Cornell football 2022

[Trotsky]

I have no problem with Cornell hiring a female AD as long as she is experienced and good at the job.   Where the Board of Trustees screwed up is after Elizabeth Garrett passed away they were in too much of a hurry to hire another female president rather than the best person for the job.   Again I think Martha Pollack is probably a brilliant academic, but does not have the personality or the leadership skills to be president of a major university.

TBH no serious academic would want to be a University President.  It's such a step down.

It's a different career track.  There are academics for whom Department Chair is a role you might take on grudgingly when you're pretty senior because someone has to do it and it's your turn/the department has run out of other people you think could do it competently.  Then there are those for whom it's a stepping stone to Dean, Provost etc.

As I said.  No serious academic.

World needs ditch diggers too.

[scoop85]

I believe Cornell should invest more in athletics & not accept losing over long periods in a "visible" program (read football).  As an aside, President Pollack must be doing something right.  Fundraising  is at a record level ($900MM in gifts last fiscal year).  Interest in attending Cornell also is very strong, with record applications & yield, resulting in only a 7% admit rate.  Imagine if Cornell had a winning football team...

...then things would pretty much be the same IMHO.

Cornell is not in Division 1 in football (yes I know they call it 1A or something like that but it is not the highest level league). There is only so much excitement to be generated for a team and league that has been relegated to a lower status.

While I would love a "winning football team," it would have zero impact on applications or the perception of the university by the public at large. Perhaps it would cause a few more of us old farts to donate more, but that's about it.

[RichH]

...we went  on to win NC's in all 3 sports. Would anyone seriously criticize AN or MP for their poor handling of athletics?

*cough*

Yes, absolutely.

Sorry, but a couple high-profile teams winning isn't the only metric of a job like A.D.

[David Harding]

...we went  on to win NC's in all 3 sports. Would anyone seriously criticize AN or MP for their poor handling of athletics?

*cough*

Yes, absolutely.

Sorry, but a couple high-profile teams winning isn't the only metric of a job like A.D.

Unless the team is football??

[Chris '03]

...we went  on to win NC's in all 3 sports. Would anyone seriously criticize AN or MP for their poor handling of athletics?

*cough*

Yes, absolutely.

Sorry, but a couple high-profile teams winning isn't the only metric of a job like A.D.

Unless the team is football??

No number of football wins could redeem the AD. I'm with RichH.

[CAS]

Why is Cornell opening vs VMI, & not playing an easier opponent (like Marist, who is playing Columbia).  Guess to be the best you have to
beat the best.

[billhoward]

Cornell football opens the 2022 season at VMI Saturday 9/17, 1:30 p.m. It's a follow-on to last year's VMI game in Ithaca (VMI 31-21). This is VMI's third game of 2022, after losing to Wake Forest 44-10 then beating Bucknell 24-14.

Cornell's pre-game preview shows reasons to be optimistic:
* With only nine seniors (six freshmen, 11 sophomores and 18 juniors), Cornell is building to the future
* Two of the Cornell players are from Virginia and have insights on VMI
* "Picked to finish eighth in the Ivy League in the [2022] preseason media poll, Cornell has regularly exceeded prognosticators, surpassing its predicted finish in six of the past seven seasons."

So, good luck, Big Red. It has to go better than Colgate's opener (Stanford, 41-0).

[billhoward]

Following the Colgate-Stanford game, there was this column in AZCentral (which covers Arizona State as a local school) suggesting Colgate's Patriot League might move up (athletically) and start "poaching" big-school talent. Assuming the writer was not stoned out of his mind while typing, it's, ah, intriguing:

The Ivy and Patriot Leagues could merge into a Brainiac Athletic League, pulling the upper subdivision schools down to the lower subdivision for a postseason playoff that would be the smartest move this side of March Madness.

The possibilities are limitless for an innovative mind, which would put Arizona State University in the mix to play BAL. (U.S. News & World Report's No. 1 in innovation for seven years running, ahead of Harvard and MIT, which plays football at the Division III level.)

It wasn't an accident that Colgate stepped up to Stanford — even if the Raiders ended up getting pasted by the Cardinal. Maybe it was an effort to send a signal about the future?

A recent U.S. News & World Report ranking of best national universities includes Vanderbilt (No. 14), which is the "Harvard of the South" and Stanford (No. 6), the "Harvard of the West" ... and Harvard (No. 2), the Harvard of the Harvard, we suppose.  

[CAS]

Cornell exceeded expectations last year by finishing in a tie for last place (vs being alone in
last place).

[billhoward]

Cornell exceeded expectations last year by finishing in a tie for last place (vs being alone in
last place).

Again, if one is an upbeat person, recall that Cornell tied for sixth place with two other teams.

[CAS]

...is it possible to be upbeat going 1-6 in the Ivies?

[Ken711]

From the Cornell Daily Sun preview talking about the loss of 51 seniors and 5th year players:

Sounds to me like instead of giving playing time to your best players who were underclassman, Archer instead played all the seniors because he felt he "owed them something" for returning, thus his coaching with gratitude regret?  Unless by some miracle he finishes with at least a .500 record, he has got to go!

[Al DeFlorio]

Some really stupid playcalling on the Cornell one-foot line results in a safety.  Put Jameson under center and bull forward.

[billhoward]

Cornell starts the season with a lead, 7-2, over VMI after the first quarter. On the road. Of course, any time your time gives up a safety, you know something went wrong. Still, that's nice.

[Trotsky]

Looking okay so far, 14-2.  VMI making errors but we are cashing them in.