ITHACA, N.Y. -- ITHACA, N.Y. -- The film sessions didn't start until the games were over. Tommy MacPherson played on Friday nights. His father, Matt, then an assistant coach at Northwestern, coached on Saturdays. When both games were done, the two sat down together and watched tape of Tommy's game.

"Saturday nights we'd sit, watch some film on my game and talk about everything," MacPherson said. "There's a lot more learning that goes into it because he obviously knows what's going on."

It was the rhythm of growing up in a football family. MacPherson and his younger brother, Drew, spent their childhoods around practices, coaches and players, and he says he was at the Northwestern facility "pretty much all the time," sitting in meetings, hanging around the weight room and working out with the strength staff. His father coached at Northwestern through the 2023 season, MacPherson's first year at Cornell, and the summer before he left for Ithaca, MacPherson trained with the Wildcats.

"It made me very aware that at this higher level, it's a different game and I need to prepare differently," he said.

For all the football around him, the path has largely been his own. His father's coaching schedule kept him away from many of his son's high school games, so MacPherson leaned on his high school coaches to get him where he is. But some lessons traveled. Work hard, his father told him, because everyone he'd meet in college was the best player at their high school. And for a defensive back, one skill outranks the rest.

"The eyes are the key to everything," MacPherson said. "You can have the speed, the skills, the size, but if you're not able to diagnose what an offense is doing, that's not really going to be helpful."

Football in the MacPherson house has always had an edge to it. Tommy and Drew, who is 16 months younger, have "more than enough stories" of fights that ended in hospital visits. Drew played safety and running back in high school, and as he found his way at defensive back, Tommy, a safety his whole life, finally got to be the teacher.

"How do you read a defense? How do you backpedal? How do you play zone?" MacPherson said. "That's where I was able to play that older brother role and show him the ropes."

Despite the pedigree, the recruiting offers didn't pour in. MacPherson was small when he arrived at Glenbrook South High School outside Chicago, but he grew into a first-team all-conference player and academic all-state selection, and he was also a first-team all-state lacrosse player and captain. The offers were from FCS programs, with no Ivy League interest, until a camp at Northwestern where he connected with Cornell's coaches and turned a strong day into an offer.
He hesitated. His parents told him he was crazy.

"I realized they were right," MacPherson said. "The ability to play Division I football at a school like Cornell was too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Northwestern had been a possibility, but he knew it would have been a walk-on spot, and he wanted a path of his own.

"I decided that the best option for me was to kind of do my own thing, not necessarily be coached by my dad," he said.

The climb at Cornell was slow. As a freshman, his goal was to make the travel roster. He didn't, and he didn't play in a game.

"Obviously disappointing, coming from being a star player," MacPherson said, "but I understood it."

As a sophomore, he found his place on special teams and picked up a few snaps at safety.

"It isn't necessarily the flashiest thing, but I was just so grateful to be given an opportunity to play," he said.

Last season, that opportunity grew. He played in all 10 games, finished with 31 tackles and had seven against Brown in what he considers maybe his best game. He remembers the first moments of his breakthrough more than the box score.

"The speed is not like practice speed. Everything moves super quick and you feel kind of flustered out there," he said. "Once you have that first tackle, the nerves die down and you really figure out who you are."

Away from home, the brothers' old rivalry has become support. They don't talk as often as they'd like, with two football schedules to juggle, but when they do, "it's like nothing ever changed." MacPherson hopes to watch Drew, now a sophomore safety for the Iowa Hawkeyes, play in Iowa City over Thanksgiving break, depending on whether Cornell's season is still going.

Saturdays still revolve around football for his parents, just not in one place anymore. With Tommy at Cornell, Drew at Iowa and their sister, a senior in high school, playing volleyball, they have a full slate of games to attend. His father has made it to all three of Tommy's games this season, watching the path his son chose pay off.

This fall, the senior safety has been playing with the freedom he spent years earning. After playing for Jared Backus his first three seasons, MacPherson has a new defensive coordinator in Mike Toerper, who has encouraged him to trust his instincts.

"He says never be a robot," MacPherson said. "I can be that instinctual player."

Now there are packages where he moves around the formation, using his eyes to create problems for offenses. He's quick to add that freedom has limits.

"In every defense we have, there's a responsibility," he said. "I'm never going to put my team in jeopardy to play my own brand of football."

The instincts have shown up in the stat sheet. MacPherson closed last season with an interception against Columbia, then picked off a pass at Colgate in the season opener and two more against Yale in Week 2.

"Things have gone my way so far this year, and obviously I'm really excited about that, but that's not the end goal," MacPherson said. "We want to win games."

The fast start has brought attention. After the first two games, agents began reaching out. His father's advice was blunt.

"He told me that all these people that are talking to you right now, as soon as you stop performing at the level you are, they're going to be gone," MacPherson said. "The best thing you can do for yourself right now is just play good football."

He would love to play a fifth year, he admits, but his focus hasn't changed. It's the philosophy Cornell's players keep returning to.

"We preach one play at a time, one day at a time. We're process oriented," MacPherson said. "When you make it about the process and not so much about the outcome, you really do get into this system where you can truly become your best self."

The standard he's trying to meet was set in front of him. Former teammate and fellow safety Damon Barnes, who graduated after the 2025 season, showed MacPherson what the work looks like when no one is watching.

"Damon was a great example of doing everything you should be doing. He was great in academics, great on the football field," MacPherson said. "But the thing I took away from him most was his dedication, the stuff you don't see, like going to the trainers and getting your recovery done. I haven't seen a college football player study film better than he has."

"Having guys like that allows you to see what it's supposed to be," he said. "My goal is just to carry that on to the young guys now."

MacPherson hopes to be that example for the younger players, in his own way. He doesn't describe himself as the loudest voice in the room, and he's comfortable with that.

"I don't know if I'm the most vocal leader, and I think guys respect that," he said. "When somebody is trying to be a vocal leader and it's clear they're not, it comes off as disingenuous. It's much easier to follow somebody that truly believes in what they're doing."

As a senior, he doesn't think much about legacy, but he knows what he wants it to be.

"I just want to be myself," MacPherson said. "If I can teach a couple guys here, a couple guys there, and rather than build a legacy for myself, build a legacy for this team, I'd be more than happy."
Senior day will be hard. He knows it.

"I'm a pretty emotional person," he said. "I've built some of my best friendships at this school, and it's been through football."

One of them has been there from the start. Johnny Williamson, a fellow safety, arrived with MacPherson as a freshman and has been his roommate ever since. The two go to practice together, drive together, eat together and watch film together, and now they lead Cornell's defense together, with their work ethic off the field and their play on it.

"Having him there to challenge me has been a great help," MacPherson said.

It's the same game he grew up around, the one he once broke down on Saturday nights with his father. This time, he's playing it his way.