1.
Cornell Big Red football
–
It is one of the oldest and most storied football programs in the nation. The team has attained five national championships and has had seven players inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, in 1869, the first intramural football on the Cornell campus took place, although it did not resemble the modern sport and there were 40 players per side. In 1874, the university president and founder, Andrew Dickson White, disallowed a team of Cornell students from traveling to Cleveland, White said, I refuse to let 40 of our boys travel 400 miles merely to agitate a bag of wind. On November 12,1887, Cornell played its first intercollegiate game against Union College, the following year, the Cornellians record their first win by beating Palmyra, 26–0, and went on to finish the season with a 4–2 record. In 1889, Cornell played the University of Michigan in Buffalo, NY, in 1892, Glenn Pop Warner first played the game and the Cornellians finished the season having posted a 10–1 mark under Father of Cornell football Carl Johanson. Two years later Warner rose to become the team captain, after college, Warner began his coaching career and returned to Cornell in 1897. That year, he led the team to a 5–3–1 record, the following season, Cornell compiled a 10–2 record. Warner then moved on to coach the Carlisle Indians football team, in 1901, under first-year coach Ray Starbuck, the Cornellians outscored their opponents 324–38 and won 11 games for the only time in school history. Pop Warner returned as coach from 1904 to 1906, during which time his teams posted a 21–8 record. Cornell began playing Ivy League rival Penn in 1893 and they have played 122 times since, in every year except 1918, making this game the 5th most played college football contest in the nation. In 1915, Cornell won all nine of its games and they handed Harvard their first loss in 50 consecutive games, 10–0. Gil Dobie took over as coach in 1920. In his first season, the Cornellians posted a 6–2 record, Cornell was awarded the national championship for each of those three seasons by at least one selector. In those seasons, Cornell outscored its opponents,1,051 points to 71, Cornell defeated Penn State, 21–6, in 1938 to begin a school record unbeaten streak of 16 games. The Big Red compiled an 8–0 record in 1939 for its national championship. The possibility of a Rose Bowl invitation that season was rebuffed by the university administration, the unbeaten streak came to an end in 1940 with the infamous Fifth Down Game. After the game, Cornell voluntarily forfeited to Dartmouth when review of film showed the Big Red had inadvertently used five downs, the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia named the game, and Cornells honorable concession, the second greatest moment in college football history. In 1951, Cornell beat defending Big Ten and Rose Bowl champion Michigan, between 1969 and 1971, running back Ed Marinaro broke numerous NCAA records with a career total of 1,881 yards and 24 touchdowns
2.
Parke H. Davis
–
Parke Hill Davis was an American football player, coach, and historian who retroactively named national championship teams in American college football from the 1869 through the 1932 seasons. He also named co-national champions at the conclusion of the 1933 season, Davis selections are included in the NCAAs official football record books, as the only championship teams chosen on the basis of research. Davis was a lineman for Princeton and a member of the Tigers tug-of-war team in 1889 before going on to coach at Wisconsin, Amherst and Lafayette and he displayed an admirable range of talents. The biggest win of the 1896 season came in Philadelphia against Pennsylvania on October 24, a standout for Lafayette was a newcomer named Fielding Hurry Up Yost. Yost began playing football at West Virginia University in 1894 at the age of 23, a 6-foot, 200-pounder, Yost was a star tackle at WVU into the 1896 season. He transferred in mid-season to join what would be Coach Davis national championship team, true to his nickname, just a week after playing against Davis in West Virginia, Hurry Up was playing for Davis in Lafayettes historic 6–4 win over the Quakers. The fortuitous timing of Yosts appearance on the Lafayette roster did not go unnoticed by Penn officials and they called it the Yost affair. The Philadelphia Ledger quoted Yost as saying that he came to Lafayette only to play football, the fact that Yost appeared in a Lafayette uniform only once. In the Penn game… and that he returned to West Virginia within two weeks of the contest, Yost assured all concerned that he would return to Lafayette for at least three years of study. But 1897 found Hurry Up no longer a student or a player, in 1901, he was hired as head coach at the University of Michigan, beginning a storied 25-year, Hall of Fame career. After concluding his own career as a football coach, Davis became a prominent attorney in Easton, Pennsylvania. He lived there the rest of his life, in the October 1900 meeting of the Lafayette Democratic Club, Davis was the orator of the evening, after the group unanimously endorsed the national ticket of William Jennings Bryan. The ex-coach and loyal supporter of athletics of Lafayette served as an umpire in football games and as starter at the colleges track meets. Davis wrote an history of American football in 1911, tracing the sports origins to ancient times. abundant evidence may be marshalled to prove that this is the oldest outdoor game in existence. In the 22nd chapter of Isaiah is found the verse, He will turn and he helped select the 1913 College Football All-America Team while serving as Princetons representative on the American Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee. He served on the Rules Committee from 1909 to 1915, playing a key role in shaping the evolution of the game. Among the innovations with which he is credited are the division of the game into quarters, numbering of players, abolition of inter-locked interference, if the fumble is recovered behind an opponents goal line the ball shall be put in play at the point where it was fumbled. Davis was a friend and admirer of Walter Camp, Father of American Football, in a 1926 authorized biography of Camp, author Harford Powel, Jr
3.
Gil Dobie
–
Gilmour Gloomy Gil Dobie was an American football player and coach. Dobies Cornell teams of 1921,1922 and 1923 have been recognized as national champions, Dobie was also the head basketball coach at North Dakota Agricultural for two seasons from 1906 to 1908, tallying a mark of 17–5. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1951, Dobie reached 100 career wins in 108 games, which stood as the NCAA record for the fewest games needed to reach 100 wins from 1921 to 2014. Dobie was born in Hastings, Minnesota and he played football as an end and quarterback at the University of Minnesota. Dobie achieved his greatest success at the University of Washington, where he had a remarkable 58–0–3 record, during his tenure, Washington had a 40-game winning streak, which is the second longest in NCAA Division I-A/FBS history. His coaching career at Washington also comprised all of Washingtons 64-game unbeaten streak — still a college football record. Dobie then became the 16th head coach for the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen and his coaching record at the Navy was 18–3. This ranks him 14th at the Navy in total wins and first at Navy in winning percentage, after coaching at Navy, Dobie won three national championships with Cornell, in 1921,1922, and 1923 with Eddie Kaw and George Pfann. After his first season, he signed a five-year contract, Dobie remains the fastest coach to 100 wins in major-college history. His career coaching record was 182 wins,45 losses, and 15 ties, of the 33 years he coached, he had 14 undefeated seasons. At Boston College at least, the best play of the Dobie system was a smash through tackle, Dobie was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 as a charter member. Gil Dobie at the College Football Hall of Fame Gil Dobie at the College Football Data Warehouse
4.
Single wing formation
–
In American and Canadian football, a single-wing formation, created by Glenn Pop Warner, was a precursor to the modern spread or shotgun formation. The term usually connotes formations in which the snap is tossed rather than handed—formations with one wingback, the single wing was superior to the T formation in its ability to get an extra eligible receiver down field. Traditionally, the single-wing was a formation that featured a core of four backs including a tailback, a fullback, a quarterback. Linemen were set unbalanced, or simply put, there were two linemen on one side and four on the side of the center. This was done by moving the off-side guard or tackle to the strong side, the single-wing was one of the first formations attempting to trick the defense instead of over-powering it. Pop Warner referred to his new scheme as the Carlisle formation because he formulated most of the offense while coaching the Carlisle Indians. The term single-wing came into use after spectators noticed that the formation gave the appearance of a wing-shape. In 1907, Warner coached at Carlisle, a school for Native Americans, the first was the discovery of Jim Thorpes raw athletic ability. The second was the use of a passing game that relied on the spiraled ball. Finally, faking backs who started one way, but abruptly headed the opposite way, because Jim Thorpe had so much raw talent, Coach Warner more than likely designed much of his single-wing offense around this gifted athlete. Thorpe, the triple threat, was a good runner, passer. For much of the history of the formation, players were expected to play on both sides of the ball. Consequently, offensive players often turned around to play a corresponding location on defense, the offensive backs played defensive backs, just as the offensive linemen played defensive linemen. Unlike teams of today, single-wing teams had few specialists who only played on certain downs, college football playbooks prior to the 1950s were dominated with permutations of the traditional single-wing envisioned by Warner. Two-time All-American Jack Crains handwritten playbook clearly denotes how the University of Texas ran their version of the single-wing circa 1939-1940, University of Texas Coach Dana X. Bible ran a line, which means that there were the same numbers of linemen on each side of the center. Also, the ends were slightly split, slightly splitting offensive ends, called flexing, was in widespread use by Notre Dames Box variation of the single-wing. Knute Rocknes Notre Dame Box offense employed a balanced line, which had 3 linemen on each side of the center, another Rockne innovation was a shifting backfield that attempted to confuse the defense by moving backs to alternate positions right before the snap
5.
Schoellkopf Field
–
Schoellkopf Field is a 25, 597-capacity stadium at Cornell Universitys Ithaca campus that opened in 1915 and is used for the Cornell Big Red football, sprint football and lacrosse teams. The building was completed in 1913, during May of every year, weather permitting, Schoellkopf is the site of the commencement ceremony for Cornells Ithaca campus. Schoellkopf Field hosted the Division I NCAA Mens Lacrosse Championship in 1980, schoellkopfs original capacity when it was completed was about 9,000, but it has been expanded and changed many times over the years. In 1924, the newly completed Crescent replaced the original stands on the east side of the field, in 1947, the stadiums capacity was again increased, this time to a capacity of 25,597, with permanent steel fixtures to the west of the field. The west stands were torn down in March 2016 after falling into disrepair, in 1971, the surface of the field was converted to Polyturf, an artificial turf. The field has had its turf replaced by a type of turf in 1979,1988,1999. The press box above and behind the west stands was built in 1986, during the summer of 2005, renovations on deteriorating concrete forced the university to close the Crescent, but it reopened in time for the fall football season. The renovated Memorial Hall at the end of the field opened in 2006, containing improved locker rooms. Over the summer of 2008, Cornell replaced the turf with a FieldTurf pitch. NCAA Stadiums, Schoellkopf Field Summary at Ivy League official site
Homecoming. #Rankings from Coaches' Poll released prior to game.