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CORNELL INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I 2012 Statistics I History and Records

COLUMBIA INFORMATION
Roster I Schedule & Results I Statistics

GAME INFORMATION
Game #9: Cornell at Columbia
Date: Saturday, Nov. 10, at 12:00 p.m.
Site: Wien Stadium (17,000), New York, N.Y.
2012 Records: Cornell (4-3, 2-3 Ivy); Columbia (2-6, 1-4 Ivy)
Series Record: Cornell leads 61-35-3
Last Meeting: Cornell won 62-41, Nov. 12, 2011 in Ithaca, N.Y.
Television: None
Radio: WHCU 870 AM, Barry Leonard (play-by-play), Buck Briggs (color)
Live Stats: Available at www.CornellBigRed.com
Live Video: Available at www.CornellBigRed.com
Tickets: Available by calling (607) 254-BEAR

HEAD COACH KENT AUSTIN
Kent Austin, the Roger J. Weiss '61 Head Coach of Football, is in his third season at the helm of the Big Red (11-17 overall, .393; 6-13, Ivy, .316) ... Austin has won CFL Grey Cups as a player, assistant coach and head coach ... previously was offensive coordinator at his alma mater, Ole Miss, Austin was hired as head coach on Jan. 27, 2010.

STORY LINES
• For the 100th time, Cornell and Columbia will meet on the gridiron when the two teams compete for the Empire State Bowl on Saturday, Nov. 10 at 12:30 p.m. from Columbia's Wien Stadium.
• It will be the third meeting for the Empire State Bowl, with each team winning at home.
• Cornell leads the all-time series 61-35-3, including a 62-41 victory a season ago behind a then-Cornell record 521 passing yards and five touchdowns from Jeff Mathews. It was a modern-day scoring record for the Big Red (since 1956).
• Both teams are coming off losses, with the Big Red falling at home 44-28 to Dartmouth and the Lions dropping a 69-0 decision at Harvard.
• Mathews became Cornell's career passing leader with a 315-yard, three-touchdown performance, but the Big Red turned the ball over three times in the first quarter, fell behind 21-0 and never recovered.
• The Lions surrendered 35 points in the second quarter, including 28 in the first six minutes. The Lions surrendered 585 yards and gained just 149, including a massive -19 to 328 yard differential rushing the ball.
• It will be the first matchup between Cornell and former head coach Pete Mangurian, who is in his first season as head coach of the Lions. Mangurian helped the Big Red to a pair of top three Ivy finishes in his three seasons on East Hill.
 
ABOUT COLUMBIA
• Columbia enters the weekend with a 2-6 overall record (1-4 Ivy League) after last weekend's 69-0 loss to league-leading Harvard.
• The Lions have an young running back in junior Garrett, Marcorus, who has posted 714 rushing yards and four touchdowns while averaging a solid 4.2 yards per carry. His 89.2 yards per game is ranked fourth in the Ancient Eight.
• The offense has struggled, ranking among the bottom 20 teams nationally in rushing offense, total offense, scoring offense, pass efficiency and sacks allowed. It is also near the bottom in pass efficiency defense.
• Receiver Connor Nelligan ranks among the national leaders in receptions per game (24th, 6.4) and receiving yards per game (59th, 67.9).
• All-Ivy senior quarterback Sean Brackett has battled through injuries in his career but has thrown for 1,508 yards and five touchdowns while rushing for one.
• Linebacker Zach Olinger had a team-high 76 tackles and a pair of interceptions this season, while adding 5.5 tackles for loss.
• Former Big Red head coach Pete Mangurian is in his first season directing the Lions' program. He spent three years on the Cornell sidelines (1998-2000). After a 4-6 season his first year, the Big Red went 7-3 and 5-5 in his final two seasons, going 5-2 in Ivy League play each year to place third and then second in the Ancient Eight. Mangurian posted a 16-14 overall and 11-10 Ivy mark for the Big Red.
 
A WIN OVER COLUMBIA WOULD ...
• move Cornell to 5-4 overall and 3-3 in Ivy League play.
• increase the Big Red's lead in the all-time series to 62-35-3, including 2-1 with the Empire State Bowl trophy on the line.
• make the Big Red 7-4 in its last 11 contests dating back to 2011 and 5-3 in its last eight Ivy League games.
• be the 628th in program history (11th-most in the Football Championship Subdivision).
 
THE CORNELL-COLUMBIA SERIES
• This will be the 100th meeting between Cornell and Columbia, with the Big Red holding a 61-35-3 lead in the series.
• The two teams first met in 1889, a 20-0 Cornell win.
• The Big Red won last year's matchup 62-41 at Schoellkopf Field, snapping a three-game win streak for the Lions. Then-sophomore Jeff Mathews set program records for completions, passing yards and touchdowns in a game, senior wide receiver Shane Savage had a school-record tying three touchdown catches as the Big Red set a modern-day record for points in a game.
• The squads have been evenly matched in the past two decades, with Columbia holding a 12-11 edge in the past 23 seasons after Cornell had won 12 straight contests, the longest streak in the series by either team.
 
THE EMPIRE STATE BOWL
• Officially established in 2010, the Empire State Bowl has been the unofficial nickname of the Cornell-Columbia series for many years.
• Each team has won the Empire State Bowl once, with the Big Red currently holding the trophy after last season's 62-41 victory over the Lions at Schoellkopf Field.
• Columbia won the first-ever Empire State Bowl in 2010 with an exciting last-minute 20-17 victory at Wien Stadium to capture the traveling trophy.
 
NOTES TO KNOW
• Cornell and Columbia will be meeting for the 100th time in program history. The only opponent Cornell has faced more times is Penn (118 games).
• Cornell has alternated wins and losses over its last six games.
• Senior wide receiver Luke Tasker is 37 yards shy of setting the school's single season record with two games remaining.
• The Big Red is 7-0 when allowing opponents to score less than 20 points under head coach Kent Austin and are 4-17 when surrendering 20 or more points.
• The team's top 11 tacklers are all underclassmen, including five of the top six listed as freshmen or sophomores.
• Freshmen have been the team's leading rusher in each of the team's first eight games (Silas Nacita at Fordham, Luke Hagy vs. Yale, at Bucknell, at Harvard, vs. Monmouth, at Brown, vs. Princeton, vs. Dartmouth).
• Freshman Silas Nacita scored four touchdowns in the win over Monmouth, setting a school freshman record for touchdowns in a game and becoming the first Cornellian to score four times in a game since Derrick Harmon against Columbia in 1983.
• Senior Chris Amrhein's 523 passing yards vs. Monmouth were the most by a Cornell or Ivy League quarterback in their first career start.
• Senior Luke Tasker extended his streak of consecutive games with a catch to 28 with his four catches for 37 yards vs. Dartmouth.
• Freshman Luke Hagy has already posted 703 all-purpose yards, the most by any Big Red freshman since Bryan Walters posted a school freshman record 847 yards in 2006. Freshmen became eligible for varsity competition in the Ivy League in 1993.
• Cornell closed out its second straight winning non-conference season by topping Monmouth 41-38 on Oct. 13. The last time the Big Red had back-to-back winning non-conference seasons were 2007 (3-0) and 2008 (2-1).
 
RECORD WATCH
• Junior Jeff Mathews is within reaching distance of several milestones entering this weekend's contest against Columbia.
• Mathews needs two passing touchdowns to reach third on the season passing TDs list and is six away from the career mark of 54 set by Ricky Rahne '02.
• Mathews needs 104 passing yards to move into second place all-time in Ivy League history. He would surpass Columbia's John Witkowski, who graduated with 7,849 yards.
• Mathews is 48 completions from Rahne's career record of 678.
• Mathews is 801 passing yards away from the single-season passing yardage record he set last year (3,412 yards).
• Senior Luke Tasker is 14 receptions shy of moving into second on the school's career list and needs four to move into second place on the season list (currently 66).
• Tasker needs 250 receiving yards to match Keith Ferguson's career mark of 2,569 yards.
• Tasker is 367 receiving yards from breaking Shane Savage's season record of 1,080 set last season. That would also propel him into the top 10 all-time in ivy history for receiving yards in a season.
• Tasker needs 46 receiving yards to move into the top 20 in Ivy League history.
• Tasker needs 126 all-purpose yards to become the ninth Cornell player to surpass 3,000 career yards.
• Freshman Luke Hagy needs 145 all-purpose yards in his last two games to break the freshman record of Bryan Walters. He had 847 yards in 2006.
• Junior John Wells needs seven points to jump into the top 10 for single-season kicking points (currently at 39).
 
ROAD SPLIT
• Cornell will be looking for its first Ivy road win of the season when it visits Columbia.
• Cornell is 3-1 at home and 1-3 on the road through eight games this season.
• The Big Red is 3-20 in Ivy road contests dating back to 2006.
• Cornell has been outscored 31-0 in the first quarter of road games this season and has averaged 17.3 points per game. At home, Cornell is scoring 37.5 points per game.
 
PASSING FANCY
• A Cornell quarterback has thrown for 300 yards or more in nine of the last 10 games. Prior to that, there were only 26 300-yard passing games in the program's first 124 seasons, spanning 1,132 games.
• Current Big Red quarterbacks have posted six of the school's top 10 passing yardage totals in school history and four of the top five marks in Ivy League history.
• Junior quarterback Jeff Mathews is six touchdown passes away from the school's career record of 54, set by Ricky Rahne '02.
• Mathews had a streak of 147 pass attempts without an interception snapped earlier this season at Bucknell.
• Mathews has been sacked 97 times in 27 career games (3.6 per game), missing just one game due to injury.
• If Mathews continues at his career average of 287 yards per game over his final 12 career contests, he would end with his career with an Ivy League record 10,924 yards (current record, Brown's James Perry – current Princeton offensive coordinator – with 9,294 yards). If those numbers are boosted to 354 yards per game, which he has averaged over the last two seasons, he would finish with 11,472 yards.
• He is on pace to finish his career ranked among the top 20 all-time in passing yards in Football Championship Subdivision(FCS) history.
 
RECEIVING NOTES
• There have been 22 150-yard receiving games in Cornell history, with nine of them being accomplished by current members of the Big Red roster.
• Cornell receivers have combined for 21 100-yard games during their career.
• The Big Red roster has three of the top seven career receivers in terms of yards and receptions and four of the top 18.
• Senior Luke Tasker is 18 yards away from moving into second place on the school's career receiving yardage list and is the sixth Big Red player to reach 2,000 receiving yards in a career.
• Tasker needs 250 yards in his last two games to surpass Keith Ferguson '03 atop the school's career list.
• Tasker needs 36 receiving yards to surpass teammate Shane Savage's single-season record of 1,080 yards set last season.
• Tasker is the fifth Big Red receiver and 26th Ivy League player to surpass 150 career catches.
• Senior Kurt Ondash moved into the school's top 10 all-time list in receiving yards with 1,439 yards with six catches for 37 yards vs. Princeton.
• Junior Grant Gellatly became the 19th player in Cornell history to reach 1,000 career yards with his 12-catch, 215-yard effort against Princeton. He now has 1,109 yards.
• With Gellatly reaching 1,000 yards, it is the first time in school history a team has four 1,000-yard receivers at the same time (Shane Savage, Luke Tasker, Kurt Ondash, Gellatly).
• Fifth-year senior and preseason second-team All-American Shane Savage, who began the year needing 568 yards this season to become the school's career leader, has missed all but a dozen plays this season due to injury. He has one catch for 12 yards.
 
NEXT UP
• Cornell closes out the 2012 season when it returns home to face Penn on Saturday, Nov. 17 at 12:30 p.m. at Schoellkopf Field.
• The game will renew the fifth-most played rivalry in college football and will be for the Trustees' Cup.
• The Big Red will celebrate Senior Day prior to Saturday's contest.