Penn at Cornell (football)

Up 13-7 early in the second. Looks like a great day to watch football. It also looks like only a few hundred people agree.

Penn takes the outright title if they win. Us... not so much.

Trotsky
Up 13-7 early in the second. Looks like a great day to watch football. It also looks like only a few hundred people agree.

Penn takes the outright title if they win. Us... not so much.

An interesting quirk is that a Cornell win gives both teams a 5-5 overall record. Penn currently sits at 5-1 in-league; Their only Ivy loss was also Yale's only Ivy win.

Weird year.

14-13 Penn at the half, as Penn scores on a 50 yard pass in the last minute.

I not a big ranter, but here I go: Cornell's up 13-7 with about 1:30 left in the half. Penn has 1st down on their own 11, and runs off tackle for a few yards, apparently satisfied to run out the clock. Austin decides to call a TO. Penn, of course, easily strings together a few passes to get into Cornell territory, then the Penn QB (a backup -- starter got injured last week) lofts a rainbow to the end zone. The Cornell DB is right with the receiver, and as the ball comes down, the DB does ... nothing. All he has to do is reach is left arm across the receiver and knock the ball away, but for whatever reason he basically stood there and tackled the receiver after he caught the ball.

But I really put this one on Austin. You're beating the favorite, and they're conceding the half. Let your guys go into the half with a positive feeling. Last week we gave up the last second field goal to Columbia on a similar last minute drive in the half, and it seemed to deflate us. No reason he should have allowed that to happen again.

Penn wins 35-28. We came back from 28-13 to tie, then Penn scored with a minute left. Mathes then hit Tasker for 50+ down to the Penn 8, but then we got hit with the last of numerous penalties on the offensive line, and we ran out of time.

Great effort, but a lot of shaky coaching decisions. The staff has some work to do this offseason.

They need a complete overall of the defense and the offense needs to be more balanced (i.e., being able to RUN THE BALL) that goes without saying. Austin's staff needs to bring size on both the defensive and offensive lines!

Ken711
They need a complete overall of the defense and the offense needs to be more balanced (i.e., being able to RUN THE BALL) that goes without saying. Austin's staff needs to bring size on both the defensive and offensive lines!

We actually ran the ball pretty well on Penn, but I agree better balance overall is needed. And certainly the defense needs more size on the line. We're young and talented at LB and in the secondary.

Cornell has had the smallest DL in the Ivy League going back through all of the Jim Knowles years as HC. I really can't understand why they haven't been able to recruit more size along the DL.

Looks like Coach Austin understands Cornell continual lack of size in matching up with the top Ivy teams.

“We’ve got to get bigger and stronger, and I’ve got to recruit bigger guys,” Austin said. “Then we’ve got to develop our guys in the offseason. We have to have an offseason program where we can’t look like we’re playing teams where we’re undersized every week.”