Category: Cornell Big Red
Cornell Opens 2010 Season on Staten Island
With the NFL season set to kick off tonight and the Division I season already well under way, it seems that the Ivy League is one step behind the pack. While teams like Boise State and Alabama are already staking their claims for a National Championship berth, Cornell and its fellow Ancient Eight foes are still in preparation for their season openers –– the Red’s is set to kickoff on Saturday, Sept. 18. But while the season remains over a week away, it is never too early to look ahead to what the team hopes will be a bounce-back year in 2010.
Early honor for Cornell’s Quinn
The former St. Joe’s football player is named a second-team All-American.
Pittsfield has raised a preseason football All-American – Cornell safety Dempsey Quinn.
Quinn, who played three sports at St. Joseph’s High School and is the son of former Springfield College standout Jack Quinn, was named to the FCS [Football Championship Series] Senior Scout Bowl preseason All-America second team.
Cornell picked to finish last in Ivy League football poll
Coaches don’t put a lot of stock in preseason poll.
Accentuating the formidable nature of new coach Kent Austin’s rebuilding project at Cornell, the Big Red was picked to finish last in the 2010 Ivy League preseason football poll, voted on by media members across the eight-team league.
The poll was announced Tuesday, in conjunction with a conference call in which all eight head coaches addressed their teams and the status of the league heading into 2010.
For Austin, that meant addressing questions focusing on how to improve a program that went 2-8 in 2009 and ranked at or near the bottom of the league in average points per game allowed (26.8), rushing yards allowed (198.9) and turnovers (a league-high 21 interceptions), among numerous other categories.
Kent Austin Discusses Future Plans for C.U. Football
New head football coach sits down with The Sun and talks about his strategy at the helm of the Red.
The Sun: What would you say, in general, are your goals for the 2010 season?
Kent Austin: Well obviously we want to be winners on the football field and off. We’re trying to establish a different philosophy, a different environment –– kind of a different culture here and that all working together, integrated properly, will establish a set of expectations for excellence both on and off the football field.
Ivy League looks to expand TV coverage
Ivy League sporting events may be coming soon to a television set near you.
In an effort to reach out to a wider fan base, Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris said the league is in talks with multiple national cable and satellite television networks in order to form a comprehensive multi-year agreement with a network to broadcast Ivy League sports nationwide.
Although Harris declined to give any details on which networks the league has been negotiating with, she said the deal would allow viewers across the country to tune into games without having to purchase a package deal ahead of time.
Cornell's Football Coaches Expected to be Cohesive Staff
Big Red retains three assistants.
ITHACA – Experience is definitely the theme of Kent Austin’s new coaching staff.
The new Cornell football coach has brought in five new assistant coaches and a quality control coach for the 2010 season. Three coaches – running backs coach and recruiting coordinator David Archer, tight ends coach and special teams coordinator Travis Burkett and defensive ends coach Pete DeStefano – were retained.
Austin took over for former coach Jim Knowles in January.
“I brought in guys with a lot of experience that have a mixture of personalities that blend well, I believe,” Austin said. “They’re excellent coaches with a lot of experience, but at the end of the day they’re philosophically in line with what I believe in how to treat our players, how to coach them, how to build into their lives in a proper way and understand it’s about the players and not us.
Cornell football coach Kent Austin on Sidelines
FCS Experience Counts... In Olympic Bobsledding
In Vancouver, Jamie Moriarity, a former All-Ivy safety at Cornell, prepares to drive his bobsled down the fastest track in the world.
“I’ve been pinched and I’ve woken up,” said the 28-year-old Winnetka resident, who is competing on the U.S. bobsled team. “It’s not a dream anymore.”
With the four-man bobsled competition not taking place until Friday and Saturday, Moriarty got a few days to be a spectator, albeit one with some privileges.
New Cornell Football Coach: 'I Didn't Come Here to Lose'
Austin confident he can lift Cornell program.
ITHACA – Kent Austin was asked how he planned on turning around a program that hasn’t won an Ivy League title in 20 years. Cornell’s new football coach paused to collect himself before answering.
Then, he was interrupted.
“I can answer that one,” his wife Shelley interjected, drawing laughs at Wednesday morning’s introductory press conference. “You don’t know Kent Austin.”
Kent Austin Introduced This Morning as Cornell's 26th Head Coach
ITHACA – Kent Austin, who spent the last two years as offensive coordinator at the University of Mississippi, was introduced this morning as Cornell’s 26th head football coach at an hour-long press conference in the university’s Hall of Fame room.
Austin will replace Jim Knowles, who resigned on Dec. 23 after six seasons and a 26-34 record. His task is to turn around a mediocre program that went 2-8 in 2009 and last won an Ivy League title in 1990.
Cornell Head Coach Resigns To Become Defensive Coordinator at Duke
Jim Knowles ‘87 has resigned his position as The Roger J. Weiss ‘61 Coach of Football at Cornell and has accepted the defensive coordinator position at Duke University. A national search for a new head coach will begin immediately. Knowles took over the position at his alma mater in January 2004, becoming the 25th head football coach at Cornell. In his six years, Knowles posted a 26-34 record and a 16-26 mark in Ivy play.
Colgate Plows Through Cornell to 45-23 Victory
HAMILTON, N.Y. — Déjà vu must have set in for the football team early in the first quarter when Colgate sophomore tailback Nate Eachus ran for a 10-yard score. The setting changed, as did some of the players, but the outcome certainly didn’t; for the second year in a row, Colgate’s offense physically overwhelmed Cornell’s defense for a 45-23 win.
“You’re looking for answers and when they take what you’ve practiced and ram it right back down your throat and score, that’s a little unnerving,” said head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “We did everything we could to regroup but they’re a great team. We could not match up today, that’s for sure.”
Patriot Games: Scholarships Pose Threat to the Ivy Way
Imagine, for a second, that instead of traveling to Holy Cross tomorrow to watch Harvard take on the Crusaders, you were one of over 30,000 fans packing into a maximum-capacity Harvard Stadium as the Crimson kicked off its season against a major-conference team, say, Boston College. It’s a pleasant thought, but the reality is far more complex.
Fordham’s decision in June to begin awarding football scholarships starting with this year’s recruiting class piqued the interest of a lot of people in the Ivy League football community. The move shows a changing mentality in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS, formerly Division 1-AA), which includes the Ancient Eight.
“It’s something we’re definitely keeping an eye on because if they go scholarships—we’re talking about the league now—it will change dramatically,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy says. “The last time any Patriot League school had scholarships in that league was Holy Cross in the ’80s and ’90s. They dominated Eastern football at this level in a way that wasn’t seen before and hasn’t been seen since.”
Harvard Reduces Sports Travel as Ivys Cut Athletics to ‘Core’
Dartmouth College, where former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was an All Ivy football player in the 1960s, has scrapped a $15 million stadium renovation project as its sports endowment plunged as much as 18 percent.
Harvard University, the wealthiest U.S. school, shuttered its Malkin Athletic Center to save money and cut its sports travel budget. Brown University in Rhode Island is calling on private donors to fund sports projects. Construction and hiring freezes are in place at Cornell University.
The deepest recession in five decades may leave the Ivy League behind on the field. The economy is choking donations, battering endowments and threatening to eliminate some sports programs. The eight schools, which have educated 14 U.S. presidents and half of the 110 justices in Supreme Court history, have estimated endowment losses of as much as 35 percent this year.
New Ivy League Commissioner Not Rushing into Football Playoff Debate
After about the third time I rephrased the same question, Robin Harris couldn’t mistake the direction of the conversation Friday.
Harris, the new executive director/commissioner of the Ivy League, who replaced Jeffrey Orleans on July 1, gently rebuked my attempts to discern whether she arrives with a predilection toward allowing the Ivy League to compete in the postseason in football. It’s one of two hot button league issues, along with a postseason league tournament in men’s and women’s basketball. Or so I thought.
“Actually, that topic (football postseason) never came up in the interview process,” said Harris, a native New Yorker who used to spend summers at Camp Hadar in Clinton and whose parents have lived in Madison for over 20 years.
Local FB Players Prepare for Next (FCS) Level
There’s a decent possibility Emmitt Terrell will be downright sick of running by the time August 17 rolls around. That’s when the former State College standout reports to Cornell for his first college practice.
In the meantime, Terrell will continue the rigorous summer conditioning and lifting regimen Cornell planned for him.
One particularly interesting workout goes like this: It starts with a 15-second all-out sprint, followed by a 45-second jog, then back to the 15-second sprint. The cycle is continued for 15 minutes. No rests. No water. No mercy.
“It’s grueling,” Terrell said. “But it whips you into real good shape.”
Can the Ivy League Get Its Game Back?
Lackluster teams prompt calls for change; a new chief’s listening tour.
The schools of the Ivy League are among the nation’s finest and richest, with billions in endowments under their command. From law to business to medicine, they’re No. 1 in practically every department but one: sports.
Why are the Ancient Eight increasingly irrelevant in the most competitive arena of all? The short answer, the long-accepted one, is that they choose to be: that they won’t sacrifice their academic ideals by giving athletic scholarships to athletes. But other factors—like a long-standing ban on postseason football games and the schools’ academic standards for athletes—appear to be dragging the league down.
Kansas Native Siam Battling to be Cornell's Starting QB
PITTSBURG — For the last three years, Pittsburg High School graduate Ty Siam has been spending his time hitting the books and keeping his head above water.
Just like most students at Cornell University in Ithica, N.Y., Siam spends most of his time doing coursework as a policy analysis and management major in the College of Human Ecology.
However, the junior has something else on his plate … football.
Hofher Given Full Rein with Delaware Offense
New offensive coordinator trusted to fix woeful Hens.
NEWARK – The Blue Hens will still not huddle.
Beyond that, their offensive future is an open playbook.
In introducing his new offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Monday, University of Delaware football coach K.C. Keeler pledged to not be limited by the spread offense schemes of UD’s recent past, as successful as some have been.
Jim Hofher, 51, who spent 13 years as a head coach and coached quarterbacks at five Division I-A schools, will have the authority and artistic license to, along with his staff, design what fits the Blue Hens best.
Third-String Rummy
The New Yorker has reservations about the inclusion of a third-string football player - and one season sprint football player - at the Ivy league dinner earlier this month.
By last Thursday night, with the changing of the guard in Washington complete, some star power had returned to New York, and there, in the grand ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria, sat an assortment of media and political figures in tuxedos, such as might have been found at one of the lesser inaugural balls: Stone Phillips, Iowa governor Chet Culver, “Hill Street Blues” star Ed Marinaro, Donald Rumsfeld. Ambassador Thomas Stephenson had just flown in from Lisbon. Ted Kennedy couldn’t make it, but he sent a letter to be read on his behalf by the TV newsman Jack Ford. Five hundred dollars a plate, recession be damned. The Reverend Jason Pankau, a personal life coach from Stamford, offered an invocation from Proverbs 27:17: “ ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’ We all share the common bond of having been sharpened . . . on Ivy League football fields.”
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