Cornell 7 Wagner 41

[Al DeFlorio]

Maybe we'll see Jeff Mathews at QB in the second half.

Austin made it sound like he wasn't ready for primetime.

Do you think Currie is?

[Trotsky]

Maybe we'll see Jeff Mathews at QB in the second half.

Austin made it sound like he wasn't ready for primetime.

Do you think Currie is?

I dunno know, but Matthews' first completion continues the Cornell tradition of throwing under coverage on third down to come up short.

[phillysportsfan]

Wagner 86TD this is a joke, are we sure we are playing the Wagner Seahawks and not the Seattle Seahawks?

[Trotsky]

Wagner 86TD this is a joke, are we sure we are playing the Wagner Seahawks and not the Seattle Seahawks?

To be fair, Doscher is better than Hasselbeck.

[Al DeFlorio]

...but Matthews' first completion continues the Cornell tradition of throwing under coverage on third down to come up short.

I was hoping that would stop with the coaching change.

[Trotsky]

First good news in 30 minutes: Matthews fires one to Shane Savage for 38 yards.  Nice. :-)

[Trotsky]

First attempt at a 4th point conversion: against the blitz, Mathews has to unload it.  Poop.

Edit: Mathews.  One "t."

[Al DeFlorio]

Post-game press conference will present an interesting opportunity for Kent Austin.

[Al DeFlorio]

Yale and Georgetown with 920 yards in offense with ten minutes to go, 35-34 Georgetown.  Princeton leading Lehigh by two, Brown tied with Stony Brook.  Four Ivies losing but games not over.  Harvard and Penn play tonight.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Does "embarassing" come to mind?

Who the @#$% is Wagner?

[billhoward]

What a letdown, losing 41-7 at Wagner. In the Has-to-be-a-pony-in-there-somewhere department, Drew Alston is a solid punter (7 punts, 37-yard average, plus a 60-yarder called back on a penalty) and who needs good punting more than the Big Red? Freshman Jeff Matthews came in at QB in the second half and played with more poise and fewer bad throws (7x15, 97 yards, 1 int) than starter Adam Currie. Cornell kickoff returners routinely got the ball out to the 30. Freshman tailback Gant Gellatly ripped off a 63-yard breakaway before getting hauled down. What else? The Wagner Stadium has a spectacular view of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the weather was perect. Cornell had a good turnout, perhaps 1000 of the 3000 near-capacity crowd.

However: Cornell ran into a first-class QB in Nick Dosher (8x11, 227 yards, no picks, no sacks), the ex-minor league baseball player. Cornell had trouble when Wagner runners went left or right. One Wagner TD, the fourth or fifth, was an unmolested 10-yard-run and once he broke free of the line; no Cornell defender got within 5 yards. Both QBs were pressured a lot and pressured or not, threw too many passes (3? 4?) at the feet of open receivers. Two or three times Cornell receivers turned the wrong way for the ball or failed to jump, although those were in the second and fourth periods when a receiver would be looking back into the sun. One of those, the receiver was open in the end zone and a Larry Bird-caliber leap (12 inches of vertical rise?) would have snared the ball for a TD.

Take away a couple dumb mistakes (goal line fumble lost late in the fourth, an in-and-out-of-the-receiver's hands pick returned for a Wagner TD earlier), and you would have had a closer game. Say 34-14. Had Cornell put up 14 not 7 in the fourth while holding Wagner scoreless, the team would have had a little more momentum going into Yale and Homecoming next Saturday.

Wagner Stadium, pop 3500, feels like a very nice high school stadium, but the visiting team facilities don't work for a football team. Lacrosse, maybe. I heard the coaches had to dress across the street. It appears the team's postgame meeting was on benches behind the stands. Ned Harkness would have been proud of the visiting locker room disadvantage were this in Ithaca. What else? The Wagner Soul Express (name?) marching band had budget uniforms (baggy nylon shorts, green Wagner T-shirts) but could they *play* once the announcer finished his long-winded intro. A separate Wagner precision dance team wasn't.

This is going to be a taller hill to climb than imagined. What if Wagner is the weakest team we play this year? Although Dartmouth, picked to finish seventh, ran over Bucknell, our opponent in two weeks.

[clear]

[Jordan 04]

In the Has-to-be-a-pony-in-there-somewhere department,

Looks like the view was decent, as well.

[scoop85]

I assumed this would be a rebuilding season, but I never imagined we'd get pounded by Wagner -- especially after Wagner was handled by Div. II Assumption the week before.

Well, just keep in mind the rebuilding project Donahue had to undertake with the hoops program -- that turned out OK.

[Josh '99]

Wow, I'm glad I didn't make the trip over to Staten Island for that.

[billhoward]

Wow, I'm glad I didn't make the trip over to Staten Island for that.

There were 1,000 Cornellians hoping this is like seeing Steve Donahue's first game at Cornell. The weather was really nice. It was good to see a quarterback who could execute with precision, even if for the other team. The $2 foot-long hot dogs were pretty much a foot long. The Wagner fans didn't harrass anybody. Parking was free. I'm reaching here. Anyone want to help me?

Oh, one more thing about the game. On a long pass, the referees missed a spectacular double-handed pusheoff by a Wagner receiver who then caught the ball at the last instant, an athletic feat since the pushoff was very late. I think it was on a scoring drive. Since it was in the first half and Wagner was on offense, it probably was a scoring drive. He got called for the same push in the second but by then the damage was done.