After Miracle Win, No. 18/19 Harvard Strives To Stay Undefeated Against Cornell

In Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the Greek hero Odysseus takes 10 years to return to his home in Ithaca following the end of the Trojan War, and this Saturday, Cornell will attempt to defeat the Harvard football team for the first time in nearly as long as the teams clash on Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, N.Y.

The undefeated No. 18/19 Crimson (3-0, 1-0 Ivy League) has not fallen to the Big Red (2-1, 1-0) since 2018. But on the heels of a dominant win over Yale, Harvard’s biggest rival, in its first Ivy League game, Cornell hopes to stop the skid — and start 2-0 against Ancient Eight opponents for the first time since 2000.

“It’s going to be a great challenge for us,” the Crimson’s head coach Andrew Aurich said. “It’s exactly the type of game we want to be playing.”

The Big Red fell to No. 23 Colgate 20-7 in its season opener. Cornell’s senior quarterback Garrett Bass-Sulpizio went just 18-of-37 in the first game of his second season as a starter, throwing for 132 yards and three interceptions.

Seven days later, the Big Red bounced back with a 38-25 upset over then-No. 17/18 Yale, which was missing senior quarterback Dante Reno due to injury. Cornell capitalized on two interceptions and a forced turnover on downs, setting up its offense inside Bulldog territory three times. The Big Red’s offense scored five touchdowns despite gaining less than 300 yards.

Last week, Cornell put together a much more balanced win over Georgetown, as Bass-Sulpizio completed 20-of-27 passes for 275 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for a pair of quarterback sneak scores from inside the three-yard line. The Big Red enter Saturday’s clash with the Crimson confident after two straight wins and a real shot at its first conference campaign with a winning record since 2005.

Cornell’s offense centers on the versatility of Bass-Sulpizio, who rushed for more touchdowns than he threw in the 10 games he started as a junior. While the 6-foot-5, 248-pound signal caller is one of the most physically talented quarterbacks in the Ivy League, he threw for just six touchdowns last season and has the same number of passing touchdowns and picks in his collegiate career (eight).

So far, no Big Red skill position player has established himself as a clear-cut workhorse. Junior running back Jordan Triplett leads the team’s rushers with 127 yards on 28 attempts and two touchdowns on the ground. Meanwhile, senior wide receiver Samuel Musungu spurs the aerial attack with 130 receiving yards and two of Bass-Sulpizio’s three touchdowns.

Defensively, Cornell’s worth lies in its ability to stop the run and get to the quarterback. Through its first three games, the Big Red has allowed just 3.3 yards per carry and registered 11 sacks.

It also has playmakers in the secondary, though, as Cornell has recorded an interception in each of its games so far. Three of these picks are credited to standout senior safety Thomas MacPherson, who also boasts 23 tackles, a sack, and a forced fumble.

The Crimson, meanwhile, is still riding the high of last week’s last-second 20-17 miracle victory over No. 23 Colgate. Sophomore quarterback Charlie Smith threw a Hail Mary pass that sophomore tight end Teigan Pelletier caught six yards short of the goal line. Pelletier then lateralled the ball to freshman receiver Nate Bailey, who turned the corner towards the pylon and outran the Raiders’ defense to secure the win.

Bailey finished the game with 16 receptions — the second most in a single game in program history — and 197 receiving yards. The Montclair, N.J. native has drawn eyes from national media outlets since his heroic performance that earned him the Stats Perform FCS National Freshman Player of the Week award.

Smith, meanwhile, has begun to come into his own as a passer. In Harvard’s victory over New Hampshire in the season opener, the sophomore threw for just 71 yards on 18 pass attempts, while the Crimson’s game plan called for 44 rushing attempts.

Smith has improved incrementally and been given further reign over the offense each week. After putting up 205 yards in the win over Brown, the script against Colgate relied on the quarterback to make far more complex throwing decisions on 45 passing attempts, which he paid off with a 375-yard, three-touchdown performance.

“I definitely feel more confident,” Smith said. “I feel like I’ve gained the trust of a lot of people on this team. But you got to make plays. Really just taking what the defense gives us, whether we’re passing it that much or running it that much. Confidence is definitely there, but that’s something that you can’t value too much. You gotta just take it play by play and stay focused.”

Despite the strides that Harvard has made through the air, its run game struggled last week, putting up just 93 rushing yards with senior tackle Spencer Doan and junior tackle Enzo Agostini sidelined with injuries.

“Yeah, I would say that the run game is kind of incomplete, as far as a grade,” Aurich said. “Just because we’ve had some shuffling parts up front, and some guys that aren’t really out there right now at the running back position. So these guys are putting in a lot of work to continue to get better, and the coaches are doing a great job of finding ways to help them out schematically.”

“I know we’ll continue to improve as we get healthier and as we continue to get better in general each week,” he added.

Harvard leads the all-time series versus Cornell, 53-34-2. The series dates back to 1890, when the Crimson defeated the Big Red 77-0, before the invention of the forward pass. This year, Harvard travels to Ithaca on a six-game winning streak against the land-grant university, having won 17 of the past 19 contests between the two sides.

Last year, the Crimson opened up to a 17-0 lead against a then-winless Big Red, before Cornell stormed back to make it a one-score game in the fourth quarter. After a controversial call ruled a pass to Harvard tight end Seamus Gilmartin incomplete rather than fumbled, the Crimson flipped the momentum and dominated the rest of the game en route to a 34-10 victory.

To continue its winning streak over the Big Red, Harvard will look to establish an early lead that gives way to a comfortable victory — something it has failed to do since its season opener. The game will kick off at 1 p.m. EDT on Saturday.

—Staff writer Connor Castañeda can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Maxwell P. Friedman can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Samuel S. Rudavsky can be reached at [email protected].