Bright lights, big city, lousy football program.

Such has been the traditional wisdom regarding Columbia, which has not brought the Ivy title home to New York since 1961—when the school shared the championship with Harvard—and has not had a winning league mark since a 5-2 campaign in 1996.

But with new coach Bob Shoop’s arrival on the scene, the energy running through these oft-maligned Lions has reached levels unimaginable just a year ago.

“He’s an outstanding young coach,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said. “He brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the table.”

And that energy has translated into significant improvement in a very short period of time. After winning just two games all last season, Shoop’s revitalized squad brought home a victory in two of Columbia’s first three games.

“I certainly can sense the players on the field are playing with more confidence and playing with more belief,” Yale coach Jack Siedlecki said. “They think they have a chance and that’s key.”

From his days as a wide receiver at Yale, Shoop has had the infectious competitive drive that his teammates and now his players can’t help but catch.

“He was a great player here [at Yale],” Siedlecki said. “[Former Yale] Coach Carm Cozza tells a really funny story about him. They threw him a ball near the end of the game, and he was supposed to go out of bounds with it. Cozza was furious when he turned it back inside before he took it in for the touchdown. [It] turned out to be the game-winner.”

Now that drive has taken a Lions program desperately in need of rebuilding and placed it on a fast track back towards successful competition within the Ivy ranks.

Before overhauling the team, however, Shoop first attended to the coaching staff, clearing house—bringing back only offensive coordinator Rick Skrosky—and bringing in a young, new group of experienced teachers to introduce his style to the players.

“The staff he put together is young,” defensive coordinator Tim Weaver said. “He and I are the old guys on staff, and I just turned 35.”

Despite the staff’s collective youth, most have served as coaches at Division I-A schools, headlined by Shoop, who left behind his role as secondary coach at Boston College to take on his current position at Columbia. Prior to BC, Shoop held positions on the staffs at Army and Virginia, as well as Division I-AA powers Northeastern and Villanova—where he served as defensive coordinator during the Wildcats 12-1 season in 1997—and his alma mater, Yale.

“I think we all understand the expectation level is really high and really changed,” Skrosky said. “And that’s the thing we’re continuing to sell. [We’re telling players] this isn’t good enough any more and we’re setting the bar high.”

Achieving that level and maintaining it will depend heavily on the defense that Shoop has carefully pieced together from several other stalwart defenses.

“[What we’ve got is] a lot of the Boston College defense, some of the Tampa Bay defense, some of the Harvard defense,” Weaver said.