He has the size, gaudy statistics and already holds every school passing record. The early word on senior John Skelton is that he has the makeup to be a potential NFL quarterback. Tomorrow, he will direct the nation’s second-ranked offense in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as Cornell hosts Fordham for Homecoming.

While the Rams (2-3, 0-1 Patriot) travel to Schoellkopf Field with their second-ranked offense, it will be strength versus strength as the Red (2-2, 1-1 Ivy) ranks first among the 118 schools in the FCS in pass-efficiency defense.

Defending against Skelton’s (6-5 and 258 pounds) passing game, will be the least of Cornell’s worries as the Red’s rushing defense has been shredded for 344 yards and 251 yards by Colgate and Harvard respectively over the last two weeks.

“We have to stop the run,” said head coach Jim Knowles ’87. “For two weeks now, we have not done a good enough job stopping the run. The quarterback will run the ball a little bit. He’s athletic enough to do it. We need to make him one-dimensional. If we can force him to pass, get ahead in the game, get into some second-and-long, third-and-long situations, we can then focus on the pass. But, you can’t do that until you stop the run.”

It has been a tale of two seasons thus far for the Cornell defensive frontline. The first two weeks of limiting Bucknell and Yale to an average of 125 yards on the ground is a distant memory. The one constant, however, has been the Red’s secondary led by junior cornerback Emani Fenton, who leads the Ancient Eight with seven pass breakups. The stopper: Junior safety Dempsey Quinn (49) has made an impact all over the field this season with an interception, two pass breakups and 36 tackles.

“Our role is to stop the pass,” Fenton said. “We’re going to try to do that and go out and play our role [despite] what is going on. What makes it easier is if we stop the run, then we know the pass is coming and we are alert to that. Once we make them one-dimensional by stopping the run and forcing the pass, things become a lot easier for us.”

“We’re going to compete,” Fenton added. “[Fordham’s] good with the pass and we’re good against the pass. We’re going to come out there as a secondary and get after it. We talked about just attacking the football. When the ball is in the air, we feel like we have as much of a right to the football as they do. We’re going to try to get our hands on balls, pick balls off and just play good sound defense.”

Cornell ranks third in the Ivy League with six interceptions and junior safety Ben Heller leads the Red with two picks. Last week against Harvard was the first time Cornell failed to win the turnover battle all season.

Perhaps even more important for this young Cornell squad is success early in the game. In 2009, when the Red scores first, the team is 2-0, but when the Red fails to score first, the team is 0-2.

“We need to start out better,” Knowles said. “We have a team that needs to experience some early success to get us going in the game. Every game takes on its own life. We need some early stops on defense. We’re looking forward to a fast start.”

Stopping the run is not the only problem of late for the Red. Initiating its own running attack has also proved to be a challenge. Although Cornell’s offense rests heavily upon the spread offense and a steady corps of wide receivers, the team has averaged 62.5 yards on the ground over the last two games and eclipsed the century mark only once all season.

The last time these two teams met was 1999 and Cornell won 42-14 at Schoellkopf Field. Cornell, winner of the last four head-to-head contests, hopes history will repeat itself once again.