The Perfect Season: Week 5

Every college team celebrates its history and tradition, but few can match Cornell football. Over 1,215 games and through 133 years, the Big Red has been among the very few programs to leave an indelible mark on the sport. 

Perfect Ithaca summers have molted into fall, the vibrant reds lining the hills around Cayuga Lake. As the foliage settles, you can see a still and patient Cayuga Lake from the top of Schoellkopf Field. Those iconic views have provided the backdrop for Cornell football for more than a century.

Only once previously, in the throes of World War I and the Flu Pandemic of 1918, was a Big Red football season put on pause. The following year, Cornell built a team back that looked very different than before. It competed. It fought. It went 3-5.

Two years later, Cornell was 8-0 and national champions.

A perfect season.

With no games to be played in 2020, over 10 weeks we'll highlight contests that created and demonstrated the history of one of the most storied programs in college football history. We'll put together a perfect Big Red season.

This week, Cornell would have visited Central New York rival Colgate for the 102nd time. The first 101 are split right down the middle - 49-49-3 - largely due Colgate's recent dominance. The Raiders have won 10 of the last 11 meetings between the squads. We'll feature the 11th this week.

We'll head back to the 2016 season when Cornell visited nationally-ranked Colgate on its homecoming and put together one of the most sensational rallies in school history - coming back from a 19-point halftime deficit, the second-largest overcome in more than 130 years of football. We'll review what led up to that contest, the history of the time period and culminate with a recap of the game on Saturday. 

Join us this week as Cornell goes 5-0 for 2020, then follow over the next five weeks as we celebrate what could have been.