Columbia Fires Football Coach After 1st Victory Of The Season

Columbia University fired Norries Wilson as its football coach Sunday, a day after the Lions staved off the university’s first winless season in the sport since 1987 by rallying for a 35-28 overtime victory over Brown.

A former offensive lineman at Minnesota, Wilson, 46, became the first African-American head football coach in the Ivy League when he was hired late in 2005. He won 17 of 60 games as the coach of a program that won its only Ivy League title in 1961.

Wilson was the 10th head coach at Columbia since Charles F. Crowley coached the team from 1925 to 1929. None of the 10 head coaches had a winning record at Columbia, and only Lou Little, the coach from 1930 to 1956, had a winning percentage higher than .315.

“Making a decision of this nature is always difficult,” M. Dianne Murphy, the athletic director at Columbia, said in a statement. “That said, in order to achieve the goals that we have set for the Columbia football program, we believe that it is necessary and appropriate to make a change in leadership at this time.”

Wilson could not be reached for comment.

The first of Wilson’s six seasons at Columbia turned out to be his best. The Lions were 5-5 in 2006, ending a 16-game Ivy League losing streak. Wilson became the first coach to win his debut at Columbia since Aldo T. Donelli won the season opener in 1957.

Wilson, who was the offensive coordinator at Connecticut for four years before he was hired at Columbia, did not produce a winning season. The Lions won four games each in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, including consecutive victories over Princeton, but they finished 1-9 in 2011.

Before beating Brown, Columbia lost four games by 7 points or fewer, including a 27-20 loss at home against Penn in which the Quakers drove 56 yards in five plays to score the winning touchdown with 25 seconds left.

The Lions were so inept in a 62-41 loss to Cornell on Nov. 12 that the Columbia band ridiculed them by changing the words to the fight song after the game. The band was barred from Saturday’s game but was allowed to perform after it apologized.

The Lions rallied from a 21-7 second-quarter deficit Saturday by scoring two touchdowns in the last 10 minutes of regulation, then riding the talents of the junior quarterback Sean Brackett in overtime. Brackett was a first-team Ivy League player a year ago who was hampered by injuries this season.

After ending the game against Brown by holding the Bears to no gain on two plays from the 1-yard line, Wilson said, “Today, they didn’t accept mediocrity.”

Wilson joked at his postgame news conference that he was not so worried about the meeting among officials after Columbia’s defense apparently stopped Brown’s Matt Sudfeld inches from the goal line on the final play of the second overtime.

“I think it’s like being on trial for murder,” Wilson said. “The longer it goes, the better shot you’ve got of being acquitted.”