Cornell football upsets Penn in finale

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Liveblog: Play-by-play from Penn-Cornell

Cornell quarterback Jeff Mathews broke the Ivy single-game and season passing records with his 548-yard performance in a 48-38 win Saturday.

Since Jeff Mathews entered the Ivy League last year, it’s been common knowledge that the Cornell quarterback has talent.

He quickly won the starting job at Cornell and garnered Rookie of the Year honors during the 2010 season. Even with all that recognition, no one could have predicted that he’d be quite this good.

On Saturday, the sophomore quarterback passed for the most yards ever in an Ivy League game in Cornell’s 48-38 victory over Penn. His 548 yards against a baffled Quakers defense also gave him the record for most in a season by an Ivy quarterback (3,412).

That a sophomore would break these records and throw for five touchdowns is noteworthy enough; that he would do it against the two-time defending Ivy League champions at Franklin Field is even more remarkable.

Mathews’ passing clinic — which coach Kent Austin called “an MVP performance” — propelled the Big Red (5-5, 3-4 Ivy) to an upset win in the season’s final game.

Playing for its seniors after Harvard clinched the title last weekend, Penn (5-5, 4-3 Ivy) simply could not find a way to stop the Cornell passing attack.

“We just didn’t have enough answers,” coach Al Bagnoli said. “We tried to pressure him and get the ball out of his hands, we tried a little zone, we tried a little man [coverage].”

Penn’s defense did force three turnovers, including an impressive pick-six by senior linebacker Erik Rask. The touchdown was the first of Rask’s career.

Senior Matt Hamscher also played well in his final game, making nine tackles, forcing a fumble and sacking Mathews twice.

But the ultimate result was Mathews’ record-setting performance in which he completed 35 of 45 pass attempts.

“It’s hard to go out your last game when that’s the stat line,” Rask said.

By most measures, the Quakers put forth a strong offensive performance.

Junior Billy Ragone passed for 253 yards, throwing for one touchdown and running for two. Penn’s 38-points scored was a season high. But when the game turned into a shootout, the Quakers could not keep pace.

A depleted Penn secondary struggled mightily to defend against the precision of the Big Red aerial attack.

“You never want to use excuses because you have to play with who you have, but we’ve lost [David] Twamley, we lost [Jason] Schmucker, we lost Evan Jackson,” Bagnoli said. “We were playing with a lot of young kids and this is not the offense or the wide receiver crew that you want to play some first-time starters and some young kids against.”

Big Red senior Shane Savage was on the receiving end of three Mathews touchdown passes, including the final one with just 1:24 left to put the game out of Penn’s reach.

So on a day that was supposed to be about Penn’s seniors, a Cornell sophomore stole the show and allowed the Big Red to accomplish what the Quakers’ could not.

“It sends our seniors off the right way,” Mathews said.

Comments (6)

Upset? Today at least, the Cornell team I watched was better than Penn and superior to Yale and Brown. Something in the football department is going on up at Cayuga’s Waters. On another topic, the Rhodes Scholarship meeting for Witt was not changed so Witt was forced to withdraw his Rhodes’ application. That completely sucks.

Is there anything more irrelevant than Ivy League footbal? Other than Sarah Palin that is.

DISAPPOINTED IN THE SEASON ! NOTHING ELSE TO SAY?

This was totally predictable. Penn lost over 30 lettermen in football from a 2 time undefeated champion. Harvard built for this season. We saw early that Penn’s losses were too severe to win, losing to the worst Villanova team in years and to a mediocre Lafayette team. Give Bagnoli credit for making them competitive in the League, but you can’t win every year.

@Jon – Unfortunately you are spot on re the predictability part. Also agree Coach Bagnoli deserves credit for the competitiveness (over achievement?) of this team.

Can’t agree with the “can’t win every year” part. Harvard has committed to building just that, have a record over the past few years that demonstrates it, and annually go after the best athlete recruits. Let’s see what next year brings.

I see things a little differently. The entire season, Penn’s DB’s showed vulnerability and the coaches had to know they weren’t as strong as they have been. The Ivy league is finally catching up to most of college football and is becoming a QB friendly league where the pass is the way to get it done. What the Penn coaches should have learned from Matthews’ performance is that there are few, if any, Ivy squads that can put 4 or 5 DB’s who are strong enough to cover 4-5 wideouts on every play. While Billy had a good year, it was not good enough to overcome the defensive weaknesses. Part of it is play calling, but how many of our losses had Billy throwing key Int’s with the game still within reach? Too many from where I sit. With Scott back next year, Mitchell, Eggleston and maybe Holder back as well, we will have 4 of the best WR’s in the Ivies. I think we need a QB who can make consistently good decisions and we should attack throughout the game. Run 3-4 wide with one of our great RB’s as a sole back. Try Becker or Holland at QB. Let it fly. Make other teams figure out how to stop us instead of the other way around. May even make sense to have Becker & Ragone in the game at the same time. Crazy to think of the options with 2 athletic QB’s on the field together, esp considering they throw the ball from opposite sides.

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