ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell football team was not yet 30 years old by the mid 1910's, a baby (or maybe a precocious teenager) in the grand scheme of the sport's long history.

Pop Warner had come and gone as both a player and a coach, the Big Red won 11 games in a season (1901) and had a three-year stretch from 1906-08 where it was considered one of major college football's top teams. It also went barely .500 over a five-year stretch just prior to 1914. Overall, a mixed bag of results for a team trying to find an identity.

The 1914 season ended with seven straight victories - part of what would become a then-school record 19-game win streak that included a perfect 9-0 national championship season in 1915. That team was crowned by the Helms Athletic Foundation, Houlgate System, National Championship Foundation and Parke Davis - each recognized by the NCAA. It was the first of five national titles for the Big Red.

The 1914 squad, captained by first-team All-American John O'Hearn, outscored its opponents 257-54. Its 28-13 win at Michigan a weekend after this week's feature game with Franklin & Marshall, was widely considered to be the one that set the Big Red up for what would come later.

Its 1915 counterpart pitched four shutouts and outscored foes 287-50 en route to nine wins without a loss. Charley Barrett's senior year was perfect, including topping Harvard for the first time in program history (10-0 in Cambridge), Virginia Tech (45-0) and Michigan (34-7 in Ann Arbor) in consecutive weeks. Barrett captured first-team All-America honors as both a junior and senior, while end Murray Shelton joined him on the top squad in 1915. All three - O'Hearn, Barrett and Shelton - were elected into the National Football Hall of Fame.

Three years later, Cornell shut down its football season in the midst of World War I and the influenza pandemic. Three years after that, the first of three consecutive national championships and a school record 26-game win streak commenced.