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Norries Wilson became Columbia's 18th head football coach in December of 2005. Before coming to Columbia, Wilson served as offensive coordinator at the University of Connecticut for the past four seasons. While there, he distinguished himself as one of the top assistant coaches in the nation, becoming one of five finalists for the Frank Broyles Award in 2004 -- a season in which the UConn Huskies led the Big East in both total and scoring offense. In 2003, he guided UConn's offense to post 477.5 yards per game, a ranking of eighth in the nation.
Recently, Alex Oberweger, associate director for athletics communications, spoke with Wilson about his plans for the Columbia football program.
What have you been doing in your first few weeks as Columbia's head football coach?
We have worked to bring in the best possible staff and to assess our recruiting situation to get a jump on seeing kids who have an interest in us and who might help us to be a better team. I've also been learning how to find my way around campus without getting lost. It's been a long few weeks, but productive.
How would you describe the staff you have hired?
I have picked some guys who have recruited in the Ivy League or the Patriot League before and understand the type of student-athlete we have here at Columbia.
Do you hope to find more prospects, or are you looking to enhance the potential class that was identified by the previous staff?
We have sent the coaches out to meet some of the more promising candidates, and we have been watching them on tape. We are looking at their academics first and foremost to make sure they're the kind of students Columbia wants. But to go prospecting wholesale at this stage would just be spinning your wheels, because we just have the month of January, and we're planning to have the class determined by the first week in February.
What about the student-athletes who are in the program?
You mentioned at your press conference that these are not somebody else's kids any more, they are "my kids." What are your thoughts on taking over three classes that are new to you?
I meant what I said. These young men made a commitment to Columbia, and my staff and I will make a commitment to them. They're eager to learn, they're eager for something new and they're eager to win football games. They're excited about having me here, but they're also excited about being at Columbia and starting something fresh.
Randy Edsall was your mentor at the University of Connecticut. Can you talk a little about your relationship with the head coach at UConn and what that means to you, especially as you embark on your first head coaching position?
Coach Edsall gave me a chance to be a coordinator after being hired as the offensive line coach at UConn. He entrusted me with that responsibility. He let me take the offense where I thought we needed to go as a football program, not seeing it as just the offensive part of the team. In the end, we took a program people thought wouldn't be very successful all the way to a bowl game.
Will you still rely on the relationships you've had in your coaching career as you begin your tenure as head coach at Columbia?
Yes, I will rely on those relationships a lot. I don't have all the answers -- well, I have all the answers, but they're not necessarily the right answers. I've already been calling some head coach friends to bounce off ideas. We're going to make it work here.
I'm interested in your thoughts about being the Ivy League's first African American head football coach. How are African American football coaches perceived at the NCAA level?
I have a lot to prove, not just for myself, but to give other young African American coaches an opportunity to be head coaches in college football. There are other young African Americans who are coordinators and position coaches and who could be very successful as head coaches. For example, Ramon Flanigan down at North Texas -- his team won the conference championship four years in a row, and two years in a row he had the leading rusher in the country with two different guys. Maybe someone will take a chance on him. Athletics directors and presidents should hire the person who in their view is most qualified for the job. If the applicant happens to be African American, bring him in and, if he's qualified, they are comfortable with him and they think he can lead their program, why not give him a chance?
A lot of Columbia fans are interested to know: what will a Norries Wilson-coached football team look like?
It will be an aggressive team -- a team that plays hard until the last whistle is blown. It will be physical on defense and on offense. It will be exciting to watch. It won't be a Michigan-Ohio State game from the mid-1970s -- three yards and a cloud of dust. We're going to throw the ball and we're going to slash at people in the run game. We'll attack people on the edges and up the middle, and make them defend the whole field. On defense, we're going to shrink the field. We're going to put you in a box, take the run game away or the pass game away and make you one-dimensional. We're going to swarm the football. And we're going to be solid on special teams.
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