Football Visits Yale In Ivy Opener With Chance To Make Early Statement

David Archer '05
The Roger J. Weiss '61 Head Coach of Cornell Football

STREAKS, STORYLINES & SIDEBARS
• The Big Red enters Ivy League competition on the road against the defending conference champions. No better opportunity to make an early statement. 
• Cornell will attempt to claim its third straight contest against Ivy opponents when it visits Yale on Saturday, Sept. 25 at noon at the Yale Bowl. 
• The Bulldogs, coming off their second Ivy title in three seasons, were picked to finish second in the Ancient Eight in the preseason poll and return four All-Ivy performers.
• Ron Vaccaro and Jack Siedlecki will be in the ESPN+ broadcast booth calling the action.
• Both teams will be eyeing their first win of the season and attempting to get off to a fast start in Ivy League action.
• The Bulldogs have won three straight Ivy openers against the Big Red, winning a pair of Ivy League championships over that span.
• Cornell enters the contest after a hard-fought 31-21 defeat to 2020 Southern Conference champion and FCS playoff participant VMI, who entered the game ranked No. 22 nationally.
• Yale fell on a last-second field goal at home against a Holy Cross team that was ranked the previous week.
• The Big Red is in search of its first win in New Haven since 2009 when it went 81 yards for a touchdown on its first play from scrimmage, returned an interception for a score, punted 15 times and broke up a game-tying two-point conversion attempt with no time remaining for a 14-12 victory.

LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK
• The Big Red finished the 2019 season with a 4-6 overall record (3-4 Ivy) and earned an upper division finish for the first time since 2006 with a fourth place finish. 
• Cornell defeated Ivy co-champ and 12th-ranked Dartmouth on the road and trailed the other Ivy champ, Yale, 20-16 with under two minutes to play while two of its losses came by a single point. 
• Cornell played its first football game in 665 days when it met #22 VMI on Sept. 18, its second-longest drought without a game since the introduction of the program in 1887 (674 days from Nov. 29, 1917 - Oct. 4, 1919).
• The 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• This year’s version of the Big Red returns 14 starters (six offense, eight defense), as well as its placekicker and long-snapper from 2019. 
• Eight Big Red players earned All-Ivy honors in 2019, including returners Hunter Nourzad (OL) and Jake Stebbins (LB) on the second team. 
• A total of 21 fifth-year seniors return in 2021, combining with 30 four-year seniors to give the program 51 total seniors — the most in any season in school history.
• With four wins, Cornell will reach 650 all-time (13th all-time in FCS history). 

A WIN OVER YALE WOULD...
• even Cornell’s record at 1-1.
• cut Yale’s lead in the all-time series to 50-31-2, snapping a three-game skid in the series.
• be the first win for the Big Red in New Haven since 2009 (five-game losing streak).
• improve Cornell’s record to 29-34-2 and snap a three-game ski in Ivy League openers.
• extend the Big Red’s Ivy League win streak to three games dating back to last year, its first three-game streak since defeating Harvard, Brown and Princeton in consecutive games during the 2017 campaign.
• give Cornell a 108-69-5 (.607) record all-time in the month of September.
• be the 647th in program history (13th-most in the Football Championship Subdivision). 

THE IVY LEAGUE OPENER
• Cornell opens the 65th official season of Ivy League play with a 28-34-2 record in the previous 64 conference starters. 
• The Big Red has faced Yale 20 times (each of the past 20 seasons) in Ivy openers previously with a 6-14 mark. 
• Included was a 28-17 Yale victory in New Haven in 2019. 

ABOUT YALE
• The defending Ivy League co-champions opened 2021 with a 20-17 loss to Holy Cross on opening weekend after the Crusaders kicked the game-winning field goal in the final minute.
• Four All-Ivy League performers return from the 2019 squad in seniors Zane Dudek (RB), Melvin Rouse (WR), Cam Warfield (OL) and Rodney Thomas (LB/DB) in addition to 2021 captain, John Dean (LB).
• Yale was picked second in the 2021 Ivy League preseason media poll, just behind preseason favorite Princeton. 
• The Bulldogs had 12 players recognized as Phil Steele Preseason All-Ivy League selections: Dudek, Nick Gargiulo and Rouse on the first team; Tipton, Thomas and Joey Felton on the second team and O’Connor, Howland, Warfield, Tate Goodyear, Micah Awodiran and Nick Tibbetts on the third team.
• Tenth-year head coach Tony Reno has lifted Yale back to the top of the Ivy League, claiming the school’s first outright conference title in 37 years in 2017 and claiming a share of the title in 2019.
• Reno is 47-34 overall and was the Division I football Coach of the Year in 2017 by the New England Football Writers and the Gridiron Club of Boston.

THE SERIES
• Yale leads the all-time series 50-30-2 dating back to the first encounter in the 1889 season. 
• Cornell’s longest win streak over Yale is four games (1990-93), while the Bulldogs claimed seven straight victories over the Big Red (1973-79). 
• The series has recently tilted toward the Bulldogs, who have won 14 of the last 19 meetings between the squads, though Cornell upset the 2008 preseason Ivy League favorites 17-14 at Schoellkopf Field.
• Yale leads 8-3 over the last 11 meetings, with the Big Red’s last win a 27-13 victory in Ithaca in 2016.

• Schoellkopf Field has been an indelible mark of Cornell football since it opened in 1915. 
• Schoellkopf Field is the fourth-oldest FCS stadium, opening in 1915. Only Penn’s Franklin Field (1895), Harvard Stadium (1903) and the Yale Bowl (1914) are older. 
• A gift from Willard Straight ‘01 and the family of Henry (Heinie) Schoellkopf ‘02 made the construction possible for the current stadium. 
• The Big Red’s first year on the field was one of its best, going 9-0 and winning the national championship. 
• In 1915, General Electric Company completed work on a flood searchlight system for the field, and in 1924 a construction project was completed to bring capacity from 9,000 to 21,500 by adding the famed Crescent. 
• In 1947 that capacity was increased to 25,597 and a press box was added. 
• In 1971 a gift was made to put artificial turf on the field, and it was resurfaced three times, the last time in 1999. 
• A new press box was built in 1986.
• The 2008 season saw installation of FieldTurf synthetic grass to replace the artificial turf. 
• In 2016, the West Stands were demolished and the field was moved 15 feet toward the Crescent while replacing the FieldTurf to ready for more construction at the site, lowering the capacity to 21,500 in the process.
• The Big Red’s all-time record at Schoellkopf Field is 303-194-15 (.606).

Few collegiate football programs have the storied history of Cornell University. With more than 130 seasons of football in the books, the Big Red has collected five national titles, won nearly 650 games and has had legendary players and coaches perform on historic Schoellkopf Field. Names such as Glenn "Pop" Warner and Heisman Trophy finalist and NCAA record-breaker Ed Marinaro have suited up for Cornell, while seven College Football Hall of Famers (including Warner, Gil Dobie and Carl Snavely) and multiple-time Super Bowl winner George Seifert have set the strategy as head coaches. Now, with David Archer '05 leading the program, there’s little doubt that history will continue to be made.

• The Big Red remains on the road when it visits Bucknell on Saturday, Oct. 2 at 3:30 p.m. at Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium in Lewisburg, Pa.
• Cornell leads the all-time series 43-14, though the Bison have claimed three of the last four contests between the programs.
• It will be the first meeting between the teams since 2017, a 26-18 Bucknell victory at Schoellkopf Field.