach and athletic director, to oversee the review. Bollinger said the need to revitalize the program, which won its only Ivy League title in 1961, would be a “key topic of conversation” in the pursuit of a new athletic director to succeed M. Dianne Murphy, who previously announced she would leave in June.

Although many have anticipated Mangurian, an assistant to Coach Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots from 2005 to 2008, would be fired after Columbia faces Brown (4-5, 2-4), Bollinger appears willing to resist that pressure.

“I know there are some frustrated students, alumni and fans who understandably feel we should hire a new coach and start yet again,” he told supporters of the team. “It is my belief, however, that this is a moment when we will benefit more by enlisting a new superb athletic director and engaging in serious self-reflection.”

Mangurian said he warned university administrators before they hired him that there were no quick fixes. Now, his concerns have only deepened.

“I’ll be honest with you, it’s a little bit harder than I thought it would be,” he said. “I think it runs deeper than I anticipated.”

Columbia has produced three winning seasons in the last 51 years. The Lions won three games in Mangurian’s first season, and their last victory — a 34-17 win over Cornell — came on Nov. 10, 2012. In their futile 2013, they were outscored, 402-73.

Mangurian and his staff struggle to convince players that success is possible no matter how overwhelming the history may seem.

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Columbia is looking to replace its athletic director, M. Dianne Murphy, who has announced she will leave in June.Credit...Columbia University

“You come here as a bright-eyed freshman looking to conquer the world and things start to wear on you and you start to become a little less bright-eyed, a little less enthusiastic and a little more doubtful about what can be accomplished because you’ve heard all the reasons why it doesn’t work,” Mangurian said.

Columbia addressed its lack of facilities in 2013 by opening the Campbell Sports Center, which includes a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning center. But Murphy agreed with Mangurian that the Lions’ woes might have more to do with mind than body.

“The biggest challenge to overcome is a tradition of losing,” she said. “That’s a culture shift, and that’s a sea change. Kids have to learn how to win.”

That was never more apparent than last Saturday, when Columbia became the first team to lose to Cornell this season, 30-27. The fight was there as the Lions rebounded from a 21-0 deficit; the ability to finish was not.

After the Lions rallied for a 27-21 lead at home, momentum swung to the Big Red in a big way when a blocked extra point was returned for a 2-point conversion. In the third game of the season, Columbia built a 6-3 lead against Princeton in the second quarter. The Tigers rattled off the next 35 points in a 38-6 rout.

Columbia sustained an unexpected blow when Brett Nottingham, a quarterback who transferred from Stanford, left the team after a 61-28 loss to Monmouth. He had thrown seven interceptions with one touchdown through four games. Trevor McDonagh, a junior who replaced Nottingham, said players have not grown discouraged.

“We come in day after day, week after week, trying to get a win,” he said. “There is nobody in the league who is unbeatable. We know every week we have a chance to win, and we haven’t put ourselves in position to do that.”

As much pressure as he is under to win a game, Mangurian has been willing to take a long view by depending on underclassmen as much as possible, trusting that there will be an eventual return.

Murphy praised the players for the resilience they are displaying under extreme adversity.

“They have not quit on the coaches, and these coaches have not quit on these kids, and to me that says a lot about the young men on the team and it says a lot about our coaches,” she said.

Murphy said she was not pressured to resign after 10 years.

“Our difficulty winning football games has nothing to do with my decision,” she said, adding: “I’m ready to do something different. It’s as simple as that.”

Meanwhile, the Lions will venture to Brown, believing this might be the game when the consistency of their approach in practices translates to a complete game and they finally have something to celebrate.

“We know we can do it,” McDonagh said. “We just have to go out and do it.”

A correction was made on 
Nov. 21, 2014

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated when a game between Columbia and Harvard was played. It was November 2013, not this month.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Columbia Will Take Look at Football Team’s Futility. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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