Senior co-captain quarterback Nathan Ford had no problems mobilizing the Red’s powerful passing attack, accumulating 431 yards in the Red’s 31-26 loss to Princeton Saturday afternoon. The rhythm of the offense was thrown off balance once it reached the red zone, only scoring on four of six opportunities. In the red zone, Cornell only scored two touchdowns and settled for two other field goals. The inability to put seven points on the board as opposed to three served to be crucial in the team’s five point defeat.

“[When] you get down there, its all about making plays,” said head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “They made plays, we didn’t.”

Sometimes, it just doesn’t make sense. Sometimes it just doesn’t add up quite right. Sometimes, you do a lot of things right and still lose. Princeton’s 31-26 win over Cornell Saturday was exactly one of those times.

Head coach Jim Knowles ’87 stared at the stat sheet after the game, a look of bewilderment on his face, while he ticked off one stat after another — 555 total yards of offense, an early, 13-0, lead, 29 first downs, an edge in possession time and third-down conversion rate.

“[To do all that] and still lose the game shows that you are doing a lot of things right,” Knowles said.

Most teams mired in a three-game losing skid tend to play tentatively. Don’t tell that to senior tight end Alex Spooner, who was frolicking bare-chested in the 40 degree weather yesterday during stretching exercises as Cornell prepares to host Princeton tomorrow afternoon at Schoellkopf Field. Spooner, or “Chewbacca” as one his teammates shouted out, and the rest of the Cornell offense will attempt to redeem itself after posting a season-low seven points at Brown last Saturday.

Wacky Wednesday sounds more like a first grade teaching technique than a weekly ritual for the Cornell football team. It evokes images of coloring outside the lines, opposite day, and goofy hats — not sweating, bleeding college football players hitting each other.

But there was certainly nothing goofier and more colorful than head coach Jim Knowles ‘87 last Wednesday.

To rumbling laughter, Knowles came jogging out of the locker room stooped over, head bent down, carrying one of defensive line coach Pete DeStefano’s trademarks — a pole with a fake football attached to the end, used in a myriad of defensive drills. Wacky Wednesday was in full force for the Red (3-3, 1-2 Ivy). Knowles even had a thick unibrow and mustache painted on his face.

Picture this: down 24-19, the football team’s quarterback Nathan Ford lofts the ball in a near-perfect arc. The final seconds of the game clock are ticking away. Senior wideout Jesse Baker, in the corner of the end zone, reaches over the cornerback’s shoulder to snag the ball (You could almost see him saying “thank you very much” upon pick-pocketing his defender). Silence replaced the buzz of 13,000 rowdy Lehigh students and alumni. Suddenly, there was a flash of Red as the Cornell players took off and swarmed Baker. Game over.

The football team started Saturday afternoon’s contest against Brown on a positive note. It was what happened later that explains why the Red returned to Ithaca with its third consecutive loss of the season, losing 27-7.

Brown quarterback Michael Dougherty survived a shaky first quarter to lead his squad, accumulating 285 yards through the air to complement two touchdowns. Both scores went to wide reciever Bobby Sewall, who made 11 catches for 181 yards.

“I thought [Bobby Sewall] was good,” said head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “But I think we’ve faced better. “

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Everything seemed back to normal. Cornell was on the road at Brown Stadium and senior signal caller Nathan Ford had just connected with senior wide receiver Jesse Baker to stake the Red to an early 7-0 advantage over the Bears with five minutes remaining in the first quarter. Baker’s 16-yard cross route accounted for his team-leading fifth touchdown — hauling in all five on the road. For Ford, it was his sixth touchdown away from Schoellkopf Field and seventh of the season. The Red offense seemed to be clicking much as it had earlier in the season. Who knew, however, that those would be the only points Cornell would score all afternoon as the Red suffered its third straight defeat, 27-7?

ISTANBUL — It’s Sunday morning. I’ve been sleeping for the past eleven hours and wake exactly how I feared — hurting all over. This is a product of my own doing. I’ve grown up my whole life watching football and have always had a burning desire to play. When the opportunity came along, albeit in Turkey, there was no chance I was turning it down.

My first practice started a bit shaky — “Stretch your calves, Aleks!” yelled Jokson, the burly team captain leading stretches at the center of our circle. As I repositioned my legs, the whole team went up in fits of laughter, thoroughly enjoying their leader’s elementary English. “Hello by the way,” I thought after this fine introduction, “My name is Alex, pleased to meet you!”

It was hard to take football head coach Jim Knowles ’87 seriously as he casually discussed the intricacies of Brown’s passing attack. He had a unibrow thickly drawn in and a dark mustache painted on his upper lip — not to mention a towel stuffed in the back of his shirt to give a hunchback look.

But Knowles knew what he was talking about. In fact, he was dead serious about shutting down Ivy leader Brown’s (3-2, 2-0 Ivy) potent passing attack. With wins over Harvard and Princeton, Brown is the only undefeated Ivy squad remaining.

Sputtering offenses across the nation have been resuscitated recently thanks to gridiron’s newest flavor of the month — the wildcat offense. Cornell is no exception to this popular trend in which someone other than the traditional quarterback takes the snap from center. The Red, however, utilized the wildcat offense long before it received its catchy new nickname. Staying within the animal kingdom, Cornell refers to the exotic formation as the possum package.