Ready For Kickoff! Big Red Football Visits VMI on Saturday To Open 2022 Campaign

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

STREAKS, STORYLINES & SIDEBARS
• Cornell will open its 134th season of football when it heads to the Old Dominion for the first time when it meets VMI on Saturday, Sept. 17 at 1:30 p.m. at Foster Stadium in Lexington, Va. 
• The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
• This is just the second meeting between the two programs and between the Big Red and a member of the Southern Conference after last year’s 31-21 Keydet victory at Schoellkopf Field.
• Picked to finish eighth in the Ivy League in the preseason media poll, Cornell has regularly exceeded prognosticators, surpassing its predicted finish in six of the past seven seasons.
• The senior quartet of elected captains — Thomas Glover, Demetrius Harris, Joe Kelly and Jake Stebbins — have provided significant leadership over the offseason.
• All four captains, as well as senior Javonni Cunningham (kick returner) and Jameson Wang (all-purpose quarterback) were named to the Phil Steele Preseason All-Ivy League team.
• Cornell fans will get its first look at a roster that includes six freshmen, 11 sophomores and 18 juniors (just nine seniors) on the positional two-deep. 
• Junior place-kicker Jackson Kennedy is one of two Big Red players (sophomore wide receiver Bryson Files) to hail from the state of Virginia — growing up 150 miles away from Lexington in Aldie, Va., where he was an all-state kicker and punter at John Champe HS.

LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK
• The Big Red finished the 2019 season with a 2-8 overall record (1-6 Ivy). 
• Four of its losses came to nationally ranked opponents and three others came by a touchdown or less.
• The Big Red’s wins over Colgate (first win on a Friday since defeating Manhattan Athletic Club on Nov. 18, 1892) and Penn (first victory for the Trustees’ Cup since 2013) were both memorable victories. 
Its last win at home on a day other than Saturday came on Monday, Oct. 9, 1916 vs. Gettysburg. The 26-0 Big Red win was the seventh game ever played on Schoellkopf Field.
• Cornell is dealing with the departure of 46 letter winners, 21 starters and five all-league players from 2021 due to graduation, with a number of those players competing at the BCS and FCS level as graduate transfers.
• Among the losses are second-team All-American offensive lineman Hunter Nourzad (Penn State) and linemates Jack Burns (Duke) and Will Swope (Buffalo), all-league corner Michael Irons (Tarleton State), starting safety Eric Diggs and running back Devon Brewer (Stetson), kick returner Eric Gallman (Duke), safety Isiah Hogan (Cal Poly) and wide receiver Curtis Raymond III (TCU). 
• In addition, corner Kenan Clarke is playing in the CFL after being a sixth-round pick of Edmonton in 2021.
• The 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• This year’s version of the Big Red returns six position starters (two offense, four defense), as well as its punt returner (Thomas Glover) from 2021. 
• Returning to the roster is first-team All-Ivy League picks Thomas Glover (WR) and Jake Stebbins (LB). 
• With two wins, Cornell will reach 650 all-time (13th all-time in FCS history). 

A WIN OVER VMI WOULD...
• give the Big Red a 1-0 record this season and grab its first win in a season opener since 2019.
• even the all-time series at 1-1.
• improve Cornell’s record in season openers to 94-36-4, including 4-5 under head coach David Archer ‘05.
• make Cornell 1-0 all-time in the state of Virginia.
• be the second time in three seasons that Cornell has won its road opener.
• give Cornell a 105-67-5 (.607) record all-time in the month of September.
• make the Big Red 5-3 all-time on the date of September 17 with five straight wins.
• be the 649th in program history (13th-most in the Football Championship Subdivision).

ABOUT VMI
• The Keydets bring a 1-1 record into the weekend after opening the season with a 44-10 at FBS foe Wake Forest before a 24-14 win at home against Bucknell.
• VMI is picked to finish seventh in a loaded Southern Conference after winning the conference in the spring of 2021 and earning a bid to the FCS playoffs.
• Headlining the defense is preseason first-team all-league selection Stone Snyder, was well as second-team picks Eric Weaver on the defensive line and defensive back Aljareek Malry. 
• Snyder, an All-American and two-time SoCon Defensive Player of the Year, has posted 247 career tackles - including 17 in two contests this season. 
• Quarterback Seth Morgan, who was hurt early in the 2021 season game against the Big Red, has tossed for 3,786 yards and 25 scores while rushing for eight more in 21 career games.
• All-conference tight end Chance Knox has a team-high 12 receptions for 90 yards, with Hunter Rice (131 yards, touchdown) and Rashad Raymond (108 yards, touchdown) leading the rushing attack.
• The specialists include preseason first-team all-league selections at punter (Jack Culbreath), place-kicker (Jerry Rice) and long-snapper (Robert Soderholm).
• Eighth-year head coach Scott Wachenheim, the 2020 Eddie Robinson Award winner as national coach of the year in the FCS, has a 24-53 overall record.

THE SERIES
• This will be just the second meeting all-time between the squads, with VMI’s 31-21 victory last September at Schoellkopf Field giving it a 1-0 lead in the series.

NOTES FROM THE LAST MEETING WITH VMI
• The 31-21 win for #22 VMI was Cornell’s first-ever season opener at home against a ranked opponent.
• The games was Cornell’s first on the gridiron since a 35-9 win over Columbia on Nov. 23, 2019 — a span of 665 days (or 57,456,000 seconds; 957,600 minutes; or 15,960 hours) after the 2020 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• In fact, since Cornell had played its last football game, VMI played 10 contest (7-3 over that span) and advanced to its first FCS Playoff in the spring of 2021.
• The Cornell defense allowed a pair of rushing touchdowns in the opener after going three games without surrendering one, its longest streak since 2005.
• The Big Red offensive line allowed zero sacks in the season opener. 
• Cornell saw its record slip to 14-50-2 all-time against top 25 opponents, including 1-2 over its last five regular season games.
• Cornell fell to 466-111-2 when scoring at least 20 points all-time (.807)
• The contest was its 1,100th played on a Saturday for the Big Red and the 175th in September.
• Senior wide receiver Thomas Glover had seven catches for 159 yards and a touchdown - all in the first half. He entered the game with three catches for 40 yards in his career.
• The 159 receiving yards is tied for 23rd in a single game in school history and is the most by a Big Red player since Lucas Shapiro had 165 in a 2014 contest against Princeton
• Senior Max Lundeen, making his first career start, forced a fumble.

The Class of 2023

• 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 304-197-15 (.604).

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.

• Cornell opens its home and Ivy League schedules when it welcomes Yale on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 2 p.m. at Schoellkopf Field.
• The contest will serve as Homecoming at Cornell.
• The Big Red and the Bulldogs meet for the 84th time in program history (Yale leads 51-30-2) with Yale having won four straight, including a 23-17 home win in 2021.
• The game will be broadcast live on ESPN+.